Nobel laureate Sancar promotes science in Uzbekistan

By Bahtiyar Abdukerimov

TASHKENT (AA) - Seeking to ignite the love of science in Uzbek children, a Turkish-American Nobel laureate in chemistry is visiting Uzbekistan this week.

"My aim is to instill the discipline of science into our children," said Aziz Sancar, the 2015 winner of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry, on Monday.

Sancar is set to be a keynote speaker at the Third International Congress on Social Sciences in Bukhara, Uzbekistan, which ends on Sunday.

Anadolu Agency is also a partnering organization in the event.

Meeting on Monday with Inom Majidov, the Uzbek minister of higher and secondary specialized education, Sancar told reporters that he is happy to visit historic sites in Uzbekistan.

However, Sancar said, the main aim of his visit is to inspire Uzbek children to love science.

Sancar said that after receiving the Nobel prize, he got invitations to visit many places, but he declined most of them.

But when he got an invitation from the central Asian Turkic states, he saw paying a visit as a "national service," he explained.

"I came to the Turkic states gladly and with great pride, because it is our homeland," he said, referring to the geographic roots of ethnic Turks.

Sancar said Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, a ninth-century pioneer in the field of algebra, had lived in the region.

"The people of these territories have math in their genes," he said.

He said the Turkic world needs more sciences and that children should be doing scientific experiments at an early age.