Science and technology in Japan
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Technologically Japan is well known for its automotive and electronics industries throughout the world, and Japanese electronic products account for a large share in the world market, compared to a majority of other countries and also their automotive industries.
Since the country did not participate in the space race amongst countries like the Soviet Union and the United States, Japan's technological development was geared more toward commercial products. Japan boasts many large international corporate conglomerates such as Fuji (which developed the nation's first electronic computer, FUJIC, in 1956) and Sony.
Japan is one of the leading nations in the fields of scientific research, technology, machinery and medical research with the world's third largest budget for research and development at $130 billion USD, and over 677,000 researchers.
Some of Japan's more important technological contributions are found in the fields of electronics, machinery, robotics, optics, chemicals, semiconductors and metals. Japan leads the world in robotics, possessing more than half (402,200 of 742,500) of the world's industrial robots used for manufacturing. It also produced QRIO, ASIMO, and Aibo. Japan is also home to six of the world's fifteen largest automobile manufacturers and seven of the world's twenty largest semiconductor sales leaders.
Japan has also made headway into aerospace research and space exploration. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) conducts space and planetary research, aviation research, and development of rockets and satellites. It also built the Japanese Experiment Module, which is slated to be launched and added to the International Space Station during Space Shuttle assembly flights in 2007 and 2008.
Japanese researchers have won several Nobel Prizes. Hideki Yukawa, educated at Kyoto University, was awarded the prize for physics in 1949. Sin-Itiro Tomonaga followed in 1965. Solid-state physicist Leo Esaki, educated at the University of Tokyo, received the prize in 1973. Kenichi Fukui of Kyoto University shared the 1981 chemistry prize, and Susumu Tonegawa, also educated at Kyoto University, became Japan's first (and, as of 2007, only) laureate in physiology or medicine in 1987. Japanese chemists took prizes in 2000 and 2001: first Hideki Shirakawa (Tokyo Institute of Technology) and then Ryoji Noyori (Kyoto University). Physicist Masatoshi Koshiba (University of Tokyo) and chemist Koichi Tanaka (Tohoku University) are the nation's latest winners, both in 2002.
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[edit] See also
[edit] Japanese scientists before W.W.II
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