Nobel laureates call to inspire young people for new ideas

STOCKHOLM (Xinhua) - Nobel chemistry prize winners Michael Levitt and Martin Karplus on Saturday called for "more attention and efforts" to young people to help foster new ideas.

"More attention and efforts should be given to young people, and make sure that the next great ideas come from people who are in their 20's, and not professors in their 60s," said Levitt in a press conference in the middle of the ongoing Nobel Week.

He was echoed by Karplus, who added that it was the teachers' and professors' responsibility to help foster new ideas out of young people.

"We should make sure that when the young has original ideas, they have a chance to express themselves out," said Karplus.

Meanwhile, Levitt also highlighted the importance of communicating with young people using new media.

"It's an impressive TV program that prompted me to science. TV was quite new to me then. So I think in order to inspire young people, we should be talking in their languages such as Twitter, Facebook, " said Levitt.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences decided to award the 2013 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Arieh Warshel, Martin Karplus and Michael Levitt, for their joint "development of multiscale models for complex chemical systems".

Levitt is a US, British and Israeli citizen born in 1947 in South Africa. He is affiliated with the Stanford University School of Medicine.

Karplus is a US and Austrian citizen born in 1930 in Austria and is affiliated with the University of Strasbourg, France and Harvard University.

Both of the laureates have arrived in Stockholm of Sweden to attend the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony during the Nobel Week, which started on Friday and will last for one week.

The Nobel Prize Award Ceremony will take place at the Stockholm Concert Hall on December 10 .