In Finnegan's Wake...

Murray Gell-Mann won the 1969 Nobel Prize in Physics.Credit: Santa Fe Institute

Topics: Nobel Laureate, Nobel Prize, Particle Physics, Quarks, Standard Model, Theoretical Physics

The Nobel Prize in Physics 1969 was awarded to Murray Gell-Mann "for his contributions and discoveries concerning the classification of elementary particles and their interactions."

The Nobel Prize in Physics 1969. NobelPrize.org. Nobel Media AB 2019. Wed. 29 May 2019. < https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1969/summary/ >

Murray Gell-Mann, one of the founders of modern particle physics, died on 24 May, aged 89. Gell-Mann’s most influential contribution was to propose the theory of quarks — fundamental particles that make up most ordinary matter.

To bring order to a plethora of recently discovered subatomic particles, in 1961 Gell-Mann proposed a set of rules based on symmetries in the fundamental forces of nature. The rules classified subatomic particles called hadrons into eight groups, a scheme he named the eightfold way in a reference to Buddhist philosophy.

In 1964, he realized that such rules would naturally arise if the particles were composed of two, three or more fundamental particles, held together by the strong nuclear force. (US–Russian physicist George Zweig came to the same conclusion independently in the same year.) Protons and neutrons, for example, would be made up of three of these more fundamental particles, which Gell-Man named quarks, inspired by a quote — “Three quarks for Muster Mark!” — from James Joyce’s 1939 novel Finnegan's Wake. [1]

Quarks and Leptons are the building blocks which build up matter, i.e., they are seen as the "elementary particles". In the present standard model, there are six "flavors" of quarks. They can successfully account for all known mesons and baryons (over 200). The most familiar baryons are the proton and neutron, which are each constructed from up and down quarks. Quarks are observed to occur only in combinations of two quarks (mesons), three quarks (baryons). There was a recent claim of observation of particles with five quarks (pentaquark), but further experimentation has not borne it out. [2]

1. Murray Gell-Mann, father of quarks, dies - US physicist was one of the chief architects of the standard model of particle physics. Davide Castelvecchi, Nature
2. Hyperphysics: Quarks

2017 Nobel Prize Economic Sciences...

Image Source: Scroll.in and NobelPrize.org

Topics: Economics, Nobel Laureate, Nobel Prize

The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2017 was awarded to Richard H. Thaler "for his contributions to behavioural economics".

Integrating economics with psychology

Richard H. Thaler has incorporated psychologically realistic assumptions into analyses of economic decision-making. By exploring the consequences of limited rationality, social preferences, and lack of self-control, he has shown how these human traits systematically affect individual decisions as well as market outcomes.

Link: 2017 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel

2017 Nobel Peace Prize...

Image Source: Daily Mirror
Original: Ill: N. Elmehed. © Nobel Media 2017

Topics: Nobel Laureate, Nobel Prize, Peace


I can't think of a more timely and apropos prize for the current zeitgeist. I hope it has impact.

The Nobel Peace Prize 2017 was awarded to International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) "for its work to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and for its ground-breaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition of such weapons".

Link: Nobel Peace Prize

2017 Nobel Prize Literature...

Image Link: Source below

Topics: Literature, Nobel Laureate, Nobel Prize

The Nobel Prize in Literature for 2017 is awarded to Kazuo Ishiguro "who, in novels of great emotional force, has uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world".

Link: Nobel Prize Literature

2017 Nobel Prize Chemistry...

Image Source: Link below

Topics: Chemistry, Nobel Laureate, Nobel Prize

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2017 was awarded to Jacques Dubochet, Joachim Frank and Richard Henderson "for developing cryo-electron microscopy for the high-resolution structure determination of biomolecules in solution".

Link: Nobel Prize Chemistry

2017 Nobel Prize Physics...

Image Source: Link below

Topics: Nobel Laureate, Nobel Prize, Physics

The Nobel Prize in Physics 2017 was divided, one half awarded to Rainer Weiss, the other half jointly to Barry C. Barish and Kip S. Thorne "for decisive contributions to the LIGO detector and the observation of gravitational waves".

