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Americans Win 2006 Nobel Physics Prize
Davemania writes "CNN reports that the Nobel Prize in Physics has been award to John C. Mather and George F. Smoot for their contribution to the big-bang Theory." From the article: "Their work was based on measurements done with the help of the NASA-launched COBE satellite in 1989. They were able to observe the universe in its early stages about 380,000 years after it was born. Ripples in the light they detected also helped demonstrate how galaxies came together over time. 'The very detailed observations that the laureates have carried out from the COBE satellite have played a major role in the development of modern cosmology into a precise science,' the academy said in its citation." If you're interested, you can read a rundown on the prize-winning work (pdf) provided by the prize organization.
So all 4 Nobel winners this year so far have been Americans. Brain drain?! Bah!
Of course, the true test will be to see if we can keep it up in a few years.
Americans winning the Nobel Peace Prize...
Can we PLEASE get a "-1 Stupid" mod option?
To the folks that flagged my post as flamebait, one thought. Sure, you could see that post as flamebait I suppose, so I'm not arguing that.
What I wonder is whether you believe that this is a political issue or not. Science has been "fighting" with religion for centuries. Do you think that fight is over?
In an age where some stem cell research is banned for religious reasons, managing only to drive the research overseas, is it wise to ignore the battle between science and religion?
In an age where religious zealots hold positions of power in the US gov't and advocate that Israel occupy all of the lands they did in the Bible because that will help speed Christ's second coming (read: religion as US foreign policy), or where gov't scientists are forbidden from speaking about their reseach in a number of areas -- solely for political and/or religious grounds, or where the so-called "Plan B" pill was held up for years not due to medical or scientific or legal reasons -- but instead because of someone's religious views, I have a blunt question: Is your strategy to oppose such religious extremism, or is your strategy simply to surrender the battle between science and religion?
Uh, actually, you need to adjust for relativity. In the frame of reference of the observers giving out this award, we're a couple of decades back. That is, they don't give out nobel prizes for something that happened this year, they give them out for things that have stood for a while and had impact etc.
Consequently, I think you meant to say: Of course, the true test will be to see if we kept it up for a few years subsequent to 1989. We should already know the answer to that. I'm sure we're still doing good work. But are we keeping pace with the tremendous degree of investment in math and science abroad? I bet the Nobels that are given a decade or two from now will be clear on that. It's a matter of national pride for many countries. But here, we have "No Child Left Behind", which sounds good on paper but often plays out as "No Child Gets Ahead" -- lest it be "unfair" to someone. It's politically unsafe here to suggest that it's worth investing in our high end at the expense of our low end, and that's going to trend badly toward the middle. Other countries are not thus hampered.
MIT recently opened a research center in Singapore. I suspect the next thing we'll hear is that it's headquarters has moved--for convenience. And then finally, that the largely unused Cambridge center is being mothballed as a quaint relic, perhaps turned into a science museum. And perhaps after that protests may ensue, more over lost jobs or unfair treatment than the question of how our nation's leaders sold us out. No one worries about that.
The problem is that US politics sees everything as one-place predicates. Politicians like education. They like the environment. They like kids. It's easy to like things when you don't have to make hard choices, and all our public dialog is framed about people voting for X or not voting for X. Politicians don't talk about choices, about comparisons, about 2-place predicates that put one thing up against another. No one says "When it came to X vs Y, I chose Y." That alienates voters. Voters want the fictionalized choice that you can have it all, that all choices/votes are independent of one another, and that no choice or policy robs another. They don't want honesty, so politicians don't sell it. And then the policies the voters have elected don't work. We'll spend a billion dollars to keep a few from getting attacked when the same billion would save many more lives if spent on food, health care, jobs, or education.
I'm not against less intelligent kids. I don't want to hold them back. BUT the more intelligent kids will be making the money that will pay for the welfare, the head start, etc. that the less intelligent ones need. And if push comes to shove, I know where I'd put money to make sure we still have money in the future. Any business person knows it. You invest in the "low-hanging fruit", the "easy mark", the people who are poised to succeed. And no, that doesn't mean the rich kids--this isn't about class. There are smart kids and dumb kids in the same family. There are smart poor kids and dumb rich kids. We need to figure out which ones are going to succeed and invest in them. And if we don't start investing in science, instead of kidding ourselves that investing in Creationism is the same thing, we'll be rightly pushed aside by other countries, who know that our kind of nonsense/nonscience is not what business is hiring. If it hasn't happened already.
I'm not trying to troll this forum. I think this is on topic since the headline says "Americans win...", so it's clear that some of this story is about who won, about American national pride and implicitly about American national investment in doing it again. And I have strong opinions on this.
Kent M Pitman
Philosopher, Technologist, Writer
Sure thing, we're working on it. By the way, let us know when religion explains anything.
kurzweil_freak
5th Kyu Genbukan Ninpo/KJJR student
Be the darkness that allows the light to shine.
Read these two articles and get back to me http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2006/scien ce-vs-religion-part-2/
http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/kellmeyer/05081 5
Religion and Science can co-exist but you seem to want them to be in opposition all the time.