Who Will Win the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics?

[robphy]

While Askin was key to developing optical tweezer technology, many biophysicsts (principally, Steven Block at Stanford and Carlos Bustamante at Berkeley) have been at the forefront of applying optical tweezer technology to the study of biological systems (indeed, their work is cited heavily in the Nobel prize material describing the applications of optical tweezers).

In fact, one could make a strong argument that a prize for optical tweezers and their application to biological systems probably should have been its own prize to Ashkin, Block and Bustamante. .

https://www.ibiology.org/talks/optical-traps/

 

[bob012345]

I'm glad this prize was about technology and usefulness and not about something so esoteric even most educated people couldn't begin to comprehend it.

 

[HAYAO]

I'm glad this prize was about technology and usefulness and not about something so esoteric even most educated people couldn't begin to comprehend it.

I would've been fine with either.

 

[Orodruin]

I would've been fine with either.

I agree, I think both types of prizes are ultimately very important and in the spirit of Alfred Nobel's will. However, it has been some time since there was last a physics prize to an invention of this sort as the last couple of years have been full of very important discoveries in fundamental physics.

 

[bob012345]

The Nobel awards one million dollars. The Wolf prize (my favorite since the term Wolf Laureate just sounds neat) awards one tenth that amount. There is an opportunity to create a prize either greater than a Nobel or in between. I wonder why the U.S. has never created an American Prize even greater than the Nobel?
.

 

[Orodruin]

The Nobel awards one million dollars. The Wolf prize (my favorite since the term Wolf Laureate just sounds neat) awards one tenth that amount. There is an opportunity to create a prize either greater than a Nobel or in between. I wonder why the U.S. has never created an American Prize even greater than the Nobel?

I do not think you can just create a prize that awards more money and call it "greater". The prize money is of course a nice touch, but if you ask the laureates what meant the most to them, I am pretty sure that the recognition and prestige would come first. Sure, you can throw in the money and make a huge prize, but the Nobel Prize would still have a head start of over 100 years of history and tradition.

 

[bob012345]

I do not think you can just create a prize that awards more money and call it "greater". The prize money is of course a nice touch, but if you ask the laureates what meant the most to them, I am pretty sure that the recognition and prestige would come first. Sure, you can throw in the money and make a huge prize, but the Nobel Prize would still have a head start of over 100 years of history and tradition.

Yes, that's true but if the new prize was known to be administered by the best minds in American science and the prize large, the prestige would grow. The Wolf prize has only been around since the late 70's. There could be an added incentive such as any American Prize winner could just walk into the best American institutions and be given whatever they want.

 

[Ygggdrasil]

The Nobel awards one million dollars. The Wolf prize (my favorite since the term Wolf Laureate just sounds neat) awards one tenth that amount. There is an opportunity to create a prize either greater than a Nobel or in between. I wonder why the U.S. has never created an American Prize even greater than the Nobel?

The Breakthrough Prize gives a 3 million dollar award to its laureates. Some of the awards seem to be going to scientists initially passed over for Nobels (e.g. this year's award to Jocelyn Bell Burnell)

 

[Orodruin]

Yes, that's true but if the new prize was known to be administered by the best minds in American science and the prize large, the prestige would grow.

You seem to assume that there would be some inherent additional prestige in the "best minds in American science". I do not think that this is true.

There could be an added incentive such as any American Prize winner could just walk into the best American institutions and be given whatever they want.

Institutions would never agree to that.

 

[mfb]

The Fields medal is - together with the Abel prize - the most prestigious award in mathematics, with a prize money of just ~$10,000.

Yes, that's true but if the new prize was known to be administered by the best minds in American science and the prize large, the prestige would grow. The Wolf prize has only been around since the late 70's. There could be an added incentive such as any American Prize winner could just walk into the best American institutions and be given whatever they want.

A national prize will never get the reputation of the big international prizes. And that reward is unrealistic as well.

 

[atyy]

Texas Monthly had an article about Jim Allison a few years back.
https://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/jim-allison-and-the-search-for-the-cure-for-cancer/

 

[dlgoff]

Worth noting that Donna Strickland is Canadian too!

And her BS was in Engineering Physics. Oh yea.

 

[Ygggdrasil]

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2018 with one half to Frances H. Arnold ”for the directed evolution of enzymes” and the other half jointly to George P. Smith and Sir Gregory P. Winter ”for the phage display of peptides and antibodies”.

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/2018/press-release/

Definitely a well deserved prize. Both techniques are very useful and are widely used in a number of applications.

 

[diogenesNY]

Some fun with Nobel Numbers:

The cash prize that goes along with the Nobel is 9,000,000 Swedish Krona/Kronor (SEK)
this is just shy of $1 million USD

Between 1901 and 2017, the Nobel Prizes and the Prize in Economic Sciences were awarded 585 times

• Awards: 585
• Laureates: 923
• Prize categories: 6
• Awarded women: 48
• Awarded organisations: 48
• Average age: 60
• Youngest laureate: 17
• Oldest laureate: 90

Nobel information from https://www.nobelprize.org/
currency rates from https://finance.yahoo.com/currency-converter?.tsrc=fin-srch

diogenesNY

 

[mfb]

Oldest laureate: 90

Arthur Ashkin is 96 and will get the prize in December.

 

[bob012345]

Arthur Ashkin is 96 and will get the prize in December.

I had a cousin in the U.K. who received an earned doctorate when he was 94 but he didn't get to practice his field very long.