Fall is arriving, and that means early October isn't too far away. And with early October comes the awarding of the Nobel Prizes. The dates were announced back in June. The schedule is:

Monday Oct 6: Physiology or Medicine
Tuesday Oct 7: Physics
Wednesday Oct 8: Chemistry
Friday Oct 10: Peace
Monday Oct 13: Economics
TBD: Literature

The Physics prize is probably the one of most interest to this crowd. Any thoughts on deserving winners? Dark matter searches? Maybe the designers of the LHC.

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"I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind." - William Thompson, 1st Baron Lord Kelvin

"If it was so, it might be, and if it were so, it would be, but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic!" - Tweedledee

This isn't right. This isn't even wrong. - Wolfgang Pauli

I don't know enough to speak for possible nominees/winners, but I'd think they'd want to let the LHC operate for a bit to see if it works as intended before they go hand'n out any awards.

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I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.
"In order to increase awareness of the homeless, security have been given binoculars."

Paul Stamets for the Chemistry or Medicine/Physiology.

Check out his work with fungi. He found mushrooms to kill MSRA superbugs 100x better than known drugs, clean up toxic waste sites restoring life and habitat, filtering streams from agricultural and factory farm runoff, produce a viable source of biofuel, alternative to chemical pest controls, etc. Ver good video and awesome research done by this guy.

TED.com video:
6 Ways Mushrooms Can Save The World

I don't read anything highbrow enough to qualify for a Nobel Prize, ditto listening to music. Let us say I doubt Terry Pratchett or John Williams will be up for a Nobel this year.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Medicine prize awarded tomorrow. Let the Nobels begin!

__________________
"I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind." - William Thompson, 1st Baron Lord Kelvin

"If it was so, it might be, and if it were so, it would be, but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic!" - Tweedledee

This isn't right. This isn't even wrong. - Wolfgang Pauli

Two Frenchmen and a German won the 2008 Nobel Prize in medicine for their discoveries of viruses that cause HIV and cervical cancer, the organization's Web site said Monday.

Francoise Barre-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier of France were honored "for their discovery of human immunodeficiency virus." ... Harald zur Hausen of Germany was cited "for his discovery of human papilloma viruses causing cervical cancer" in women.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe...iref=hpmostpop

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Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by ignorance or stupidity.
Isaac Asimov

Well, that's an award that will get the HIV denialists riled (yes, there are some, every science has its cold fusion equivalents it seems). All told, a worthy award.

Link to the Nobel site announcement

__________________
"I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind." - William Thompson, 1st Baron Lord Kelvin

"If it was so, it might be, and if it were so, it would be, but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic!" - Tweedledee

This isn't right. This isn't even wrong. - Wolfgang Pauli

Harald's a new era in human medicine!
Hurrah!

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clear skies

If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe. CARL SAGAN

Mak: Pass the pepperoni please.
Fazor: "Hail, Bautainia! We pledge our hearts to thee! Science and woo, some babbling too, and astron-oh-meee!"
slang: And it made ash out of yew and tree.

The person who will get most riled is likely to be Bob Gallo.

Nick

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Nick Theodorakis

Heh. No kidding. (Actually, for once, I recognized the names of Nobel winners outside my field--they're mentioned a lot in . . . And the Band Played On.)

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

The 18th First Annual Ig Nobel Prizes were "awarded" on October 2. The complete list of awardees is on the Annals of Improbable Research website. Among the more noteable winners

Check the site for the others.

__________________
"I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind." - William Thompson, 1st Baron Lord Kelvin

"If it was so, it might be, and if it were so, it would be, but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic!" - Tweedledee

This isn't right. This isn't even wrong. - Wolfgang Pauli

As part of his Prairie Home Companion show this past weekend, Garrison Keillor lampooned a Swedish fellow who apparently has something to do with selecting the prize for literature. He mentioned the lack of notable literature the Swedes had contributed to the field and questioned the man's - or any Swede's - standing to choose the best work.

All in good fun. of course.

But that concerns the prize for literature, for which we BAUTites care nothing.

Thanks, Geonuc. Can we agree that there's some good Swedish film, at least?

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

The Nobel in Physics was awarded today. Half of the prize went to Yochiro Nambu "for the discovery of the mechanism of spontaneous broken symmetry in subatomic physics" and the other half to Makoto Kobayashi and Toshihide Maskawa "for the discovery of the origin of the broken symmetry which predicts the existence of at least three families of quarks in nature."

This prize represents a bit of backfill as this was theoretical work that took place in the 60's and 70's. It set the stage for much of the work in the 80's that has already been recognized by Nobel prizes such as Weinberg-Salaam's electroweak theory, Rubbia's discovery of the W bosons, Richter & Ting for discovering charmed quarks, and Lederman for the bottom quark.

As the Nobel press release notes about Nambu's work "Spontaneous broken symmetry conceals nature’s order under an apparently jumbled surface. It has proved to be extremely useful, and Nambu’s theories permeate the Standard Model of elementary particle physics."

