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Physics Nobel Won By Laser Wizardry -- Laureates Include First Woman in 55 Years (nature.com)
A trio of laser scientists have won the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics for their work using intense beams to capture superfast processes and to manipulate tiny objects. From a report: The laureates include Donna Strickland, who is the first woman to win the award in 55 years. Strickland, at the University of Waterloo, Canada, will share half the 9 million Swedish krona (US$1 million) prize with her former supervisor, Gerard Mourou, from the Ecole Polytechnique, in Palaiseau, France. The other half of the prize went to Arthur Ashkin, of Bell Laboratories in Holmdel, New Jersey.
Strickland and Mourou pioneered a way to produce the shortest, most intense pulses of light ever created, which are now used throughout science to unravel processes that previously appeared instantaneous, such as the motion of electrons within atoms, as well as in laser-eye surgery. Ashkin won the prize for his pioneering development of 'optical tweezers', beams of laser light that can grab and control microscopic objects such as viruses and cells. Further reading: The Guardian.
Strickland and Mourou pioneered a way to produce the shortest, most intense pulses of light ever created, which are now used throughout science to unravel processes that previously appeared instantaneous, such as the motion of electrons within atoms, as well as in laser-eye surgery. Ashkin won the prize for his pioneering development of 'optical tweezers', beams of laser light that can grab and control microscopic objects such as viruses and cells. Further reading: The Guardian.
she will never know if she was really worthy of it, or just a diversity token.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
"Gender doesn't matter! Everyone is exactly the same as everyone else!"
Yet we're constantly having "I'm a woman therefore my accomplishments are special!"
If gender doesn't matter, why is it constantly thrown in our faces?
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Yet we're constantly having "I'm a woman therefore my accomplishments are special!"
You seem to be mistaking an argument for equality for an argument for preference. Perhaps you would understand if your accomplishments were dismissed as unimportant because of your skin color or age or gender or some other irrelevant bit of your physiology rather than the quality of your ideas. Women aren't arguing for special treatment. They are arguing for EQUAL treatment. It only sounds like a call for "special" treatment to people who are missing the point.
If gender doesn't matter, why is it constantly thrown in our faces?
Gender SHOULDN'T matter for topics like this yet It DOES matter because too many people (like yourself) make it matter in the wrong places. Gender is supposed to matter in some circumstances but physics isn't one of them. It is really hard to explain why there hasn't been a single woman worthy of a Nobel prize in Physics in over a half century without invoking some amount of sexism in the explanation. Maybe unintentional sexism but sexism all the same. They don't deserve the award because of their gender but they also shouldn't be excluded from it because of their gender either. Sexism is real and if you think fighting against it is "throwing it in your face" then you are part of the problem.
People do not get that fundamental physics is over
Yeah yeah, people were making this bullshit argument centuries ago.
(you would not call seriously "string theory" "scientific" would you?).
As long as it make predictions that can be empirically tested then of course I would.
I know I am repeating what Lord Kelvin said to his embarrassment just before great discoveries in relativistic physics, quantum physics, etc.
And he was just as wrong as you are.
The clear indication that we are close to the limit is absence of ANY fundamental discoveries since a long time ago.
What are you babbling about? You are in a scientific golden age for discoveries. Furthermore we have well known holes in our knowledge of fundamental physics. We have no way to reconcile gravity to quantum mechanics. We can't explain large amounts of seemingly missing matter in the universe. Just because we're not rolling out a new theory of special relativity every other week doesn't mean we've explained everything. It was literally centuries between Newton and Einstein but the only reason Einstein's work was such a breakthrough was because of a LOT of important work done in time between the two men.
Call them for what they are: Nobel Prizes in Technology
You seem to have a huge misapprehension. Physics only advances when we can built devices to test our theories independent of human senses. Theories are fine but they are meaningless without the tools to verify them. Furthermore we cannot refine our theories without the data from these tools which inform us how the world actually behaves. A theory of gravity waves is meaningless unless you have some tool to test for their existence. Physics isn't just blackboards and chalk.
Allow me to continue this list.
Henry Kissinger - For ending a war he started ... well, basically for keeping its members from killing each other for over 60 years, this is indeed impressive considering their history, I give 'em that.
The EU - For
Al Gore - For producing a lot of hot air that allegedly cools the planet
Jimmy Carter - For trying. Really hard.
United Nations - For wrapping the global big players in so much red tape that they can't wage war sensibly anymore.
David Trimble and John Hume - For not shooting each other anymore. As a side note, anyone available for starting a civil war we could then end? I'm asking for a friend.
International Campaign to Ban Landmines - For making landmines magically disappear. Except the few that make people disappear instead every year.
Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat - For bringing peace to the middle east. Just in case anyone was still wondering whether this Prize is a joke.
Mikhail Gorbachev - Mostly for not being Josef Stalin
United Nations Peace-Keeping Forces - Basically for being the good natured idiot that gets into the struggle of two bullies, with the express intention that they should kick the idiot instead of each other.
Lech Wasa - For founding a union, but being considerate enough to do it in a country we do NOT like.
Mother Teresa - For making poverty and pain something to celebrate
Menachem Begin and Mohamed Anwar Al-Sadat - See Peres/Rabin/Arafat.
Andrei Sakharov - For pissing off the Commies
Willy Brandt - For not wanting East Germany back.
International Labour Organization - Fuck knows why
Martin Luther King, Jr. - For being the peaceful nig.... Unlike that Malcolm guy we didn't like.
George C. Marshall - For finding a way to sell US goods and calling it aid
Carlos Saavedra Lamas - For ending a war nobody gave a fuck about. But find someone else who gave a fuck about peace in 1936
Carl von Ossietzky - For not being a Nazi
And a few more I didn't find anything to write about.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.