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The Nobel Prize in Physics 2019

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Re: The Nobel Prize in Physics 2019

#91

Post by sgift »

oarabbus_ wrote: post #84
smhost wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the term "eurocentric" normally isn't about NA vs EU rivalry, but rather about "european identity" in the white supremacist sense. (the caveat is that radical equality is also a distinctly european tradition, but still, this tradition doesn't seem to get included under the "eurocentric" label, for whatever reason)

No, the term "eurocentric" in this context means that for the Nobel prize, european scientists' accomplishments are considered "more worthy" than that of non-Europeans. And thanks for bringing up how racial equality is a European tradition. How could we forget historical eurocentric bastions of equality, like the study of Phrenology and Kipling's "The White Man's Burden".

ra-di-cal equality. not ra-ci-al equality.

Re: The Nobel Prize in Physics 2019

#92

Post by oarabbus_ »

sgift wrote: post #91
oarabbus_ wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the term "eurocentric" in this context means that for the Nobel prize, european scientists' accomplishments are considered "more worthy" than that of non-Europeans. And thanks for bringing up how racial equality is a European tradition. How could we forget historical eurocentric bastions of equality, like the study of Phrenology and Kipling's "The White Man's Burden".

ra-di-cal equality. not ra-ci-al equality.

I mean, that concept was considerably developed by Indian thinkers. The only eurocentricism here is that poster's personal bias.

Re: The Nobel Prize in Physics 2019

#93

Post by iamsb »

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 is quite amazing how US keeps attracting top talent in the world. Look at the born in description . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_laureates_by_cou...

Re: The Nobel Prize in Physics 2019

#94

Post by LatteLazy »

whatshisface wrote: post #62

I am not such a fan of this one, they essentially gave two separate half-prizes this year. James Peebles’ contribution to science was not related to exoplanets, nor was the exoplanet discovery related to cosmology. Instead, they could have waited a year, and given them sequentially. Has this ever happened before in Nobel history? Will this lead to an era where one hundred $10,000 Nobels are handed out each year? ;)

There is a rule that you can't award a prize to more than 3 people.

I remember when the Higgs was confirmed at CERN, there was a lot of discussion over who (if anyone) should get the prize for that. CERN has something like 2500 permanent, scientific employees, plus 12000 users. So is it appropriate to give the prize to someone who is ultimately a project manager or administrator?

It's an interesting question as science moves from a few great thinkers to huge projects with 100+ contributors...

Re: The Nobel Prize in Physics 2019

#95

Post by whatshisface »

LatteLazy wrote: post #94
whatshisface wrote: post #62

I am not such a fan of this one, they essentially gave two separate half-prizes this year. James Peebles’ contribution to science was not related to exoplanets, nor was the exoplanet discovery related to cosmology. Instead, they could have waited a year, and given them sequentially. Has this ever happened before in Nobel history? Will this lead to an era where one hundred $10,000 Nobels are handed out each year? ;)

There is a rule that you can't award a prize to more than 3 people. I remember when the Higgs was confirmed at CERN, there was a lot of discussion over who (if anyone) should get the prize for that. CERN has something like 2500 permanent, scientific employees, plus 12000 users. So is it appropriate to give the prize to someone who is ultimately a project manager or administrator? It's an interesting question as scien…

I think those accomplishments are large enough to have PR teams, or at least many people who can spread the word, and they may be outside the domain of where Nobel prizes are needed. The Nobel given for the Higgs discovery could not raise anyone's esteem for the LCH team, because the team was so large that everybody who would hear about a Nobel prize had already heard of the LHC.

Re: The Nobel Prize in Physics 2019

#96

Post by evanb »

perseusprime11 wrote: post #86

Does discovering an exoplanet really qualify for Nobel Prize?

It wasn't just a matter of pointing a telescope at a lucky star. They had to invent new spectroscopic tools to find anything.

Moreover, the avalanche of exoplanets their discovery heralded has changed questions fundamental to astronomy like "Why is our Solar System this particular way" into questions about ensembles, as in "In what proportion of planetary systems do we get rocky inner planets in the habitable zone and outer gas giants".

Re: The Nobel Prize in Physics 2019

#97

Post by marton78 »

torgard wrote: post #28
chrisseaton wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

People are often patriotic. You feel a certain connection to someone who comes from your country. But yeah, I agree. One fun example: I am Faroese. On a technicality, Faroe Islands _could_ be considered the highest rank, at 1 laureate for a population of 49,489[1]. Niels Finsen was born in the Faroe Islands to Icelandic and Danish parents. His higher education and scientific studies were conducted in Denmark. So an e…

Wait. I thought it's wrong to say "Faroe Islands", because the "oe" already means "Island". So how is this?

Re: The Nobel Prize in Physics 2019

#98

Post by marton78 »

vixen99 wrote: post #47
vincnetas wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Surely no one's that dumb!

You should meet my father. Hungarian patriot. Our many Nobel prizes make him so proud! With the only minor stain to the story that most of them were Jews.

Re: The Nobel Prize in Physics 2019

#99

Post by Miraste »

BurningFrog wrote: post #57
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.

I agree that economics is more relevant to the average person than astrophysics, but I don't see what that has to do with its being a hard science. Physics has testable hypotheses and experimental verification. The attempts at this in economics put it at the absolute low end of the soft sciences, as far as I can tell.

Re: The Nobel Prize in Physics 2019

#100

Post by soVeryTired »

mruts wrote: post #66
soVeryTired wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 :)

All he’s saying that the further mean and median are from each, the more importsnt it is that we think about what an average implies about the sample.

Well the median number of nobel prizes in any country is pretty obviously zero...
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