Kobayashi and Maskawa's work also underlies the standard model. The "Kobayashi-Maskawa mixing matrix" describes the coupling between different quark flavors. As such, a lot of experimental work goes into measuring the KM matrix elements. Their work established the current standard model structure of three generations of quarks and predicted the existence of charm, top and bottom before they were discovered.

Symmetry breaking impacts areas such as CP violation which, as we know, is one of reasons for the matter-antimatter imbalance in the universe. The press release notes "A hitherto unexplained broken symmetry of the same kind lies behind the very origin of the cosmos in the Big Bang some 14 billion years ago. If equal amounts of matter and antimatter were created, they ought to have annihilated each other. But this did not happen, there was a tiny deviation of one extra particle of matter for every 10 billion antimatter particles. It is this broken symmetry that seems to have caused our cosmos to survive."

So, all in all, better late than never. A well deserved prize.

ETA: For those with some technical background, check out the scientific background paper from the Nobel site.

__________________
"I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind." - William Thompson, 1st Baron Lord Kelvin

"If it was so, it might be, and if it were so, it would be, but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic!" - Tweedledee

This isn't right. This isn't even wrong. - Wolfgang Pauli

Unfortunately late often means never. Speaking in the area of my own specialism...

When Harsanyi got the economics prize in 1994, he shared it with Nash and Selten. But it would have been much more appropriate if he had shared with Morgenstern and von Neumann, not that Nash and Selten did not also deserve the prize, indeed probably Nash most of all. But M and vN had died in 1977 and 1957 respectively, so long did it take for work done in the 50s and earlier to be recognised as important.

When James Mirrlees got the economics prize, it is generally understood that he would be a sole recipient. But he shared it with William Vickrey, who is not normally a name that comes to mind at the same time as Mirrlees, although the citation gave a plausible connection, albeit one that is sufficiently broad that by that token one ought to include the next people that I am going to mention. When one reads a summary of Vickrey's principal contributions, it doesn't include anything that Jim (he was my tutor, though he barely remembered me when I last met him) is noted for. But Vickrey was on his death-bed and in fact died just 3 days after the announcement, so he got added in so as not to be missed, it seems. At least Vickrey's family would benefit, but it seems a bit unfair on Jim.

When Jean Tirole eventually gets the economics prize, as he will, he ought to share it with Jean-Jacques Laffont. Unfortunately the delay means that Laffont is already dead, so not even his family will benefit.

Would it be fair to surmise that, in general, the awarding institutions prefer to wait a bit to ensure the work holds up over time? This not in response to Ivan's comments but meant more generally.

Would it be fair to surmise that, in general, the awarding institutions prefer to wait a bit to ensure the work holds up over time?

Very fair, and the purpose in waiting. After all, that young pup Albert Einstein may have seemed to have a great idea in 1905, but it would have been embarrassing to give him a Nobel in 1906 and have his theory shot down a few years later.

However, the rule of not awarding posthumous prizes means some very deserving work and people will go unrecognized.

I have no problem with waiting, but they should give awards posthumously when deserved.

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Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by ignorance or stupidity.
Isaac Asimov

On the other hand, a 40 year wait is on the long side for the prize. Bardeen's two prizes came within 10 years of his discoveries as did Feynman, Tomonaga & Schwinger's. The prize for high temperature superconductors came in less than 5 years.

__________________
"I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind." - William Thompson, 1st Baron Lord Kelvin

"If it was so, it might be, and if it were so, it would be, but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic!" - Tweedledee

This isn't right. This isn't even wrong. - Wolfgang Pauli

The 6 current categories seems not to be the right ones for greatest honour in contemporary world. Is better physicists, chemists or economists what we need most? And what about the winners of the peace prize, did they deserve it?
Are authors that important today, compared to many other artists?
One example of a "missing prize" (it may exist, but rather unknown) - this prize should clearly be the most prestigeous: An environment award.
Instead of "advanced" medicine the prize may better go to "health" in a broader sense. The prize in economy (as far as I not really not created by Nobel, but swedish bank)should instead go to research in "human needs" (what we need to live a "good life") - if such a category could be properly defined - perhaps it should just be remkoved?
And one can ask if physics or chemistry is more important or honourable than many other academic disciplines.

Perhaps, although it's probably debatable whether a Nobel prize is the greatest honour one can achieve. In any case, given the legacy of Nobel, there's not much to be done about it.

The 08 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Osamu Shimomura, Martin Chalfie, and Roger Y. Tsien "for the discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein, GFP."

While this award might sound sort of comical and worthy of an Ig rather than an actual Nobel, GFP is an important tool in modern medicine, biology and biochemistry. The press release notes "this protein has become one of the most important tools used in contemporary bioscience. With the aid of GFP, researchers have developed ways to watch processes that were previously invisible, such as the development of nerve cells in the brain or how cancer cells spread."

Each of the awardees has developed the use of GFP. Simomura discovered that the protein flouresces and isolated it in the lab. Chalfie first used it as a luminous genetic tag in the lab. Tsien increased understanding of why the protein flouresces and developed versions that flouresce in colors other than green allowing multiple tags in the same experiment.

Tomorrow, Literature.