Link: Nobel Prize in Physics

2017 Nobel Prize Physiology or Medicine...

Image Source: Link below

Topics: Nobel Laureate, Nobel Prize

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2017 was awarded to Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael W. Young "for their discoveries of molecular mechanisms controlling the circadian rhythm".

Link: Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

Happy Hallowing...

Mutant flies are scary things, as victims of The Fly can attest. Happy Hallowing!
20th Century Fox/The Kobal Collection at Art Resource, NY

Topics: Biology, Humor, Nobel Laureate, Nobel Prize, Science Fiction

During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens and the shades of evening drew on, a sense of insufferable gloom fell on geneticist Michael O’Connor. He was looking at decaying embryos of fruit flies in his lab that had mutations in genes known as disembodiment and ghost, mummy and haunted, shroud and phantom, spook and shadow. There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart—an unredeemed dreariness of thought which no goading of the imagination could torture into aught of the sublime, when it came to him with a power that lies beyond our depth. “These are Halloween genes!” he declared, trembling at the realization that he had coined a catchy scientific phrase. And from that shadowy day forward in the late 1990s, so they have been known far and wide.

OK, that’s not exactly what happened, and apologies to Edgar Allan Poe. But O’Connor, who heads the genetics department at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis did dub disembodiment, ghost, and their creepy, ghoulish kin “Halloween genes.” In what became an iconic image—in his lab at least—one of the postdocs, Marcela Chavez, drew a fly on a witch’s broom. A native Spanish speaker, Chavez remembers cracking everyone up at one lab meeting when a misspelling in her presentation read “Hallowing” genes.

The identification and naming of the genes themselves came out of a massive screen for mutants in the fly embryonic genome that led to the Nobel Prize in 1995. One of the winners, Ed Lewis, was a friend of O’Connor’s. “Ed was a big Halloween person,” O’Connor says. “He’d spend all year making his Halloween costumes.” A fan of Belgian surrealist René Magritte, Lewis would dress as characters from his paintings, including the man in a leopard print caveman garb holding a barbell in Perpetual Motion and the man with a birdcage chest and straw hat in The Therapist.

Science: A gory tale behind the origin of ‘Halloween genes’, Jon Cohen

Nobel Prize 2016 Literature...

Image Source: an ironically titled 2011 article on Salon.com:
"Why Bob Dylan won't win the Nobel Prize" by Kevin Canfield

Topics: Literature, Nobel Laureate, Nobel Prize

Press Release

13 October 2016

The Nobel Prize in Literature 2016

Bob Dylan

The Nobel Prize in Literature for 2016 is awarded to Bob Dylan

“for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition”.

Bob Dylan was born on May 24, 1941 in Duluth, Minnesota. He grew up in a Jewish middle class family in the city of Hibbing. As a teenager he played in various bands and with time his interest in music deepened, with a particular passion for American folk music and blues. One of his idols was the folk singer Woody Guthrie. He was also influenced by the early authors of the Beat Generation, as well as by modernist poets.

Dylan moved to New York in 1961 and began to perform in clubs and cafés in Greenwich Village. He met the record producer John Hammond with whom he signed a contract for his debut album, called Bob Dylan (1962). In the following years he recorded a number of albums which have had a tremendous impact on popular music: Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited in 1965, Blonde On Blonde in 1966 and Blood On The Tracks in 1975. His productivity continued in the following decades, resulting in masterpieces like Oh Mercy (1989), Time Out Of Mind (1997) and Modern Times (2006).

Dylan’s tours in 1965 and 1966 attracted a lot of attention. For a period he was accompanied by film maker D. A. Pennebaker, who documented life around the stage in what would come to be the movie Don't Look Back (1967). Dylan has recorded a large number of albums revolving around topics like the social conditions of man, religion, politics and love. The lyrics have continuously been published in new editions, under the title Lyrics. As an artist, he is strikingly versatile; he has been active as painter, actor and scriptwriter.

"The Nobel Prize in Literature 2016 - Press Release". Nobelprize.org. Nobel Media AB 2014. Web. 13 Oct 2016
< http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2016/press.html >

Nobel Prize 2016 Economics...

