2012 Japan Prize Honors Magnet Creator and Cancer Researchers

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2012 Japan Prize Honors Magnet Creator and Cancer Researchers

Posted by Unknown on Wednesday January 25, 2012 @05:11AM from the turns-out-magnets-work-using-science dept.

alphadogg writes with an excerpt from a Network World article: "The 2012 Japan Prize, one of the world's most prestigious science and technology honors, has been awarded to three American medical experts who are fighting cancer as well as to a Japanese inventor whose magnet technology has implications for energy conservation. In years past, the prize (which comes with a $650K purse) has honored computing accomplishments, including last year, when Unix inventors Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson were honored."

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Magnets? by ae1294 · 2012-01-25 05:13 · Score: 4, Funny

Magnets how do they fucking work. I know this motherfucker knows....
1. Re:Magnets? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-25 05:37 · Score: 1
  
  Everythings been much better ever since scientists invented magic.
2. Re:Magnets? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-25 05:52 · Score: 0
  
  Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
3. Re:Magnets? by ackthpt · 2012-01-25 06:02 · Score: 2
  
  Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
  
  --
  
  A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
4. Re:Magnets? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-25 10:19 · Score: 0
  
  Any technology that is distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced..
5. Re:Magnets? by ae1294 · 2012-01-25 11:04 · Score: 1
  
  Any technology that is distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced..
  Now Solve for -
  magic: TYPE float
Nicholas Lydon by backslashdot · 2012-01-25 05:17 · Score: 1

I thought Nicholas Lydon was British. He sounds Brit.
1. Re:Nicholas Lydon by hedwards · 2012-01-25 05:22 · Score: 1
  
  According to the Wikipedia he's British. And there's no reference to him moving to the US and becoming a citizen either.
  The Wikipedia could be wrong, but it seems more likely in this case that he's not American.
2. Re:Nicholas Lydon by Kenja · 2012-01-25 05:26 · Score: 1
  
  Meh, all us Gaijin look the same to them.
  
  --
  
  "Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Re:Japan?boring News by Sarten-X · 2012-01-25 05:25 · Score: 1

...Gesundheit?

--
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Magnet Creator? by VorpalRodent · 2012-01-25 05:30 · Score: 0

I initially read just the title and though "Wow - they've honored the creator of the magnet." Personally, I'd like to get some prizes out there for the guy who created electricity. Also for that one guy who invented rain. I mean, that invention alone paved the way for innumerable advances in the field of "inventing life forms".

--
Take it to the limit, everybody to the limit, come on, everybody fhqwhgads.
1. Re:Magnet Creator? by RyuuzakiTetsuya · 2012-01-25 05:45 · Score: 1
  
  I invented rain. IN fact I took a patent out on it.
  
  --
  Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
2. Re:Magnet Creator? by treeves · 2012-01-25 06:25 · Score: 1
  
  O tsukare sama deshita.
  
  --
  ...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
Re:3 American experts who are fighting cancer by CodingHero · 2012-01-25 05:31 · Score: 1

Not sure if serious or mocking article choice of verbiage
Link to da magnet patent by vlm · 2012-01-25 05:32 · Score: 2

I think this is a link to Masato Sagawa's magnet patent:
http://www.freshpatents.com/-dt20110324ptan20110070118.php
The one liner /. summary is when you mix up and bake a magnet in a pan, it'll stick in the pan and warp unless you use a carbon based non-stick coating, you know, like "special" brownies.
Please no followups complaining that is a gross simplification; that is the whole point. Its better than "contributes to energy conservation" which is pretty tenuous grasp (well, cheaper magnets mean cheaper windmills means more windmills means less coal burned, or some extreme greenwashing like that)
They gave their last award to DMR who promptly died, I do hope Masato has better luck. Seriously, they both were/are good guys so best of luck dude.

