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Tech Billionaires Award Top Scientists $25 Million In 'Breakthrough' Prizes (fortune.com)
Tonight at NASA's Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, Morgan Freeman emceed a glamorous, Oscars-style celebration that recognizes scientific achievements with money from tech billionaires.
An anonymous reader writes:
Donors for the Breakthrough Prize included Google's Sergey Brin, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan, Alibaba founder Jack Ma and his wife Cathy Zhang, and billionaire venture capitalist Yuri Milner, according to an article in Fortune. TechCrunch has a list of the winners, which included Princeton math professor Jean Bourgain, who won a $3 million prize "for his many contributions to high-dimensional geometry, number theory, and many other theoretical contributions."
Three more physics researchers -- two from Harvard, and one from U.C. Santa Barbara -- will share a $3 million prize recognizing "meaningful advances in string theory, quantum field theory, and quantum gravity." And another $1 million prize honored the leaders of three teams responsible for "collaborative research on gravitational waves and its implications for physics and astronomy," with another $2 million to be shared among the 1,012 members of their research groups.
17-year-old Deanna See from Singapore also won the $250,000 "Breakthrough Junior Challenge" prize -- and more money for her teachers and school -- for her video about antibiotic-resistant superbugs. Google has created a special page where you can read more about some of the other winners.
Three more physics researchers -- two from Harvard, and one from U.C. Santa Barbara -- will share a $3 million prize recognizing "meaningful advances in string theory, quantum field theory, and quantum gravity." And another $1 million prize honored the leaders of three teams responsible for "collaborative research on gravitational waves and its implications for physics and astronomy," with another $2 million to be shared among the 1,012 members of their research groups.
17-year-old Deanna See from Singapore also won the $250,000 "Breakthrough Junior Challenge" prize -- and more money for her teachers and school -- for her video about antibiotic-resistant superbugs. Google has created a special page where you can read more about some of the other winners.
These are fairly specialized areas.
How about a prize that more people would be able to compete for, let's say, the most amusing post on the Internet?
No, not TO them... They are the ones donating the money to the scientists :)
Indeed! Should RTFS before posting ...
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
to make themselves feel good. Gotcha. Pats on the back all 'round then.
And in 2016 america gave the NFL 25 billion.
I don't get this. Why would anyone want to give people that are billionaires more cash?
Are they not far enough into the 1%er category?
Try reading that again.
won't live in infamy.
It is a yearly prize so not a one-time donation.
And this quote from Milner is spot on:
'Milner, who studied physics before making his fortune on various high-profile Internet ventures, said itâ(TM)s a shame that scientists generally receive less recognition from the public than movie stars, musicians, and other celebrities. âoeThis is out of balance quite a bit compared to the influence that fundamental science has on our lives,â '
It's not emceed! It's short for master of ceremonies.
Why bother? Go Gauchos!!!
Many of these areas don't get much recognition outside of their academic sphere. This seems like a great way to give greater recognition.
While multi dimensional geometry could be regarded as a separate discipline, dimensions themselves does not exist. It is mere an abstraction created by an observer.
A sphere makes a perfect sense in a in this Universe, while a 3D sphere is an utter nonsense. Of course, one could describe such an abstraction in as a mathematical object, but it will be mere an abstraction, like Hegelian ones. It does not exist outside people's heads.
All the billions years of this planet never revealed a single dimension. All the geometry we have in proteins is based on the notion of 3D spheres - a notion of the same distance in all possible dimensions (given that there is no such thing as dimension).
Same logic could be applied to refute any string theory sectarian nonsense, given that just one single contradiction is enough. Non-existence of time as a phenomena is enough to destroy all the space-time curvature mathematical or rather Hegelian crap.
But who cares.
...it would be better to start paying for research by paying their fair share of taxes. Oh, and stop giving much bigger donations to lobby groups like ALEC that undermine funding for scientific research and promote climate change denial.
Got that right. Mod the parent up!
The video (mentioned in the summary) gave(?) me hope for the future. I am glad she was rewarded for it.
There is *nothing* meaningful about string theory.
Could you at least tell me why I was modded down for the claim that untestable theories are not science? It is not a controversial claim among scientists.
It is a bit complicated. Basically, the top universities mass-produce hundreds of thousands of graduates each year. Of course, not each one of them would be able to discover a new fundamental law or principle, but they must be utilized somehow, so, like in organized religions, unverifiable (non falsifiable) dogmas has been socially constructed, so these 'scientists' could write their papers, get their grants, continuing their so called "research". Al long as "scientific community" gets its money and fame it does not really matter what is written in these papers. At least in the most of them. You would be surprised how few of these papers are worth reading, because they contain nothing but a joggling of socially agreed abstract terminology. This is exactly what a theology is. As long as you stay within a socially constructed boundaries of what is accepted, one could write any nonsense he wishes. Have you ever thought how many volumes has been written under this or that organized religion? The social mechanisms are the same.
Basically, the top universities mass-produce hundreds of thousands of graduates each year.
There are only about 250k PhDs awarded globally each year, and only about 40% of that is in the sciences (jumps up to 60-70% if you include engineering)... so how exactly do you define "top universities"?
not each one of them would be able to discover a new fundamental law or principle,...so these 'scientists' could write their papers, get their grants, continuing their so called "research"
Except there is no requirement or expectation that every scientist will find a new fundamental law, and the vast majority of them don't even work for grants.
As long as you stay within a socially constructed boundaries of what is accepted, one could write any nonsense he wishes.
Except for the vast majority requiring to make something physically work, whether paid for by a company or grant.
It is kind of difficult to be taken seriously when trying to attack whole fields as being baseless when you're just pulling numbers and generalizations out of your own ass...
> generalizations out of your own ass...
Sociology, or the science of social formations, being not exact nevertheless captures certain patterns. The comparison with theology and clergy which you have deliberately avoided to cite, is example of similar social developments, which describes what is going on in so called theoretical sciences very accurately. Certainly good enough for a discussion forum.
Donors for the Breakthrough Prize included [H1-b supporters], [hell-hole family], [other un-American individuals]....
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.