Image Source: Twitter@Nobel Prize

Topics: Economics, Nobel Laureate, Nobel Prize

October 3: Physiology or Medicine
October 4: Physics
October 5: Chemistry
October 7: Peace
October 10: Economic Sciences

Press Release: The Prize in Economic Sciences 2016
10 October 2016

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2016 to

Oliver Hart

Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

and

Bengt Holmström

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA

“for their contributions to contract theory”

The long and the short of contracts

Modern economies are held together by innumerable contracts. The new theoretical tools created by Hart and Holmström are valuable to the understanding of real-life contracts and institutions, as well as potential pitfalls in contract design.

Society’s many contractual relationships include those between shareholders and top executive management, an insurance company and car owners, or a public authority and its suppliers. As such relationships typically entail conflicts of interest, contracts must be properly designed to ensure that the parties take mutually beneficial decisions. This year’s laureates have developed contract theory, a comprehensive framework for analysing many diverse issues in contractual design, like performance-based pay for top executives, deductibles and co-pays in insurance, and the privatisation of public-sector activities.

"The Prize in Economic Sciences 2016 - Press Release". Nobelprize.org. Nobel Media AB 2014. Web. 10 Oct 2016
< http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economic-sciences/laureates/2016/press.html >

Nobel Prize 2016 Peace...

Image Source: Nobel Prize dot org

Topics: Nobel Laureate, Nobel Prize, Peace

October 3: Physiology or Medicine
October 4: Physics
October 5: Chemistry
October 7: Peace
October 10: Economic Sciences

The Nobel Peace Prize for 2016

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2016 to Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos for his resolute efforts to bring the country's more than 50-year-long civil war to an end, a war that has cost the lives of at least 220 000 Colombians and displaced close to six million people. The award should also be seen as a tribute to the Colombian people who, despite great hardships and abuses, have not given up hope of a just peace, and to all the parties who have contributed to the peace process. This tribute is paid, not least, to the representatives of the countless victims of the civil war.

President Santos initiated the negotiations that culminated in the peace accord between the Colombian government and the FARC guerrillas, and he has consistently sought to move the peace process forward. Well knowing that the accord was controversial, he was instrumental in ensuring that Colombian voters were able to voice their opinion concerning the peace accord in a referendum. The outcome of the vote was not what President Santos wanted: a narrow majority of the over 13 million Colombians who cast their ballots said no to the accord. This result has created great uncertainty as to the future of Colombia. There is a real danger that the peace process will come to a halt and that civil war will flare up again. This makes it even more important that the parties, headed by President Santos and FARC guerrilla leader Rodrigo Londoño, continue to respect the ceasefire.

The fact that a majority of the voters said no to the peace accord does not necessarily mean that the peace process is dead. The referendum was not a vote for or against peace. What the "No" side rejected was not the desire for peace, but a specific peace agreement. The Norwegian Nobel Committee emphasizes the importance of the fact that President Santos is now inviting all parties to participate in a broad-based national dialogue aimed at advancing the peace process. Even those who opposed the peace accord have welcomed such a dialogue. The Nobel Committee hopes that all parties will take their share of responsibility and participate constructively in the upcoming peace talks.

"The Nobel Peace Prize 2016 - Press Release". Nobelprize.org. Nobel Media AB 2014. Web. 7 Oct 2016
< http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2016/press.html >

Nobel Prize 2016 Chemistry...

Image Source: DNA India

Topics: Chemistry, Nobel Laureate, Nobel Prize

October 3: Physiology or Medicine
October 4: Physics
October 5: Chemistry
October 7: Peace
October 10: Economic Sciences

Press Release: The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2016

5 October 2016

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2016 to

Jean-Pierre Sauvage

University of Strasbourg, France

Sir J. Fraser Stoddart

Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA

and

Bernard L. Feringa

University of Groningen, the Netherlands

"for the design and synthesis of molecular machines"

They developed the world's smallest machines

A tiny lift, artificial muscles and miniscule motors. The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2016 is awarded to Jean-Pierre Sauvage, Sir J. Fraser Stoddart and Bernard L. Feringa for their design and production of molecular machines. They have developed molecules with controllable movements, which can perform a task when energy is added.

