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The Nobel Prize in Physics 2019

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Re: The Nobel Prize in Physics 2019

#51

Post by shartshooter »

ProstetnicJeltz wrote: post #15
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

I don't think anyone is looking at the Nobel prizes to categorise sciences. The 'table of hard science' according to Alfred Nobel also includes medicine (not science, but we'll let it pass), literature (really not science), and peace (really really not science). Anyway, the Nobel Prize for economics is not actually a Nobel prize anyway.

Receiving the prize of $1MM and everyone referring to you as Nobel laureate feels a lot like winning a Nobel prize to me.

Re: The Nobel Prize in Physics 2019

#52

Post by dekhn »

Merrill wrote: post #49
dekhn wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 g…

Look up the history of Stanford to see early investments in the infrastructure of the Bay area. I agree post-war was when the rapid expansion happened but many of the important foundations were laid using gold money and railroad money. Similarly Caltech in the South land shows work prior to world war II. La was already in aerospace powerhouse when world war II happened.

Thanks for pointing out the oil boom I left that out because I forgot

Re: The Nobel Prize in Physics 2019

#53

Post by vinay427 »

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.

National borders do actually have a relevance for Switzerland IMO because it involves serious hurdles, particularly today, for many people to move there so it often isn't just a haven for the best-educated and/or wealthiest people in a region.

Switzerland has relatively strict immigration policies, always maintaining a layer of separation from the EU/EEA and other developed countries though that's less true for EU/EEA countries today, but it still has nowhere near the freedom of movement from other countries that is the case between the rest of the US and Princeton/NY/Boston, or the rest of the UK and London, etc.

Re: The Nobel Prize in Physics 2019

#55

Post by Retric »

soVeryTired wrote: post #50
denzil_correa wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 :)

It’s a more general statement that applies to say orange production as various plants only grow well in specific climates. Basically, if you’re looking at total calories consumed that is mostly a function of population size, but large samples don’t average out inherent differences.

Re: The Nobel Prize in Physics 2019

#56

Post by BurningFrog »

hobofan wrote: post #6
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…

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…

You might take this way too seriously.

It's just a fun little statistic for micro-bragging rights.

As someone from another tiny country with self esteem issues, I completely get it.

Re: The Nobel Prize in Physics 2019

#57

Post by BurningFrog »

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

I (almost) have a masters degree in Physics, and think Economics absolutely is a hard science.

It's also probably the most important science, since it deals with issues central to human life and prosperity.

I mean, I love exoplanets too, but they'll never affect how we understand society and change the understanding and direction of human civilization.

Re: The Nobel Prize in Physics 2019

#58

Post by drpgq »

joelbluminator wrote: post #22
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

That's a pretty good point considering Turing award winners (computer science) get so little media exposure compared to Nobel winners. Same for Field medal winners...

I always wonder why some Scandinavian group just didn't start a math or comp sci prize in honour of Alfred Nobel like economics.

Re: The Nobel Prize in Physics 2019

#59

Post by cowbird »

Peebles has been a giant in cosmology over the past 50 years, when cosmology has gone from really speculation to precision measurements. There's a decent argument that he should have been included in the 1978 prize with Penzias and Wilson. He's getting old and this might be the last time the committee could sweetie him in.

Re: The Nobel Prize in Physics 2019

#60

Post by maattdd »

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…

Another fun fact which show the strong relation between Mathematics and France, which is still strong in the XXe century: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of... (France is dwarfing other countries in Field Medals per capita).
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