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Nobel Prizes

Posted by michael on from the play-by-play dept.

An AC sends: "The guys at Bottomquark.com are pledging to bring NBC-esque coverage of the Nobel Prize releases. The first prize, for Medicine, is already posted."

9 of 69 comments (clear)

  1. The Nobel site by Lars+Arvestad · · Score: 3
    Instead of /.-ing the NBC wannabes you should aim your browser at the Nobel e-museum (organized by the Nobel foundation is seems) where the announcements are made. They are hopefully better prepared!


    Lars
    __

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    Reality or nothing.
  2. Finally Kilby gets the recognition he deserves... by sirwired · · Score: 3
    Since I first started reading computer history, Jack Kilby has been the computer person I admire most. His discovery (the Integrated Circuit) has more or less created modern technology as we know it today, and without it, we arguably could still be using discrete components. What is more interesting is even though he revolutionized technology, he received (until now) no great public recognition. Since he created the IC as a staff engineer for TI, he was not entitled to royalties or anything of that nature. Sure the IEEE has named a medal after him, and he figures prominently in computer history books, but he is a virtual unknown to the public.

    In other words, it couldn't have happed to a better guy.

  3. Iron Scientist! by G-Man · · Score: 3

    Screw the NBC-style coverage. They should have four finalists in each area square off in front of a studio audience -- the Iron Chemists would have to whip up some new and useful compound from a set of ingredients, the Iron Doctors would have to perform speed-surgery, and the Iron Peacemakers would have to break up some arguments.

  4. Like their Olympics coverage ? by gibodean · · Score: 4

    So does that mean it's going to be 12 hours late ?

  5. Re:The mandatory question for all stupid americans by fReNeTiK · · Score: 3

    Cut'n'paste from this site found trough google .

    Alfred Nobel was born in 1833 in Stockholm, Sweden to a family of engineers. His family was descended from Olof Rudbeck, the best-known technical genius of Sweden's 17th century era as a great power in northern Europe. At age 9, he moved with his family to Russia where he and his brothers were given first class education in the humanities and natural sciences by private teachers.

    Nobel invented dynamite in 1866 and later built up companies and laboratories in more than 20 countries all over the world. A holder of more than 350 patents, he also wrote poetry and drama and even seriously considered becoming a writer.

    The idea of giving away his fortune was no passing fancy for Nobel. Efforts to promote peace were close to his heart and he derived intellectual pleasure from literature, while science built the foundation for his own activities as a technological researcher and inventor.

    On November 27, 1895, Nobel signed his final will and testament at the Swedish-Norwegian Club in Paris. He died of a heart attack in his home in San Remo, Italy on December 10, 1896.

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    I strongly believe that trying to be clever is detrimental to your health. -- Linus Torvalds
  6. Other famous prizes. by Black+Parrot · · Score: 5

    Here are some other important prizes that the media tend to neglect:

    The No Bail Prize, given for major advances in waterproofing.

    The No Ball(s) Prize, given in to the judge who caves in to corporate interests the fastest.

    The No Belle Prize, given to a randomly selected geek as a consolation for the geek lifestyle.

    The No Bill Prize, given to the programmer who comes up with the best innovation that does not get bought out by Microsoft within a year.

    And my favorite, the No Bull Prize, which will go to the candidate that gets caught out in the fewest lies during the debates.

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    Give me a candidate who speaks out against the war on drugs.

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    Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
  7. Re:uhm... by deglr6328 · · Score: 3

    uhm. Einstein died in 1955. And Alexander Friedmann (the physicist who first implied the Big Bang from the complete solution of Einsteins equations) is also LONG since dead(like 1920's or something). Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson who discovered the cosmic microwave background radiation (taken as direct evidence of the big bang in the form of leftover EM radiation) at Bell Labs in 1965, were granted their nobel in 1978. George Gamow who predicted the CMBE was scooped by the Bell Labs team and never got his nobel, he's also very dead.

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    - "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
  8. Re:Einstein and the Nobel prize by /dev/kev · · Score: 3

    Huh? Einstein did the photoelectric effect stuff at the same time as (special) relativity (and Brownian motion), 1905. He got the prize in 1921 for the photoelectric effect because it was damn good work, and had been vindicated as such, not because they were looking for an excuse to give the prize to him.

    Remember that his explanation of the photoelectric effect required particle-like photons of light, which at the time were considered silly in the face of all the evidence that light was a wave. His explanation of the photoelectric effect was very important indeed, and can rival relativity as his most important work (though not his most well-known).

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    Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
  9. Nobel Prizes for Mathematics by nihilogos · · Score: 3

    Does anyone know why there aren't any? I have heard two plausible explanations. One is that Nobel Prizes are given for achievements with tangible benefit to humankind which is why Einstein got his for his work on the Photoelectic effect rather than for general relativity which is far and away his greatest work. The second I think is much more likely - the mathematician Niels Abel was fooling around with Nobel's wife.

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    :wq