The development of computing demonstrates how the miniaturisation of technology can lead to a revolution. The 2016 Nobel Laureates in Chemistry have miniaturised machines and taken chemistry to a new dimension.

The first step towards a molecular machine was taken by Jean-Pierre Sauvage in 1983, when he succeeded in linking two ring-shaped molecules together to form a chain, called a catenane. Normally, molecules are joined by strong covalent bonds in which the atoms share electrons, but in the chain they were instead linked by a freer mechanical bond. For a machine to be able to perform a task it must consist of parts that can move relative to each other. The two interlocked rings fulfilled exactly this requirement.

The second step was taken by Fraser Stoddart in 1991, when he developed a rotaxane. He threaded a molecular ring onto a thin molecular axle and demonstrated that the ring was able to move along the axle. Among his developments based on rotaxanes are a molecular lift, a molecular muscle and a molecule-based computer chip.

Bernard Feringa was the first person to develop a molecular motor; in 1999 he got a molecular rotor blade to spin continually in the same direction. Using molecular motors, he has rotated a glass cylinder that is 10,000 times bigger than the motor and also designed a nanocar.

"The 2016 Nobel Prize in Chemistry - Press Release". Nobelprize.org. Nobel Media AB 2014. Web. 5 Oct 2016
< http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/2016/press.html >

Nobel Prize 2016 Physics...

Image Source: The Guardian

Topics: Nobel Laureate, Nobel Prize, Physics

October 3: Physiology or Medicine
October 4: Physics
October 5: Chemistry
October 7: Peace
October 10: Economic Sciences

Press Release: The Nobel Prize in Physics 2016
4 October 2016

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Physics 2016 with one half to

David J. Thouless

University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

and the other half to

F. Duncan M. Haldane

Princeton University, NJ, USA

and

J. Michael Kosterlitz

Brown University, Providence, RI, USA

”for theoretical discoveries of topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter”

They revealed the secrets of exotic matter

This year’s Laureates opened the door on an unknown world where matter can assume strange states. They have used advanced mathematical methods to study unusual phases, or states, of matter, such as superconductors, superfluids or thin magnetic films. Thanks to their pioneering work, the hunt is now on for new and exotic phases of matter. Many people are hopeful of future applications in both materials science and electronics.

The three Laureates’ use of topological concepts in physics was decisive for their discoveries. Topology is a branch of mathematics that describes properties that only change step-wise. Using topology as a tool, they were able to astound the experts. In the early 1970s, Michael Kosterlitz and David Thouless overturned the then current theory that superconductivity or suprafluidity could not occur in thin layers. They demonstrated that superconductivity could occur at low temperatures and also explained the mechanism, phase transition, that makes superconductivity disappear at higher temperatures.

"The 2016 Nobel Prize in Physics - Press Release". Nobelprize.org. Nobel Media AB 2014. Web. 4 Oct 2016.
< http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2016/press.html >

Nobel Prize 2016 Physiology...

Figure 1: Our cells have different specialized compartments. Lysosomes constitute one such compartment and contain enzymes for digestion of cellular contents. A new type of vesicle called autophagosome was observed within the cell. As the autophagosome forms, it engulfs cellular contents, such as damaged proteins and organelles. Finally, it fuses with the lysosome, where the contents are degraded into smaller constituents. This process provides the cell with nutrients and building blocks for renewal.

Topics: Nobel Laureate, Nobel Prize, Physiology

I doubled up today due to yesterday's Netflix post. I'll follow the schedule as rolled out on NobelPrize.org:

October 3: Physiology or Medicine

October 4: Physics

October 5: Chemistry

October 7: Peace

October 10: Economic Sciences

Press Release

2016-10-03

The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet has today decided to award

the 2016 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

to

Yoshinori Ohsumi

for his discoveries of mechanisms for autophagy

Summary

This year's Nobel Laureate discovered and elucidated mechanisms underlying autophagy, a fundamental process for degrading and recycling cellular components.

