South Korea: on the path of change

In February-March 2010, ITEP graduate student and member of the AMORE collaboration Nikita Khanbekov went on a scientific trip to South Korea. We bring to your attention his first impressions of the trip.

Over the past 50 years, South Korea has managed to demonstrate a transition from the “third world” to the “first” that is amazing in speed and scale of change. The import of modern technologies and large investments in export-oriented industries made it possible to sharply increase the standard of living, create a modern economic structure and high-tech industry. After becoming world economic and technological leaders, the next obvious goal is the development of fundamental science and support of scientific education worthy of a strong and future-oriented nation. Now South Korea is seriously addressing this task.

Initially, Korean modernization was based on the borrowing of Western technologies and, more importantly, social institutions. The country managed to preserve cultural characteristics and traditions, Asian flavor and national character, while at the same time copying the most successful and useful social models of the USA and Europe. Education was no exception. In higher education, students, as in the West, study for 4 years in a bachelor's degree, after which they can continue their education in a master's degree.

However, there are some peculiarities. Due to well-known political circumstances, South Korea has to maintain a large army. Military service is compulsory for all men and lasts two years after higher education. Taking into account the 12-year school education, the time for entering graduate school for Koreans is delayed until 28-29 years old, and the completion of scientific education is already 32-33 years old (graduate study lasts 4 years), i.e. 6-7 years later than in Russia. 31-32 years for Korean men is the average age for marriage. It's time to have a stable income that will allow you to comfortably support your family, so, even despite the decent level of salaries of scientific workers, a graduate student most often has to earn extra money.

However, despite such a late age for completing scientific education, attraction to scientific work itself occurs much earlier. Already in the second year of university, students participate in projects under the guidance of their teachers. Considering the regular (two per semester) exam tests, the life of a Korean student cannot be called easy. Often you have to stay at the university until late in the evening, finishing laboratory work or preparing for the next exam. At the same time, early practice makes it possible to master the theory, immediately seeing the possibilities of its application in scientific work; learn from the experience of teachers and try yourself in several topics in order to choose the most interesting one by the end of the training.

There is a common perception of an almost dictatorial relationship between teachers and students in Asia. At one time I was told that Korean teachers never even talk to students during lectures, asking them only rhetorical questions and not paying any attention to the listeners. In fact, this is very far from the truth. Working together after lectures allows for close communication and helps directly transfer scientific experience to students. Once I had the opportunity to attend a dinner in a restaurant, where the professor invited several second-year students. There, at the table, students asked questions about scientific work, and the teacher answered them, making the necessary calculations and drawing diagrams directly on a napkin.

The largest scientific and educational center in Korea is Seoul National University. Founded in 1946, now SNU perfectly demonstrates the nation’s desire for the highest level of education and science. Its main campus was founded in 1975 on the outskirts of Seoul (some say so that restless students would not irritate the authorities with regular demonstrations in the center of the capital).

Now it is a small city within a city, bordered on two sides by mountains and consisting of more than two hundred buildings. Here faculties and research centers, student clubs and libraries coexist with hotels, restaurants, shops, banks and tennis courts. A free bus runs around the campus. Mountain landscapes and public gardens are perfectly combined here with the varied architecture of university buildings, creating an atmosphere that is quite conducive to study and scientific creativity.

Yet the main problem of Korean science - the lack of a long scientific tradition - can only be solved with time. Many modern scientific fields that have a long history of study in the West are just beginning to be explored in Korea. For some fundamental subjects there are only English-language books, most often not translated into Korean. The need to read English-language textbooks sometimes becomes a serious difficulty for those senior students who are not fluent in the language. This is often an obstacle to master's studies. On the other hand, this situation can have its advantages. Korean science is immediately integrated into the world, without being confined to a national framework. Students forced to study using English-language materials then easily find a common language with their Western colleagues. Cooperation with foreign scientific centers, including Russian ones, is developing.

Several years ago, a cooperation agreement was concluded between Seoul National University and the Moscow Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Physics. And already this year, the Russian-Korean AMORE collaboration appeared, created to search for double neutrinoless beta decay. The main laboratory used by the collaboration is located on the eastern coast of the Korean Peninsula, near the village of Yangyang. The underground laboratory occupies a small area inside a multi-kilometer mountain tunnel system, built at a depth of 700 m for the needs of a local energy company. Now here, in addition to the AMORE experiments, detectors are also installed to search for dark matter particles. Most of the work is carried out by students and graduate students of SNU under the guidance of university teachers.

The main priority of Korean science now remains applied research, and robotics, energy and biotechnologies are considered the most promising topics. The best young researchers are attracted here and provided with powerful financial resources. And, nevertheless, scientific knowledge is valuable not only for its practical results, but also in itself, because it gives us the opportunity to understand the world in which humanity exists. Therefore, it is unlikely that a rich nation that has relied on modern technology will neglect to satisfy its interest in the deepest problems of the world order, which means that the development of fundamental science in Korea is a matter of time.