Prince of Asturias Awards 1981–2014. Speeches

P rince of A sturias A wards 1981-2014. S peeches 7 The physicist Sumio Iijima’s carbon nanotubes are excellent candidates for safely storing hydrogen, one of the green fuels of the future. Ultralight and ultrastrong, they also find applications in the fields of electronics and computing. The engineer Shuji Nakamura’s environmentally-friendly light bulbs, known as LEDs, prevent the burning of millions of tons of coal and are gradually becoming the light source of the future. They currently provide a very practical solution in underdeveloped areas with scant energy resources. These areas can also benefit from ultraviolet LEDs to efficiently and economically purify water, one of the scarcest natural resources in some areas of the planet, and one which is essential for life. The goal of engineer Robert Langer has been to develop materials for medical purposes. He is a pioneer in what is known as the intelligent, controlled release of drugs. His materials act as messengers that travel around the human body transporting medicine, saving millions of human lives and tackling terrible diseases such as cancer. As the father of tissue engineering, he has also applied his revolutionary biomaterials for the controlled growth of artificial organs. To the chemist George Whitesides, we owe ingenious, efficient fabrication techniques in this world of the infinitely small. Emulating Nature, he has found the appropriate conditions for atoms and molecules to self-assemble and for materials to build themselves. Likewise, his soft lithography behaves like a powerful nanopress, also capable of choreographing the subtle dance of atoms and molecules. By means of these techniques, it is now possible for the first time to build significant amounts of materials with surprising novel properties and for very specific purposes. The use of clean, free, sustainable solar energy requires optimum systems for capturing such energy. The chemist Tobin Marks has worked to develop a new generation of organic solar cells which are highly efficient and economical. To him we also owe a wide range of recyclable plastics and environmentally-friendly materials, as well as modulators for efficiently transmitting data and a prototype for the e-paper of the future. The achievements of these five scientists once again underpin the social dimension of their work, especially when fostering progress even in the world’s most underprivileged areas. They are, in short, a clear example of the passionate, far-reaching role played by science: to understand in greater and greater depth how the material world works, and to improve our lives, making them more pleasant or relieving them from suffering. Undoubtedly, another important step forward in human progress has been taken by the Internet search engine “Google”, which has received this year’s Award for Communication and Humanities. Conceived by the intelligence, dreams and aspirations of two young men, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, who met at Stanford University, Google has become a fundamental instrument for the development of human culture. From the remotest of times, we human beings have sought the most efficient and fastest way of communicating with one another. The world’s most beautiful monuments, its legendary libraries, the diverse writing and publishing techniques, the various means of transport are all ways of materialising the yearning to transmit and receive information and knowledge and the longing to explain and understand the world. Google is a new, efficient and extraordinarily fast way of achieving this dream, making an enormous volume of information available to millions of people in only seconds. The creation of Google Earth and Google Book Search is progressively placing within our reach the remotest corners of the Earth and the intellectual production of centuries of civilization. It is therefore also, and above all, a useful instrument for fostering development, as has been recognized by the unesco, which has started up in conjunction with Google what is known as the Literacy Project. Those in charge of this project have stated, and rightly so, that they feel great pride in witnessing how Google, which came into being as a result of the wish to help people find information, is also used to share ideas and to facilitate the search for solutions to the lack of culture, ignorance and disinformation. “We wish to express the deep pain we feel each day as we witness the tragedy of so many women and men attempting to cross frontiers in their flight from extreme poverty.”