The word autophagy originates from the Greek words auto-, meaning "self", and phagein, meaning "to eat". Thus,autophagy denotes "self eating". This concept emerged during the 1960's, when researchers first observed that the cell could destroy its own contents by enclosing it in membranes, forming sack-like vesicles that were transported to a recycling compartment, called the lysosome, for degradation. Difficulties in studying the phenomenon meant that little was known until, in a series of brilliant experiments in the early 1990's, Yoshinori Ohsumi used baker's yeast to identify genes essential for autophagy. He then went on to elucidate the underlying mechanisms for autophagy in yeast and showed that similar sophisticated machinery is used in our cells.

"The 2016 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine - Press Release". Nobelprize.org. Nobel Media AB 2014. Web. 3 Oct 2016. 

< http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/2016/press.html >

What We Value...

Image Source: The Daily Show, skit

Topics: Commentary, Nobel Laureate, Nobel Prize, NSBP, NSHP, Steven Weinberg

I can say I've met a Nobel Laureate in Professor Weinberg, and potential ones in my life (one of his students in particular, he and his wife personal friends). I can state I haven't been disappointed in them as people, warm, approachable and knowledgeable about physics and life. I lament I am too young to not have lived when Einstein was alive.

Open carry became law in the state of Texas this month on January 1st; August 1st for the campuses. Some businesses have the ability to mitigate them as likely, their customers don't want to think about weapons next to their groceries or lattes...

Dr. Weinberg - in the brief time I met him at the NSBP/NSHP conference in Austin - probably doesn't do "too much fuss" well. He likely endures it, but would rather not.

There is not one scintilla of evidence that a "good guy with a gun" thwarts a bad guy. There's more data that flying lead tends to have an exponential multiplier effect, and that sometimes tragically with trained law enforcement personnel...and citizens.

So, this is a very bold stance, but an important one: what do we value as a culture? Is it knowledge, as in the competitive knowledge needed for 21st Century employment in a global economy, or macho John Wayne/G.I. Joe fantasies of shootouts with cap pistols/paint balls, and a cartoon (no death) reset?

Everyone in this country has the right to every single amendment of the Constitution. We tend to overlook this:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. I'd think part of that happiness is coming home in the same shape you left in.

A professor: any level, anywhere - Nobel Laureate, Tenured, Assistant, Associate, Teacher K-12 - has to teach with a certain impunity to tell the student sometimes hard things, such as you didn't master the material. That's usually known as drop before the last date, or accept the less-than-"C" grades. No one wants to feel held hostage in their classrooms. Hormones and hurt feelings: what could POSSIBLY go wrong?

Hopefully, a flagship university values having a Nobel Prize winner as part of their science research faculty. If not, I'm sure any other campus will welcome him with open arms and demands met, or as he has alluded, he might retire. Other scientists, engineers and other fields might follow the example of his exodus.  It could possibly be a great loss to the university, to science; the epitome of a Pyrrhic Victory.

Entropy - the tendency of systems to go from order to chaos/disorder - is how we came to measure something called time and its changes; it claims us all eventually.

It just needn't be as sudden as our current national asylum.

Texas Tribune:
Nobel Laureate Professor: I'm Banning Guns in My UT Classroom, Matthew Watkins
Nobel Laureate Becomes Reluctant Anti-Gun Leader, Madlin Mekelburg

Ig Nobel...

Topics: Diversity, Diversity in Science, Nobel Laureate, Nobel Prize, Women In Science

The Ig Nobel is an actual "thing." From their own description:

The Ig Nobel Prizes honor achievements that make people LAUGH, and then THINK. The prizes are intended to celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative — and spur people's interest in science, medicine, and technology.

Every September, in a gala ceremony in Harvard's Sanders Theatre, 1100 splendidly eccentric spectators watch the new winners step forward to accept their Prizes. These are physically handed out by genuinely bemused genuine Nobel Laureates.

CEREMONY: The 26th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony will happen on Thursday, September 22, 2016, at Sanders Theatre, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. Tickets will go on sale in July.

It's mostly tongue-in-cheek obviously, but this article from Forbes caught my eye and reminded me of one I did in 2011 titled "Dark Matters" along the same vein.