--
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
1. Re:Link to da magnet patent by ackthpt · 2012-01-25 06:05 · Score: 1
  
  I think this is a link to Masato Sagawa's magnet patent:
  http://www.freshpatents.com/-dt20110324ptan20110070118.php
  The one liner /. summary is when you mix up and bake a magnet in a pan, it'll stick in the pan and warp unless you use a carbon based non-stick coating, you know, like "special" brownies.
  Please no followups complaining that is a gross simplification; that is the whole point. Its better than "contributes to energy conservation" which is pretty tenuous grasp (well, cheaper magnets mean cheaper windmills means more windmills means less coal burned, or some extreme greenwashing like that)
  They gave their last award to DMR who promptly died, I do hope Masato has better luck. Seriously, they both were/are good guys so best of luck dude.
  If he had worked carbon nanotubes into the process it would have also received the Good Slashkeeping Seal of Approval
  
  --
  
  A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
2. Re:Link to da magnet patent by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-25 06:35 · Score: 0
  
  My impression is that the company has combined a bunch of innovations to enhance the field strength of its magnets. So the recognition probably isn't for anything specific.
  http://www.intermetallics.co.jp/works.html
3. Re:Link to da magnet patent by pavon · 2012-01-25 07:51 · Score: 1
  
  Its better than "contributes to energy conservation" which is pretty tenuous grasp
  I'm not a EE, but wouldn't finding a stronger permanent magnet increase the energy efficiency of any electric motor or generator, thus leading to energy conservation across the board?
4. Re:Link to da magnet patent by Tekfactory · 2012-01-25 07:59 · Score: 1
  
  Nowhere does the patent say the magnetic part of the magnet is stronger. It says the material strength of the magnet is easier to machine and does not become embrittled.
5. Re:Link to da magnet patent by pavon · 2012-01-25 08:10 · Score: 1
  
  No, the article says that:
  
  Separately, Japan's Masato Sagawa, president of Intermetallics Co., was honored with the prize for Environment, Energy and Infrastructure for "developing the world's highest-performing neodymium-iron-boron (Nd-Fe-B) type permanent magnet and contributing to energy conservation."
6. Re:Link to da magnet patent by vlm · 2012-01-25 09:48 · Score: 1
  
  I'm not a EE, but wouldn't finding a stronger permanent magnet increase the energy efficiency of any electric motor or generator, thus leading to energy conservation across the board?
  Relatively few watts worldwide are dropped into permanent magnet motors. Its "unusual" for a motor bigger than fractional HP to be a permanent mag design, although they do exist. Shunt wound, or series wound, that's your field coil choice, more or less, or you get into induction, synchronous, slip-pole, and probably a bunch of others I've forgotten... Its a race, kind of, will permag motors improve faster than AC VFDs get cheaper? Then there's brushless, and the people who do things that on the surface are weird like run machine tool spindles off servomotors because they want huge controllable torque at low RPMs (like for semi-rigid tapping)
  Although in greenwashing tradition, if my tropical fishtank water filter pump was improved from 5 watts to 4.9 watts I'm sure I'd be gettin' hippie chicks by savin' the planet... after purchasing a new $50 filter, of course.
  
  --
  "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Re:3 American experts who are fighting cancer by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-25 06:04 · Score: 0

Where can I send a card?
Just address it "c/o Craig Shergold". The postal service knows where to deliver it.
A $650,000 purse? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-25 07:40 · Score: 0

It must be Prada.
Uses cheaper materials by Tekfactory · 2012-01-25 07:57 · Score: 1

I appreciate your simplification, but his method avoids deforming, embrittling, is easier to machine and uses cheaper materials. So there are efficiencies to be had in manufacturing costs and cost of raw materials.
Yeah, nowhere does it say they are more energy efficient, except possibly in making them.
Is it possible that Japan, under threat from China of not getting any Rare Earth shippments considers this guy's Iron-Nickel-Boron magnets to be less of a supply chain liability. I was reading somewhere that Tesla Motors stuck with induction motors specifically to get around the whole rare earth supply chain volatility nonsense, well before Japan was sanctioned by China.
Aussie Aussie Aussie Oi Oi Oi! by CuteSteveJobs · 2012-01-25 08:28 · Score: 2

Good on Japan for having a high-profile prize like this.

Here in Australia we award sportsmen, celebrities, wealthy businesspeople and public service fatcats. Scientists are spurned. (this article says 'scientists', but doesn't mention any. Googled around the other news websites and couldn't find any mention of them either.)

Foodie icon Maggie Beer received an AM for her service to the tourism and hospitality industries and the promotion of Australian produce and cuisine. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-01-26/australia-day-honours-2011/3792896?section=sport

Oh joy!
1. Re:Aussie Aussie Aussie Oi Oi Oi! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-26 10:58 · Score: 0
  
  Thats cos there aren't any Aussie scientists worth a damn....prison colony and all that
  ovder the ditch we produced Rutherford and Pickering....nyah nyah nyah!! ;o)