Kuwait
News Agency
By
Hedayat Abdel Nabi
Geneva,
Sept 17 (kuna) – The Arab Nobel laureate in chemistry Ahmed Zewail
told a unique meeting of Arab scientists and top UN civil servants from
the Arab world that he is convinced that the Arab world can make it and
join the scientific and technological progress of the new century.
However, Zewail qualified his conviction by saying he is
'cautiously optimistic'.
Zewail described the current state of scientific
progress as that of 'great floods of information' and that the United
States stands ahead of those floods like an “empire state building”.
“Europe comes second in rank, followed by Japan, while
china, who ranks fourth is galloping up to move to higher levels in the
'empire state of knowledge',” added Zewail.
The Nobel laureate urged the Arab world to embark on the
hard work of establishing centers of excellence, one or two, on the
basis of a solid scientific and technological base.
“Science is no longer a luxury, we have to move fast,
or else the time factor will overtake us and we will not be able to cope
with world scientific progress,” stressed Zewail.
Zewail noted that we have a historical responsibility of
huge magnitude whether be it in Egypt or the Arab world to attain this
progress.
However, Zewail expressed cautious optimism saying that
the reasons for this optimism lie in three factors.
“First, the time factor: everything now spreads
quickly around the world, second, we have a huge human and financial
wealth in the Arab world, and third the Arab people are following what
is happening in the world and they also desire 'prosperity',” said
Zewail.
Zewail urged the Arab world to move, and noted that 'if
we don not achieve centers of excellence now, we might not be able to
obtain progress'.
The Nobel laureate gave the example of the United States
and his institute Caltech.
“Harvard was there with a history of 400 years old,
however, one man decided to establish Caltech, and in a 100 years of its
existence it obtained the Nobel prize many times, so we must not be
discouraged by seeing huge progress elsewhere and must start now,”
stressed Zewail.
Zewail addressed this unique Arab meeting in the
residence of the permanent representative of Egypt to the UN ambassador
Fayza Abulnaga who described Zewail as the first Egyptian and Arab as
well as the first citizen from the developing world to obtain Nobel in
chemistry.
Arab league ambassador here Saad Alfarargui told the
meeting that we must follow the course of Zewail in 'scientific
integrity', in 'working as a team' and in 'basing our work on a solid
scientific base'.
Zewail was visiting Switzerland at the invitation of
Lausanne University as a special guest chair and exchanged scientific
knowledge with its scientists in an Alp resort.
He also lectured on Friday in an auditorium, which was
open to the public at Lausanne University.
Zewail had received the honorary doctorate from Lausanne
University in 1997, and then he received the Nobel award in chemistry in
1999.
He is currently a professor at the Pasadena institute of
technology-Caltech-in California.
Zewail left Geneva Sunday on his way to Brussels to
receive an honorary degree from Leige University there.