The people I root for in the actual Nobel seem to never make it. Yet, in my and other's opinions, they're doing really great research and science that should be applauded, appreciated and lauded. Carl Sagan was so vilified when he was attempting to PROMOTE science via the original Cosmos - by other scientists - The Sagan Effect gives most caution and pause as to how much they'll enter the public sphere, if at all.

I've grown cynical, and not so sure that the Nobel Prize in its current format is the way to do so (I've given similar critique to the motion picture academy). It seems to me, the current format is contributing mostly to the old-boy system and "the big head."

The Nobel Prizes are not the final say in good science, and Nobel laureates are not necessarily the best scientists — much less the wisest human beings.

And like it or not, people listen to Nobel laureates when they speak, even when they are out of their areas of expertise. Sometimes the prize seems to go to the winners’ heads so much that they seem to lose it entirely. William Shockley, a co-discoverer of the transistor, and James Watson, who won the Nobel for discovering the structure of DNA, both used their reputations to promote very racist ideas. Most recently, Tim Hunt said some sexist and insulting things in front of a group of female Korean scientists — who had invited him to speak, no less.

One pointed excerpt by the author:

- Then there’s the bias toward European and American researchers, which is thankfully becoming less pronounced. However, historically it’s been a huge problem, and that’s not even including the antisemitism in the prize committee’s early years. No Nobel was given in 1921 to avoid awarding Albert Einstein. (He was grudgingly given the 1921 award the following year along with Niels Bohr’s 1922 prize, and even then antisemites fought his inclusion.) Racism in science is a very uncomfortable topic, but we need to face up to it, and the Nobel Prize hangs a lampshade on the extent we have yet to grapple with it.

Last year, we lauded Einstein for his contribution to the General Theory of Relativity; his coinciding birthday also as the nerdy "Pi day": 3/14/15, 9:25:53 am (3.141592553). This could all have been hidden and buried under a mound of antisemitism ignorance, not unlike the efforts in Texas to classify slaves as volunteer "workers," clearly in contradiction of their own publicly stated Articles of Secession, where variants of "slave" is mentioned over 20 times, as well as demonstrably faux denouncements of Africans.

I'm also inspired by Einstein's early stance on Civil Rights and friendship and activism with Paul Robeson. I think we unconsciously hold our Laureates to this standard, and are disappointed when they fall from Olympus; their Achilles heels quite evident.

We will fall as a nation and species under the weight of our own hubris.

Forbes: The Nobel Prize Is Bad And We Should Feel Bad, Matthew Francis

2015 Nobel Prize in Physics...

Topics: Neutrinos, Nobel Laureate, Nobel Prize, Physics

The IB Times prediction:

There are no betting lines for the Nobel Prize in physics, but there's plenty of speculation about the award. Many believe, based on perceived patterns of voting, that a cosmology discovery will be awarded the prize. Ben Stein, director of the American Institute of Physics' Inside Science who correctly guessed the 2014 Nobel Prize in physics, believes Vera Rubin and Kent Ford will win for establishing the presence of dark matter.

The actual winners (can't win em all, Ben):

A classic, obviously before the Internet in 1921 (but he had something to do with it):

Presentation Speech by Professor S. Arrhenius, Chairman of the Nobel Committee for Physics of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, on December 10, 1922*

Your Majesty, Your Royal Highnesses, Ladies and Gentlemen.

There is probably no physicist living today whose name has become so widely known as that of Albert Einstein. Most discussion centres on his theory of relativity. This pertains essentially to epistemology and has therefore been the subject of lively debate in philosophical circles. It will be no secret that the famous philosopher Bergson in Paris has challenged this theory, while other philosophers have acclaimed it wholeheartedly. The theory in question also has astrophysical implications which are being rigorously examined at the present time.**

NobelPrize.org: Albert Einstein's Nobel Prize Speech
(**Being too remote from Sweden, Professor Einstein could not attend the ceremony)

Nobel Immigrants...

Image Source: Physics World

Topics: Immigration, Nobel Laureate, Nobel Prize, Physics

Tomorrow, they'll announce the Nobel Prize in Physics. I have someone I'm always rooting for, he himself the son of immigrants to New York by a few generations at least.

