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The Nobel Prize in Physics 2019

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Re: The Nobel Prize in Physics 2019

#41

Post by haihaibye »

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.

People matter, compare vs the oil rich Gulf states.

Re: The Nobel Prize in Physics 2019

#42

Post by joelbluminator »

dotancohen wrote: post #24
joelbluminator wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And 96% are men although men comprise only 49% of the population. Just saying...go men!

This is terribly enlightening. I'm an Ashkanazi Jew of average intelligence, but there seems to be some stigma that Jews - especially Ashkanazi [1] - are brilliant. I'm constantly judged by a very high standard because of that. Be there no mistake, I keep that standard, but due to Anki and Ankidroid and not due to my intellect. I wonder if there is a self-fulfilling prophecy about that. The 96% statistic hints that b…

I'm Ashkenazi as well. Don't know if it makes you feel better but there are way worse stigmas on us than intelligence, so I wouldn't worry about that particular one too much :)

Re: The Nobel Prize in Physics 2019

#43

Post by diffeomorphism »

chrisseaton wrote: post #39
diffeomorphism wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Sure, but then you would want to read about "Canada, the US, the UK, Switzerland..." and would be asking why these countries and not for example Belgium or Japan.

Any way you attribute this has some problems, as does trying to condense it to one country. Still just because something is not perfect does not mean it is not useful.

For example, France and Germany have very different systems and culture and you see that reflected in Nobel prizes and Fields medals. At that point you can then discuss which differences are "good" or "bad" by which metric.

Re: The Nobel Prize in Physics 2019

#44

Post by duxup »

willyg123 wrote: post #33
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.

It seems like rather than these sort of well defined periods of life and death ... solar systems go through a whole slew of possible life cycles where who knows what happens.

I remember learning about our own solar system and it was largely "here is how we got to here" but now it's more about these phases each planet experienced and maybe will experience. Saturn's rings being a sort of "recent" phenomenon and such. Geological activity being a sort of on and off thing depending on various events, even orotundities for life cycling on and off.

Re: The Nobel Prize in Physics 2019

#45

Post by joelbluminator »

willis936 wrote: post #35
joelbluminator wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I disagree. Switzerland produced real value; take a look at companies like Novartis or Roche (or even Nestle). Or the 30 Nobel prize winners, or the top notch academia they have there. You don't do all that just by being a tax haven (Malta and Cayman islands are tax havens as well, also Ireland, but neither is as successful). I have no connection to Switzerland, have only been there once, but when a society works - it works. I acknowledge that.

Re: The Nobel Prize in Physics 2019

#46

Post by vixen99 »

dotancohen wrote: post #24
joelbluminator wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And 96% are men although men comprise only 49% of the population. Just saying...go men!

This is terribly enlightening. I'm an Ashkanazi Jew of average intelligence, but there seems to be some stigma that Jews - especially Ashkanazi [1] - are brilliant. I'm constantly judged by a very high standard because of that. Be there no mistake, I keep that standard, but due to Anki and Ankidroid and not due to my intellect. I wonder if there is a self-fulfilling prophecy about that. The 96% statistic hints that b…

You may be interested in this suggrestion put forward by a music critic in this week's UK Spectator.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/2019/10/do-jews-think-differentl...

I think it's not paywalled if you don't live in the UK.

Re: The Nobel Prize in Physics 2019

#47

Post by vixen99 »

vincnetas wrote: post #29
chrisseaton wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

usual human nature? german won nobel prize -> germans are smart -> im german -> i must be smart

Surely no one's that dumb!

Re: The Nobel Prize in Physics 2019

#48

Post by shafyy »

willis936 wrote: post #35
joelbluminator wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's not the reason they have "enormous wealth". I think Switzerland understood early on that it's important for them to invest in science, education and innovation because they don't have any other natural resources.

Incentivizing companies like Google to set up shop in Switzerland of course is related to the low taxes, but also access to talent with great technical schools (ETH, EPFL). Furthermore, companies know that people would love to relocate to Switzerland to work for them. This in turn leads to more money for research, academia and education in general. It's virtuous cylce.

Obviously, there are many more factors. And yes, maybe it helped that there was the bank secracy law and criminals and the Germans during WWII parked their money in Switzerland, but I would say that's not the determining factor.

Disclaimer: I'm Swiss, so probably biased.

Re: The Nobel Prize in Physics 2019

#49

Post by Merrill »

dekhn wrote: post #36
hos234 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Maybe you mean 1940s? The Bay Area benefited from fairly massive government subsidies to the Military Industrial Complex in California. WW II shifted military attention to the West Coast and San Francisco Bay was a major Naval Base. The Atomic Energy Commission took over and expanded Lawrence Berkeley Lab and established Livermore Lab. The aerospace industry moved to California due to the continuous availability of good flying weather and proximity to aluminum sources based on hydropower. This was mainly to southern CA, but a lot of aerospace electronics came from the Bay Area. NASA also established Ames Research Center. Plus, as its congressional delegation grew in size and influence, and during the Reagan years, Federal money continued to flow into the state.

In the 1850s there was the Gold Rush, which was unplanned. Around 1900 the southern CA oil boom made it the largest oil producing state in the US.

Re: The Nobel Prize in Physics 2019

#50

Post by soVeryTired »

denzil_correa wrote: post #30
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…

> Among the bigger countries, Switzerland has the most per capita Nobel prizes. Be wary of any "per-capita" statistics. Statistically, averages work only if distributions are symmetric. Mean is a poor indicator of an asymmetric distribution. So, the question is - Do we have symmetric distributions for talent within each geographical area? We see similar arguments in sport but the assumption of symmetrical (normal) di…

> Statistically, averages work only if distributions are symmetric.

I'm not really sure what you mean by that but I don't think you're correct. The law of large numbers applies to any distribution with finite first moment.

You're probably right in that factors like wealth (and wealth distribution rather than per-capita wealth) affect a country's scientific output. But your stats argument is a bit wobbly :)

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