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The Nobel Prize in Physics 2019

nobelprize.org

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Re: The Nobel Prize in Physics 2019

#31

Post by diffeomorphism »

adwf wrote: post #9
shafyy wrote: post #2

Two of the laureates are Swiss. This brings the total number of Swiss laureates to 28, making it the third country with most Nobel prizes per capita. The first two are Saint Lucia and Luxemburg, which have 180k and 600k inhabitants respectively. Among the bigger countries, Switzerland has the most per capita Nobel prizes. Interestingly, UK is on number 9 on that list and has a significantly bigger population than the…

It would probably be more fair to attribute the Nobel prize "nationality" to the university/country at which the scientist was working at the time they made their discovery.

Or the one where they went to school or the one where they did their undergrad or the one where they got their PhD or what if they worked for 5 years of the project in country A and then finished the last year in country B?

No attribution is perfect, but they might still be useful.

Re: The Nobel Prize in Physics 2019

#32

Post by michalu »

shafyy wrote: post #2

Two of the laureates are Swiss. This brings the total number of Swiss laureates to 28, making it the third country with most Nobel prizes per capita. The first two are Saint Lucia and Luxemburg, which have 180k and 600k inhabitants respectively. Among the bigger countries, Switzerland has the most per capita Nobel prizes. Interestingly, UK is on number 9 on that list and has a significantly bigger population than the…

Note that these counts include Nobel prize for peace which skews the ratings a bit.

If we looked at science and literature only the results would look different. Obviously, assuming the main point of this ranking is to measure a favourable ecosystem for science and literature.

Re: The Nobel Prize in Physics 2019

#33

Post by willyg123 »

scotty79 wrote: post #5

> "for the discovery of an exoplanet orbiting a solar-type star." "Solar-type star" is meaningful here because first extrasolar planets we discovered orbit the pulsar. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSR_B1257%2B12

This is why I love astrophysics. I assumed the supernova would obliterate any planet in the star's orbit.

Re: The Nobel Prize in Physics 2019

#35

Post by willis936 »

joelbluminator wrote: post #13
hobofan wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be wary of any such statistics, and trying to draw any conclusion about the current status of a country from that. For one, the total timeframe of the Nobel Prize is more than a hundred years, and even for individual prizes the time between contribution and award is usually decades. That's a lot of time for possible change in a country. On top of that, there had been repeated criticism (that has been in part ackn…

That's all true, but still it's pretty obvious Switzerland is doing extremely well by any metric you can think of.

They are doing well. As would almost any nation that had enormous wealth from being a tax haven. They profit off of the work of others, as any wealthy nation does today, but they go farther than others.

Re: The Nobel Prize in Physics 2019

#36

Post by dekhn »

hos234 wrote: post #17
shafyy wrote: post #2

Two of the laureates are Swiss. This brings the total number of Swiss laureates to 28, making it the third country with most Nobel prizes per capita. The first two are Saint Lucia and Luxemburg, which have 180k and 600k inhabitants respectively. Among the bigger countries, Switzerland has the most per capita Nobel prizes. Interestingly, UK is on number 9 on that list and has a significantly bigger population than the…

This has nothing to do with national borders. In US, UK and Germany the Nobel's don't come from all over the country but from very small areas. If Princeton/Newyork/Boston declared independence tomorrow those new countries would be at the top of the list too. Where cash concentrates Science happens.

It seems to be a combination of things: cash, investment into education, political will, peaceful political climate.

The Bay Area/SV dominates tech because of a bunch of decisions made starting around the 1850s to turn California into a world player.

Re: The Nobel Prize in Physics 2019

#37

Post by chrisseaton »

diffeomorphism wrote: post #27
chrisseaton wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does anyone care about someone's nationality when they win a Nobel prize?

You don't care about their nationality, you care about what country you can associate them with. You then want to use it a measuring stick for that country's university and research system. It is of course not a perfect scale, but you take what you can get. For instance, this prize tells you that Switzerland, the UK and the US (or more specifically Geneva, Cambridge and Princeton) seem to be doing something right and…

> You then want to use it a measuring stick for that country's university and research system.

But why?

Re: The Nobel Prize in Physics 2019

#38

Post by diffeomorphism »

chrisseaton wrote: post #37
diffeomorphism wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't care about their nationality, you care about what country you can associate them with. You then want to use it a measuring stick for that country's university and research system. It is of course not a perfect scale, but you take what you can get. For instance, this prize tells you that Switzerland, the UK and the US (or more specifically Geneva, Cambridge and Princeton) seem to be doing something right and…

> You then want to use it a measuring stick for that country's university and research system. But why?

That is my second paragraph.

Re: The Nobel Prize in Physics 2019

#39

Post by chrisseaton »

diffeomorphism wrote: post #38
chrisseaton wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You then want to use it a measuring stick for that country's university and research system. But why?

That is my second paragraph.

Most academics will have studied and worked in many countries by the time they achieve something major. Nobody's the product of a single country like that. These people have been educated and worked in Canada, the US, the UK, Switzerland...

Re: The Nobel Prize in Physics 2019

#40

Post by hansjorg »

safgasCVS wrote: post #12

Still cant believe the economics profession managed to convince people it deserves a seat at the table of the hard sciences

It's not actually one of the Nobel prizes as set up by Alfred Nobel. The full name is the "The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel".

It was set up by the Swedish central bank to free ride on the good reputation of the actual prizes. Their motivation was to push economic policies beneficial to themselves (mainly promoting the political independence of central banks in the beginning).

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