I wonder if there's a language barrier. I can't judge for myself--neither the substantive content nor the biographies--but hypothetically the principle investigators might not have strong (or any) English language proficiency, relying on a younger, less experienced peer to write the paper.
As someone who sucks at languages, I can appreciate that learning new languages does not come easy to everybody, or even to most people, especially in older age. If it seems like all reputable scientists have some English proficiency, that's a selection effect--within the English-speaking world in particular you're not going to bump into or even hear much about those who cannot speak or write English. AFAIU there's a substantial amount of high quality research in, e.g., Japan that is invisible to non-Japanese speakers. Japan's scientific establishment long predates English as a global language, unlike China; and unlike many European countries but similar to the United States there was never a widespread norm of learning foreign languages even among the professional classes, AFAIU. Though Korea is a younger industrialized country, I wouldn't take for granted that the principal discoverers have any English proficiency, especially considering that they would be late middle-age or older if they were working in the lab in 1999.
I dunno, I'd be suspect of the argument was that the directions were perfect in Korean and merely totally hidden from industrious Americans.
Japanese and Korean professionals speak English. There will be one researcher for whom explaining the language is a minor dalliance.
I work in a very minor polymer materials field. There are two Japanese researchers who cheerfully banter. If somebody had hidden some transformative work behind their language, even as a student, they would have talked about it straightaway, if only for the conversation and a bit of competitive intellectual football. Can the foolish American grad student reason around it? Let's see!
The twitch channel was packed with interested Koreans. If there had been the tiniest bit of confusion there would have been 200 translations from which to utilize the Translation Of The Crowd.
Well, Japan is the only mature industrial nation other than the United States where a majority of science papers are published in domestic journals[1][2], many of which are predominately or solely Japanese language[3], whereas international journals--including international journals in Japan--are invariably English.
Ofcourse the Japanese scientists you've met speak English. People who don't speak English wellenough are not generally going to participate in events or situations where they would need to rely on English-language speaking skills. That someone apologies for their bad English is, of course, irrelevant; if it were truly bad you wouldn't have encountered them. Likewise, Japan has many international science programs, forums, and conferences; and they'll be filled with proficient Japanese English speakers, but Japan is a huge nation so it says little necessarily about broader patterns.
I don't doubt that a majority of professional research scientists in Japan have some proficiency in English. Especially the top scientists; even in Japan "impact" would undoubtedly be heavily biased toward publication in prestigious international journals. But there's plenty of literature on the internet that describes the relatively poor English-language proficiency (especially conversationally or with verbiage outside that in their technical field) and poor English-speaking research community integration of the broader Japanese scientific establishment. See, e.g., "Japanese materials scientists' experiences with English for research publication purposes".
I first encountered this cultural dynamic when researching the tilting of the Millennium Tower. While friction piles weren't first used in Japan, Japan was where friction piles were first heavily researched and employed for large buildings, including skyscrapers. People kept saying friction piles were idiotic in earthquake-prone, sandy soils, but that's precisely the environment where they were first researched and from whence the global engineering community's confidence sprouted. However, AFAICT much of that research was published in Japanese, even through the late 20th century and (IIRC) even early 21st century. Was that Nobel-worthy science? No, but it was very useful applied science; and applied science which was highly consequential to global engineering and architecture, notwithstanding that much of the substance of it existed on the other side of a Japanese language barrier.
[3] E.g. many of the publications by the The Japan Institute of Metals and Materials are only or predominately in Japanese. Some domestic publications require summaries and tables in English but permit the text to be in Japanese; e.g. the Journal of the Society of Materials Science.
> People kept saying friction piles were idiotic in earthquake-prone, sandy soils, but that's precisely the environment where they were first researched
Friction pilings have been in use in NL for 100's of years.
There might be a body of historical purely Japanese scientific research, but I know some Japanese physicists who all speak English well enough, and have heard others on podcasts who do also. It would be serevely limiting to not speak English when that is the language of modern science. I don’t know how far back you would have to go to find monolingual scientists but I would guess several decades at least.
There are plenty of Japanese scientists who are _at least_ extremely uncomfortable in English. Plenty of people who struggle to write their own stuff in English and get it corrected a lot. Though I think that beyond a certain level you have to be interacting internationally to get anywhere in your career so you're gonna be forced along.
Plenty of people would learn Latin to consume some content, but doesn't mean they are proficient in it itself, would be another example.
Having said that, I think that in the research field that merely ends up with "very confusingly written papers with mistakes large enough to hide process errors" more than "cannot communicate any info in English". But there are plenty of people who get their doctorate and their only English-language output is their final papers in themselves.
I find it sort of implausible that somebody high in their field is totally ignorant in English, if only because so many papers are only published in English.
I've known so many researchers who apologize every other sentence because they say they've only read English and I would never had known otherwise.
Which is to say - it'd be wierd to say "well I don't know English and I don't know anybody who does oh well". But, anyway, the papers were published on aeXive in...
If you mean I am not aware of the ones that don’t speak English, not really, I have worked and gone to university in Japan and know a large number of people with whom I only speak in Japanese because their English skills are not good. Among working research physicists (not just Phds working on some company) under 45 I have found solid English skills as a rule, probably because international experience is important to their careers.
It’s really hard to see a language barrier affecting the sample synthesis instructions. It’s a few short paragraphs of “mix two things together and put them in the oven.”
It is amusing so many commentators cannot communicate novel materials science in Korean to the layperson. Where's your zero resistivity sample?
The paper is just a guide. Who would replicate likely needs to contact the authors to understand the implicit details of the recipe. That is process knowledge. There's a good reason world-leading lithography happens in that region. With luck, researchers and engineers will be able to refine and industrialize the process these coming years.
As someone who sucks at languages, I can appreciate that learning new languages does not come easy to everybody, or even to most people, especially in older age. If it seems like all reputable scientists have some English proficiency, that's a selection effect--within the English-speaking world in particular you're not going to bump into or even hear much about those who cannot speak or write English. AFAIU there's a substantial amount of high quality research in, e.g., Japan that is invisible to non-Japanese speakers. Japan's scientific establishment long predates English as a global language, unlike China; and unlike many European countries but similar to the United States there was never a widespread norm of learning foreign languages even among the professional classes, AFAIU. Though Korea is a younger industrialized country, I wouldn't take for granted that the principal discoverers have any English proficiency, especially considering that they would be late middle-age or older if they were working in the lab in 1999.