Most Nobel Prize Winners by Country and University

[Monique]

It would be interesting to speculate on how the "second rate high schools" feed the "world class graduate schools" after only four years. Boy there must be something terrific about US unsergraduate education!

But.. in these world class graduate schools, what is the ratio of American citizens to foreigners? Is it something about the education prior to graduate school that makes it good, or is something outside that that makes it good?

 

[FZ+]

What do you think when people say that America is a society based on exclusivism and inequality, shown in its educational system?

Probably, yes. If we combine the two threads (US has highest Nobel winners, but low levels of literacy on average, and a low proportional number of winners), we do get the impression that the US educational system stretches out the sample, creating a sort of smart/dumb rift in society. The best get better than average treatment, and the worst get neglected. Let's not even get started about the rise of creationism...

But it doesn't tell us whether an essentially elitist scheme is right, or not. The same evidence can be used to suggest that elitism 'works'. With the UK, it may be possible to blame the drop on the new emphasis to offer good education to all, rather than superb education to a select few. The figures as always offer many interpretations. Sociology is an inexact science.

 

[Monique]

Right, I think that is a major difference too: 'good education to all, rather than superb education to a select few'.

 

[huazi]

Are you sure you've got your numbers straight?

Cambridge have way more nobel prize winners than 23! Just Trinity college only had 31 nobel winners.

Have a look at the Cambridge University offical website for nobel winners:
http://www.cam.ac.uk/cambuniv/nobelprize.html

 

[Kurdt]

This is an interesting thread and I'd just like to point out another point I think is important. The drop in European nobel prize winners in the latter half of the twentieth century is probably due to the effect the second world war had on the countries involved. A lot of European countries had crippling war debts and severe infrastructure damage while the US was relatively unscathed. The UK still had to pay the US back for the weapons we'd 'loaned' during the war years.

Also when Germany finally surrendered a lot of top German scientists went to the US to continue their work there. Along with those other European scientists that had fled (many being pacifists) to the safe haven of the US before the war and after it.

So for the damaged European countries it was also very easy for them to stem money to higher education and channel it into the more needy rebuilding of infrastructure. The European economy has really just recovered so it will be interesting to see these stats again in 50 years to see if they go the other way or not.

 

[Gokul43201]

Does anyone have the stats? I think that before WOII European countries were infact getting more nobel prizes than the US and that this all changed after WOII due to the reason I mentioned.

A partial answer : The physics prize until the war (1901-1939), by country :

Germany - 10
UK - 10
USA - 6
France - 4
Netherlands - 4
Austria - 2
Italy - 2
Sweden - 2
Switzerland - 2
Denmark - 1
India - 1

Odd numbers, it seems, were not very popular!

Also, I suspect the Dutch word for 'war' begins with the letter O.

 

[loseyourname]

Jesus guys, this died two years ago.

Which is actually kind of hard to believe. I remember this thread like it happened yesterday.

Do you have numbers on how that changed specific to physics after the war, Gokul?

To Huazi, I'd like to say BlackVision's numbers were limited to the sciences, but his links aren't working any longer and he's been gone for a while now.

 

[J77]

I couldn't see it mentioned...

Nowadays, the reason for all the US winners is that the universities over there are very rich and can employ these great scientists from all over the world.

 

[Kurdt]

I didn't realize it was so old I apologise for starting it off again.

 

[Gokul43201]

Do you have numbers on how that changed specific to physics after the war, Gokul?

After the war (1943 -1970) : Physics Prize by Country*

USA - 23
Former USSR - 6
Germany - 5
UK - 5
France - 2
Japan - 2
Netherlands - 1
Sweden - 1
Denmark - 1

* Note : Both here, and in the previous list, I've listed the country where the Prize-winning work was done, not the country of birth. This is denoted by the label "Work Affiliation" (WA) - by the Nobel Prize website.

But short of doing a recount by country of birth, I'd say that over half the US Prize-winners were born in the US (eg : Bardeen, Brattain, Shockley, Lamb, Feynman, Schwinger, Gell-Mann - off the top of my head).

<more later>

 

[RealmDire]

Cambridge have way more nobel prize winners than 23! Just Trinity college only had 31 nobel winners.

Have a look at the Cambridge University offical website for nobel winners:
http://www.cam.ac.uk/cambuniv/nobelprize.html

The criteria that Cambridge uses on their website to count Nobel Prize is different than the criteria used on the first post. The criteria used on the first post seem to count only current staff members at the time instead of those that have been affiliates with the university at the past.