Collaboration

At the beginning of August 2018, the DTU Institute of Fundamental Science and Application in Hanoi and the Institute for Global Health Innovations welcomed Professor Jerome Isaac Friedman, who came to Vietnam to attend the international conference, “Windows on the Universe”. Professor Friedman is an American scientist who, together with Henry W. Kendall and Richard E. Taylor, received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1990 for their work on the deep inelastic scattering of electrons on protons and bound neutrons, demonstrating, for the first time, the existence of quarks inside nuclei.

DTU took Professor Friedman and Nguyen Lan Huong, an intern at the Institute for Global Health Innovations, on a tour of Hanoi and Deputy Secretary General and then Deputy Chairman of the National Assembly Office, Le Bo Linh, welcomed them at the National Assembly.

Mr. Linh congratulated Professor Friedman on his achievements, hoped that he would attend future  events in Vietnam and expressed his happiness that Professor Friedman had taken the initiative to found an international research institute in Vietnam. The institute will organize meetings there for young Physicists to encourage them to contribute to the development of science and technology in Vietnam and worldwide. Professor Friedman stressed his realization of Vietnam’s huge potential, with hard-working and creative students who appreciate the special importance of fundamental science on the future of the nation’s long-term development.

Later that day, Mr. Thanh, the Director of the Vietnam Atomic Energy Institute, welcomed Professor Friedman there. Professor Friedman explained the reasons that led him to become a Physicist. He explained that he had visited Vietnam fifteen years ago, loved the Vietnamese people and emphasized that Science and Technology are fundamental to a country’s development. He highlighted Singapore as an example of a small country which grew without natural resources to become an international financial hub, thanks to focused investments in Science and Education. He further stressed that nuclear energy has an important role to play in the generation of Energy today, especially in times of climate change.

He told a story about his doctoral advisor, the famous physicist Enrico Fermi, who had a knack of lecturing and public speaking that made everything seem extremely easy to understand. When he once heard a student lecturing on his beta radioactive decay theory, Professor Fermi joked, “I only understood the last sentence”. This helps us understand that science is complex, and knowing how to convey that knowledge simply is one of the vital skills of a scientist. 

Professor Friedman and the DTU representatives next visited the Imperial Citadel of Thang Long, where they admired the beautiful, ancient relics buried there for thirteen centuries, which can now be observed under the floor of the National Assembly building. The meeting with Professor Friedman left a strong impression on the DTU staff and he will be in Vietnam until August 11 to participate in the conference and meet Vietnamese students in Quy Nhon.