The selection of Mr. Hideki Shirakawa, professor emeritus of Tsukuba University, as a recipient of the 2000 Nobel Prize in chemistry is wonderful news. It has cheered up the nation in a difficult moment. We extend him our hearty congratulations. The prize is shared by two American professors, Mr. Alan Heeger and Mr. Alan MacDiarmid.

For better or worse, the 20th century has been a century of science. Fittingly, the Nobel Prizes, awarded for the first time in 1901, have added color and impetus to progress in the natural sciences and other fields. Mr. Shirakawa is the ninth Japanese to win a Nobel Prize and the second, after Mr. Kenichi Fukui, to get a chemistry award.

This year, the Nobel Prize in medicine and physiology has been given for brain research, the prize in physics for basic research in information technology, and the prize in chemistry for the discovery and development of a high-polymer plastic that conducts electricity. All are highly promising fields in which advances, including an array of applications, are anticipated in the next century.