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The story
Tokyo University of Science Professor Emeritus Kenso Soai has been awarded the 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry jointly with Paris-Saclay University Professor Emeritus Henri Kagan. The prize cites “the discovery of nonlinear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis.” This marks the third consecutive year a Japanese national has won a Nobel Prize, and the 10th Japanese Chemistry laureate, following last year’s Susumu Kitagawa. NHK’s “News 7” led with the story, but even pundits said they “hadn’t expected this for the Chemistry Prize,” since Soai’s name was missing from the pre-announcement prediction lists — sparking surprise across 5ch. Meanwhile, the cute handwriting on what looked like a hastily scrawled note at the announcement became its own hot topic, with the thread spiraling into side discussions on the feasibility of fusion power and the annual running joke about Haruki Murakami’s Literature Prize snub.
10/7 (Wed) 19:36
Tokyo University of Science Professor Emeritus Kenso Soai has been named a winner of this year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences made the announcement on the 7th. The prize was awarded “for the discovery of nonlinear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis,” shared with Paris-Saclay University Professor Emeritus Henri Kagan. This is Japan’s third straight year producing a Nobel laureate, the 31st Japanese individual recipient overall, and the 10th in Chemistry, following last year’s Susumu Kitagawa.
The good news broke just after 6:50 p.m. Japan time on the 7th. NHK’s “NHK News 7” ran it as the top story.
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
I wonder if the Harukists are gathering again this year, hoping Haruki finally wins ("Harukist" = devoted fan of author Haruki Murakami)
Are there actually any Harukists who genuinely believe Haruki's going to win?
They had several names predicted for yesterday's Physics Prize so I was hopeful, but…
He wasn't even on Nikkei's rankings. And they were so proud of having built a "prediction machine," too.
Is there even any cutting-edge science left that can actually be made practical anymore?
Fusion power sure won't be commercialized within your lifetime either.
News like this just feels hollow now…
Fusion's had breakthrough after breakthrough, it's gotten to a point where it seems fairly achievable
but in the end it's a battle of capital, and that's where it loses
Plus with the Nobel Prize too, there are people doing similar research all over the world — the winner's just whoever got there first
If you can't actually roll it out into society and build the right environment for it, it means nothing
To make it practical you absolutely need
input < output
It's made plenty of headlines
but if you actually scrutinize it, no real breakthrough has happened
With fusion, it's like room-temperature superconductivity — people have been saying it's coming since the Showa era (pre-1989), and it's just not happening
Back then it was genuinely a "who?" moment — not just among the media outlets, but even at the company he worked for, people were saying "we don't even know if this is real" and had to go verify the facts.
I think the press conference ended up being held the next day, if I remember right.
> "the discovery of nonlinear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis"
At times like this, asking an AI to explain it in plain terms really helps
the Economics one is the only category no Japanese person has ever won
This is probably a wall that can't be cleared
(This is from AI, but it's what I looked up before)
– The biggest challenge in making fusion power practical is stably sustaining ultra-high-temperature plasma above 100 million degrees for long periods (steady-state operation), and developing reactor walls and materials durable enough to withstand it.
– Enormous construction costs:
Even at the experimental-reactor stage, projects like ITER (the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) require trillions of yen in funding, making the economics of commercialization hard to see.
Guess there wasn't even time to print it out
This handwriting's cute enough they could sell it as a font
My parent's a science elite too, and their handwriting is genuinely awful
I was so distracted by the handwriting that not a word of the explanation sank in
so a lot of the time it's already been put into practical use
like the blue LED
People who gush over some foreign tire company's restaurant ratings, done by outsiders with no business judging food, are the same type. (Reference to Alfred Nobel and the Michelin Guide, published by the tire maker Michelin)
I can't even tell if my own understanding of it is right
Exactly
It's like explaining benzene-ring theory to someone from the 16th century — they'd never get it
This is that kind of thing
Background and Talking Points
This marks the third consecutive year a Japanese national has won a Nobel Prize, the 31st individual Japanese laureate overall, and the 10th in Chemistry following last year’s Susumu Kitagawa. The thread’s recurring “didn’t see this coming” reactions stem from the annual tradition of outlets like NHK and Nikkei compiling prediction lists based on citation counts and similar metrics — Soai’s name simply wasn’t on them. The slow scheduling of the press conference echoed the same “can we even confirm it’s really him” confusion seen when Koichi Tanaka won. Opinions split between those praising the academic significance of the win (basic research into asymmetric organic synthesis) and a more cynical, practicality-focused camp arguing that “a Nobel Prize means nothing if it doesn’t lead to real-world commercialization” — a debate that branched out into side arguments over whether fusion power will ever become practical. Worth noting: the phrase “awarded jointly with Kagan” doesn’t mean the two collaborated — it refers to them being honored at the same time for separate work in a related field, a point that caused some confusion within the thread itself and is worth clarifying here.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Geinou/Sports News+) thread “Kenso Soai Wins Nobel Prize in Chemistry — NHK Pundit: “Didn’t Expect It”; Hastily Scrawled Handwritten Note Goes Viral Online: “Hilarious”.”
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