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Francois Englert and Peter W. Higgs Awarded Nobel Prize For Boson Discovery
The 2013 Nobel season is underway. Reader rtoz writes "Francois Englert and Peter W. Higgs won the 2013 Nobel Prize For Physics. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences cited the two scientists for the 'theoretical discovery of a mechanism that contributes to our understanding of the origin of mass of subatomic particles.'" Update: 10/08 13:18 GMT by T : More Nobel news: The New York Times reports that "Three Americans won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine on Monday for discovering the machinery that regulates how cells transport major molecules in a cargo system that delivers them to the right place at the right time." The three are James E. Rothman, Randy W. Schekman; and Dr. Thomas C. Südhof, of Yale, UC Berkeley, and Stanford, respectively.
The Goddamn Particle can now safely be renamed into The Belgium Particle :)
Anyone who thinks the God particle is not worthy of a Nobel Prize is an idiot. Of course it won right away after validation. There are not many fundamental scientific discoveries that give us a glimpse right into the mind of the Creator of our universe.
Please leave the religious stuff elsewhere, slashdot is not a fertile place for fairy tales.
They gave the peace prize to that piece of shit nigger obama for christ sake.
Leaving racist rant aside, scientific Nobel pizes are serious, non-scientific prizes (peace, literature or even economy) are not in the same level of credibility, by any means.
slashdot is not a fertile place for fairy tales.
Unless the fairy tale contains Bill Gates, RMS or John McAfee. Slashdot loves these.
From my engineering and therefore amateur physicist POV, their works look very well written, have a HUGE impact and is the experiments confirm their hypothesis giving birth to a very solid theory. They deserve their recognition. Plus Peter Higgs is already 84 years old and he doesn't look in shape either, who knows how many years he will be with us. Better give his Nobel prize now than never. Even if there are some holes left, he deserves the Nobel prize more than certain politicians.
The Economy prize is technically not a Nobel Prize. It is a prize from Sweden's national bank that is just piggybacking on the Nobel prizes, leeching on its reputation.
The official title is "Sveriges Riksbank's Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel".
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
and simply another political stunt by the Nobel committee. Higgs did not want the award. There were at least five researchers all with equally significant contributions to the eventual theory. Yet because the award can only go to at most three, they decided to drop the other three researchers (two alive). Some even claim the total should be six. One wonders if they had called the presumed particle "dog" whether Higgs would have been awarded the prize.
This is most definitely a case where giving no prize was more appropriate. They could even recognize the significance of the research by public statement and lament that it would be unfair to try to separate this group into winners and losers. But the committee better figure something out because this kind of problem is going to be the norm, not the exception. The age of one or two scientists making such an outsized contribution to standout from the rest of their (or other) research groups is over.
>>>>Leaving racist rant aside, scientific Nobel pizes are serious, non-scientific prizes (peace, literature or even economy) are not in the same level of credibility, by any means.
Isn't that kind of like saying, "I don't like the Nazis, but you know some of the things they did are ok"?
No, it's more like saying "I'm going to rise above your trolling ass whilst correcting you"
soylentnews.org
I guess it'll be appropriate when they award JK Rowling the Literature prize for the Harry Potter sequel she's going to write in 2019.
Well...I almost hate to say it, but the franchise is actually ripe for prequel stories: The Founding of Hogwarts (four books right there - one for each of the founding members); Tales of James and Lilly Potter, Dumbledore, Lucius, Snape, etc, when they were in school. Beauxbatons, and Durmstrang and how they got started.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Please don't get confuse by a nickname that a particle happens to have. In this context, the "God Particle" is a pleasant PG-rated version of the original nickname "the Goddamn Particle." Your claim makes about as much sense as for example someone claiming that general relativity somehow supports moral relativism. Similar sounding words aren't automatically connected.
I'm pretty sure their ages (Higgs is 84 and Englert is 80) also factored in to the decision to recognize them this year. Since the Nobel prize comes with money attached, it's better to award them now, while they are able to appreciate it.
Except he was the only one pushing for war with Syria. "Trying but failing to launch a pointless unprovoked attack" is still not grounds for a peace prize.
Money aside, a Nobel *cannot* be award posthumously. It's one of the rules.
We have British Parliament to thank for keeping us out of Syria. Their vote against military action in Syria was what turned the tide. It had nothing to do with Obama. I think British Parliament is worthy of a peace prize for their actions.
You talking about the Books of John, Paul, George and Ringo? :P
No colour or religion ever stopped the bullet from a gun
You do know that the reason it is called the 'God Particle' is that the publisher wouldn't print 'God-damned Particle' which is what they were calling it because of how hard it was to find.
In this Belgian journal article (dutch), he mentions he is sorry his colleague Robert Brout can not share and celebrate with him. He died in 2011.