__________________
"I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind." - William Thompson, 1st Baron Lord Kelvin

"If it was so, it might be, and if it were so, it would be, but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic!" - Tweedledee

This isn't right. This isn't even wrong. - Wolfgang Pauli

Well, it was Nobel's will that established the prizes (aside from economics) so he got to choose the categories. And there is considerable flexibility in the criteria. For instance, I think if you go back and look over the awardees in medicine you'll find that they have contributed to "health in the broader sense." As for physics & chemistry, while the topics of the prizes can seem remote (such as this year's for symmetry breaking in physics) others, such as Bardeen, Brattain, & Shockley's (for inventing the transistor) have had immense impact on our lives.

No, the Nobel's aren't perfect and yes, they don't cover everything, but they are still a recognition of major and significant work in some of the scientific disciplines that impact our lives the most.

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"I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind." - William Thompson, 1st Baron Lord Kelvin

"If it was so, it might be, and if it were so, it would be, but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic!" - Tweedledee

This isn't right. This isn't even wrong. - Wolfgang Pauli

Hey, these two are useful!

I think..

It's interesting to note that whereas these days, many chemistry awards are going to biochemists, that Rutherford's prize was awarded in chemistry, even though today it would be considered physics. Arthur Kornberg's prize for the discovery of DNA polymerase was awarded in medicine, but his son Roger won the prize in chemistry for the structure of RNA polymerase. So there is a great deal of flexibility in classifying the awards.

Nick

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Nick Theodorakis

It's the golden rule--he (Nobel) who had the gold, made the rules. The only solution is to leave your own fortune to reward what you consider important.

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Todd (Bowie, MD, US, North America, Earth, Sol System, Vega region, Local Bubble, Orion arm, Milky Way Galaxy, Local Group, Virgo A Cluster, Virgo supercluster, the universe in which spock is clean shaven)

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.

personal page: http://blog.astrosketches.info

That would be the Templeton Prize. It even pays more!

Sorry Eta, I notice that there's some controversy over the Physics prize. Italian physicists are complaining that a colleague of theirs, Nicola Cabibbo, was ignored.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/...8_head_dn14885
http://www.physorg.com/news142675352.html

I don't follow the Nobels, so I was wondering: is controversy normal?

I'm not well versed in particle physics either (!), so I'd be grateful if you could fill me in on where and how Nicola Cabibbo fits in. Should he have had a share in the Nobel?

Thanks

I imagine any given year there are more people who think they or someone they know deserve a Nobel (rightfully or not), than actually get one. I'd guess the controversy is not unusual, but in some years might make the news more than in others.

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Todd (Bowie, MD, US, North America, Earth, Sol System, Vega region, Local Bubble, Orion arm, Milky Way Galaxy, Local Group, Virgo A Cluster, Virgo supercluster, the universe in which spock is clean shaven)

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.

personal page: http://blog.astrosketches.info

I have a friend whose grandfather (a sociologist of some note in sociology circles, apparently) is continually put out when he doesn't win the Peace Prize, because he deserves it more than these upstarts. I kind of doubt he does, really, but I imagine there are people like him in every field as well.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

There are few discoveries that did not in some way have crucial contributions from many other people (even Newton stood on the shoulders of giants), so inevitably there tend to be controversies, perhaps more often than not, over who ought to have got the prize for a particular discovery. Who deserves the prize - the one who measured the height of Mt Everest, the one who pointed out it should be measured, or the one who uses the measurement to demonstrate that none other is higher?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Prize_controversies

It was the Nobel Prize Commitee's policy until about 1960 to award prizes to the head of a research group only. The 1950 Nobel Prize to Powell was in accordance with this policy, but probably under present policy it would have been given to Lattes instead - he after all was the principal researcher and author of the relevant publication. Powell was not totally innocent of any contribution: he had been involved in earlier work that Lattes improved on leading to the discovery.

Millikan got the Nobel Prize, even though we now know he "doctored" his data. He had the fortune that what he claimed to have shown was in fact true, and can be demonstrated by the method he showed. His fault was to disregard inconsistent results by attributing them to malfunction of the equipment, when actually he couldn't have known that it was malfunctioning.

But probably the nastiest dispute was over the 1923 prize for medicine to Banting and Macleod for the discovery of insulin. Banting publicly discredited Macleod (Banting's supervisor) saying his role had been minimal, and made the point by giving half his prize money to Charles Best, his assistant, who he said had been unfairly overlooked. Many years later, a reappraisal suggests that Banting was a clever political operator who championed Best in order to deflect attention from the fact that his own contribution was less than that of James Collip. Macleod gave half his prize money to Collip; but this now looked like expiation for a just criticism from Banting, rather than in fact, what it really was, recognition at last of the most worthy recipient. Banting certainly seems to have cemented his position as a Great Canadian and the more worthy Collip forgotten. The writing-out of Macleod relative to Banting also seems unfair, given "in fact {it was} Macleod's research plan and his suggestion to inject intravenous degenerated pancreas into depancreatinized dog sugar that ultimately led to the successful isolation of insulin." (Wikipedia) It has also been suggested that in fact insulin was first isolated by none of the above, but rather by a Romanian called Nicolae Paulescu a year earlier.