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Nobel Prizes for Physics Awarded to Smart People

Posted by chrisd on from the cowboyneal-prize-for-coolness dept.

bobol6 writes "The 2002 Nobel Prize for Physics is out. The $1 Million is split two ways: Riccardo Giacconi gets half for building the first X-Ray telescopes, and Raymond Davis, Jr and Masatoshi Koshiba split the other half. Davis invented the water tank neutrino detector, and Koshiba used a more sophisticated one to discover neutrino oscillation. The original press release is available . News articles can be found at Science Daily and The New York Times. (Free Blah di Blah)"

4 of 140 comments (clear)

  1. Re:get the experiments right! by Lars+Arvestad · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Kamiokande (Koshiba's experiment)was a water-Cerenkov experiment, however the IMB experiment (another water-Cerenkov experiment, near Cleveland) also saw the neutrinos from supernova 1987A *and* IMB had an atomic clock, so they could get accurate arrival times, which the japanese experiment couldn't.

    Would that make such a difference? I was at the actual presentation yesterday, and they had registered arrival times at Kamiokande too. Maybe the precision was lame, but since they actually only registered 12 neutrinos from that supernova, it seems a wristwatch would do well enough...

    --
    Reality or nothing.
  2. Richard Feynman used to boast. . . by kfg · · Score: 5, Interesting

    "Lots of people have won the Nobel Prize, but to win it with an IQ of only 124, now *that's* an accomplishment!"

    He always took great pride in being a "dumb" winner.

    Of course there are many who would consider 124 pretty damned smart, but Feynman hung out with people like Hans Bethe, Neils Bohr, Albert Einstien and those other "dummies."

    KFG

  3. The Legacy of Einstein by InodoroPereyra · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Such a phenomenal genious was A. Einstein that he even influenced the social perception of what physics is. Being himself a theoretician, the prototype of a physicist is some sort of a lunatic doing fancy calcuations on a blackboard. However, voila, most Nobel prizes go to experimentalists. And that is the way it should be. Physics is an experimental science. If you cannot measure it, it ain't. Einstein himself understood this better than anyone, and he based his theories in solid experimental evidence.

    Now let me disgress: how does it feel winning a part of a Nobel prize ? I see it coming: "Our next speaker, Prof. Inodoro Pereyra, 1/8th of the Nobel Prize 2004"

    ;-)

    1. Re:The Legacy of Einstein by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      -- However, voila, most Nobel prizes go to experimentalists. And that is the way it should be. Physics is an experimental science. If you cannot measure it, it ain't.--

      Ahhh!!!! Ye olde "experimentalist" vs."theorist" argument of physical relevance. Perhaps if you're an experimentalist and you can't measure it, you need to devise a way to do so ;? Just because you cannot measure it doesn't mean it ain't. Measurable theories are easier to digest, but A. Einstein was not a big fan of QM, and it certainly *is*; And the depths of it's *is-ness* is theoretically based.

      Not meaning to be a troll -- but experimentalists test theory, and theorists learn from the results of the experimentalist. The two are wed, whether they like it or not (I think they like it!).

      Just my two pence.