Top �� What's up around the Prime Minister �� April, 2003

Japan Prize Laureates Pay a Courtesy Call on Prime Minister Thursday, April 24, 2003 Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi received a courtesy visit from the "Japan Prize" laureates at the Prime Minister's Official Residence and talked with them. The Japan Prize is awarded to people from all over the world whose original and outstanding achievements in science and technology can contribute to progress of the frontiers of knowledge and serve the cause of peace and prosperity for humankind. The Japan Prize laureates for 2003, the 19th year of the awards, include Dr. Benoit B. Mandelbrot from the United States, who discovered universal geometrical structures hidden in complicated shapes, coining the concept of "fractals," and Dr. James A. Yorke, also from the United States, who found the universal mechanism underlying complex dynamic phenomena which change in connection with time, naming it "chaos." Both Dr. Mandelbrot and Dr. Yorke are working in the field of the science and technology of complexity. Dr. Seiji Ogawa from Japan was also awarded for his work in the field of visualizing technologies in medicine, which established the principles for functional magnetic resonance imaging. This work has proved to be the fundamental basis of noninvasive functional imaging methodology which is widely used not only in many biological and medical sciences, such as neurobiology, psychology and neurology, but also many fields of clinical medicine as diagnostic tools. During the meeting, Prime Minister Koizumi said, "You have accomplished marvelous research results. I hope that you continue your work and make further contributions to the progress of science and technology."