61–70 of 88 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Nobel committee doesn't give out the prize for theoretical advances that aren't backed up by experiment. Since the data was not yet overwhelmingly conclusive at this time last year, this year's award was basically the earliest possible award date for a decades-old idea.
Obama got the peace prize without any evidence.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The award is for the theory that is confirmed. The people of CERN didn't get awarded because they didn't come up with the theory, they just tested it.
Well... no. Carlo Rubbia and Simon van der Meer were awarded the Nobel prize in 1984 for the discovery of the W and Z particles (January 1983). Glashow, Salam and Weinberg were awarded with it in 1979, before the Electroweak Theory was fully confirmed, although there were solid hints at that time, it was a bit premature. I'm really not too happy about this because the Nobel prize has shunned deserving scientists agai…
In 1962 P.W. Anderson worked out that Nambu–Goldstone massless mode can combine with the massless gauge field modes to produce a massive vector field (e.g. the so-called "higgs-mechanism", but in a non-relativistic context). In 1964 E&B,H,GHK showed that this is also possible in a relativistically invariant theory.
Here's a twitter comment from John Preskill (caltech): "The emphasis on finding a relativistic model may be misplaced, though. Anderson understood the mechanism well." https://twitter.com/preskill/status/387580651664191488
So maybe Anderson is more deserving of the last spot than GHK.
Just sayin'....
They say that professor Higgs is shy and not at all comfortable with the attention and almost as hard to find as his particle.
I'm sensing you're being facetious, but not knowing the personalities involved, what does this mean? Is he a notorious publicity hound?
Anyone with more insight know if this was overdue, but finally awarded after confirmation last year at CERN, or if it was pushed forward while last year's work was fresh in people's minds?
I often saw him and Francois Anglert when doing my Ph.D. Robert Brout in particular struck me as the kindest man on earth, and was perhaps someone who though even deeper and more profoundly than Francois Anglert.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
He certainly had an interesting life, but I don't think the person giving their name to half the particles in the universe can be called ‘a little forgotten’.
Ha. True. But, I'm not sure people know that a Boson is named after him at all and if they do I'd bet they assume (like I once did) that Bose was some German or Hungarian bloke. (Mind you, I also thought that the Bose of Bose Corporation[1] would have been a European rather than Indian descent, too. Clearly, I have some prejudice I need to work out). [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amar_Bose
Earlier quoted context omitted.
He certainly had an interesting life, but I don't think the person giving their name to half the particles in the universe can be called ‘a little forgotten’.
Ha. True. But, I'm not sure people know that a Boson is named after him at all and if they do I'd bet they assume (like I once did) that Bose was some German or Hungarian bloke. (Mind you, I also thought that the Bose of Bose Corporation[1] would have been a European rather than Indian descent, too. Clearly, I have some prejudice I need to work out). [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amar_Bose
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"aren't backed up by experiment" Sadly, I was expecting arguments by string theorists along the lines of the longbets.org bet for $2000 that no one is going to get a Nobel for anything related to string theory, but I guarantee we'll get ten times as much "Obama" instead. Can't we please argue about that instead of making fun of our "concentration camp warmonger in chief", maybe just in one thread please?
This is likely among the last prizes we'll see in physics for a long time that has evidence to back it up. The theory is so far ahead of the practice that things we think we understand just can't be tested in reasonable times. Look at what it took just to get the Boson data.
Not exactly. In condensed matter physics, theory and experiment are much more tightly coupled, and many experiments can be done on a table top with a few tens to a few hundreds of thousands of dollars of equipment. Not all physics is multi-billion dollar colliders.
is the nobel prize still the cornerstone of rewarding achievement in the sciences? sorry to be so snarky, but i am genuinely interested, having long lost any trust in the peace prize comittee[0]. not to speak of the economics prize (which is not really a nobel prize [1]) [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_Peace_Prize_laure... [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Memorial_Prize_in_Economi... edit: format…
The economics price is much newer ("Memorial", as you cite), although also very prestigious in its own field, and Peace is not really a science.