I'm sure "The Donald" crowd will ignore this and its significance. The closest scientists get to anything as poorly descriptive (and political) as "race" is the more accurate continental ancestry, based on genome type and genetic markers. We are all from somewhere else.

Next Tuesday [tomorrow] the Nobel Prize for Physics will be announced at 11:45 CEST and I am making the bold prediction that the winner – or one of the winners – will be an immigrant. Why? Because this year’s Physics World Nobel-prize infographics show that of the 198 people who have won the prize, 51 are immigrants – so I reckon there is a reasonable chance that I will be right.

What do we mean by an immigrant? This is a tough question, especially in science, where people tend to move around a lot and don’t always settle in one place. For the purposes of these infographics, we have used a rather crude definition of an immigrant laureate: someone who died or currently lives in a country other than that of their birth. There is more about how we made the infographics later in this post – but first, what do they tell us?

Physics World:
New infographics show that more than one-quarter of physics Nobel laureates are immigrants
Hamish Johnston

To Explain the World...

Topics: Nobel Laureate, Nobel Prize, NSBP, Steven Weinberg, Theoretical Physics, World Science Festival

The above is not the cover of "To Explain the World: The Discovery of Modern Science." I downloaded that to my Kindle. This is just an autographed copy of one of his earlier famous books I'm proud to own. I'm equally proud to have met him.

As I've said, I met Dr. Weinberg at an NSBP conference in Austin, Texas in 2011. I meant to attend the World Science Festival in New York and hear this lecture personally. I alas, had a mandatory training related to work (it was good, though I went kicking and because it was good, not quite screaming towards the end of it). So accept my own consolation prize with the embed below. Consolation prize #2: I joined the World Science Festival as my "Father's Day" present to myself. I'll hopefully attend - barring anything else put on my schedule - next year.

Amazon.com:
To Explain the World: The Discovery of Modern Science, Dr. Steven Weinberg

Age of Einstein...

Image Source: Biography.com

Topics: Einstein, Special Relativity, Space Exploration, Spaceflight, Spacetime

It was Einstein that entered the term "warp" into our lexicon before the notion was popularized on the original Star Trek. That warp was gravity from the mass of objects like planets, suns; wormholes and black holes. It has lived on in the discovery of the intermediate vector boson ("W" and Z⁰particle), theorized by Dr's Sheldon Lee Glashow, Abdus Salam and Steven Weinberg, meaning his was the "shoulder of [a] giant" these men stood on when they made their discovery. The foundation of the Higgs Boson were courses in special and general relativity as well as quantum mechanics, the root of all things micro and nano electronic. In a way, he's achieved immortality.

The link below is a PDF that goes through a primer of the physics at the high school level, which is appropriate. The more we understand about the physics that is all around us, the less we are frightened by, or put off by it. As we increase our intellectual acumen in STEM fields, is it too much to request such a self-study of those who wish to be our leaders, and possibly possess the nuclear codes?

This brief book is for the inquisitive reader who wishes to gain an understanding of the immortal work of Einstein, the greatest scientist since Newton. The concepts that form the basis of Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity are discussed at a level suitable for Seniors in High School. Special Relativity deals with measurements of space, time and motion in inertial frames of reference (see chapter 4). An introduction to Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity, a theory of space, time, and motion in the presence of gravity, is given at a popular level. A more formal account of Special Relativity, that requires a higher level of understanding of Mathematics, is given in an Appendix.

Historians in the future will, no doubt, choose a phrase that best characterizes the 20th-century. Several possible phrases, such as “the Atomic Age”, “the Space Age” and “the Information Age”, come to mind. I believe that a strong case will be made for the phrase “the Age of Einstein”; no other person in the 20th-century advanced our understanding of the physical universe in such a dramatic way. He introduced many original concepts, each one of a profound nature. His discovery of the universal equivalence of energy and mass has had, and continues to have, far-reaching consequences not only in Science and Technology but also in fields as diverse as World Politics, Economics, and Philosophy.

Free Physics Book: The Age of Einstein
Frank W. K. Firk
Professor Emeritus of Physics
Yale University

Tomorrow: The Unraveling