tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post1337452172273272438..comments2023-09-27T07:44:19.769-04:00Comments on Sabine Hossenfelder: Backreaction: Yet another year in which you haven’t won a Nobel Prize!Sabine Hossenfelderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06151209308084588985noreply@blogger.comBlogger41125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-44540510810769142012017-10-20T23:55:36.952-04:002017-10-20T23:55:36.952-04:00The Literature, Peace, and Economics prizes don...The Literature, Peace, and Economics prizes don't "build" on previous work, research, observations and discoveries, Physics does most certainly, and to a lesser extent, Medicine.<br />I'd rather stick pins in my eyes than sit on a Physics award. All you would hear would be Yes but... Certainly but... Of course but... With the occasional chirp that (s)he's dead so...<br />Belfast188https://www.blogger.com/profile/03759045540205713729noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-36175124881267651862017-10-16T20:50:32.651-04:002017-10-16T20:50:32.651-04:00Discovery of CMB merited a Nobel.Discovery of CMB merited a Nobel.Arunhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03451666670728177970noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-46427229561790180432017-10-16T10:27:23.651-04:002017-10-16T10:27:23.651-04:00"Also, "Madame" Curie just stirred ...<i>"Also, "Madame" Curie just stirred a "soup", that her much more able husband had developed a sophisticated detector for."</i><br /><br />I'm not an historian of science, and don't know enough to comment on the other examples, but your remarks about Curie are complete bullshit. Also, scare quotes where they don't belong is the last refuge of the Phillip Helbighttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12067585245603436809noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-70257391667671780082017-10-11T12:14:48.378-04:002017-10-11T12:14:48.378-04:00I've being doing a lot of reading of historica...I've being doing a lot of reading of historical material recently, and I'm forming the view that Nobel prizes are bad for physics. That's because they tend to "cement in" theories and render them unchallengeable. If you take a look at recent scientific progress in fundamental physics, you may agree that in recent decades, there hasn't been much. And yet there's so Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-41812723137002557992017-10-08T11:32:05.239-04:002017-10-08T11:32:05.239-04:00My guess is, it was a slow year for major discover...My guess is, it was a slow year for major discoveries and the Nobel Committee thought gravity waves were a good bet (as do I, for what little that is worth). If there were another strong contender they probably would have waited to see how the GW discovery held up.<br /><br />The LIGO team is said to be working on an official response. Their unofficial response at Dr. Sean Carroll's blog saidJimVhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10198704789965278981noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-54726629612637553652017-10-08T09:55:42.042-04:002017-10-08T09:55:42.042-04:00"Do you think the Nobel committee was unaware..."Do you think the Nobel committee was unaware of the time lagged noise issue "<br /><br />How does this noise issue fare now the fourth detection of a set of gravitational waves includes the Virgo detector? This third signal of the same event by a different, albeit less sensitive, detector should give much more information about these correlations. Or have these data not yet been Rob van Son (Not a physicist, just an amateur)https://www.blogger.com/profile/12611755507524401026noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-63486842818431052202017-10-08T09:23:51.466-04:002017-10-08T09:23:51.466-04:00Dear Professor Hossenfelder:
You enabled an outrag...Dear Professor Hossenfelder:<br />You enabled an outrageously sexist comment above by "Jim" who claimed that <br />"Women are mostly shit at science, technology and math, it's historical fact..."<br /><br />This is incorrect (in more ways than one). First there were other great women mathematicians than Noether (and they were not daughters of prestigious mathematicians, asPatrice Aymehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11756076973287456927noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-2693698539723897182017-10-08T08:53:19.992-04:002017-10-08T08:53:19.992-04:00By giving the Prize to living scientists only, and...By giving the Prize to living scientists only, and leaving things at that, Nobel.Org deforms history. They know it, so they mentioned one dead scientist when they attributed the Prize for the "Higgs". A rare event.(The probable reason being that the Sakurai Prize had been given to 6 scientists, earlier, for the same "Higgs". And even that didn't cover all the discoverers, Patrice Aymehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11756076973287456927noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-10463484934744889352017-10-08T06:28:54.536-04:002017-10-08T06:28:54.536-04:00@Jim
Thank you for sharing these amazing insights...@Jim<br /><br />Thank you for sharing these amazing insights.<br /><br />Best, KoenraadKoenraad Van Spaendonckhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15090279727324831109noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-14140650708812258842017-10-08T00:38:26.921-04:002017-10-08T00:38:26.921-04:00bud,
more likely, they ignored it. (as, apparentl...bud,<br /><br />more likely, they ignored it. (as, apparently, did the collaboration.) if I hadn't been drowned in work for the last few months, I'd have been more behind this. sorry for not following up.Sabine Hossenfelderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06151209308084588985noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-22767542598164525432017-10-07T21:43:19.453-04:002017-10-07T21:43:19.453-04:00Sabine,
Do you think the Nobel committee was unaw...Sabine,<br /><br />Do you think the Nobel committee was unaware of the time lagged noise issue (http://www.nbi.ku.dk/gravitational-waves/gravitational-waves.html) you cited back in July or simply decided to ignore it? Thanks,<br /><br />Budbud raphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06948881286545517324noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-72121680880189797792017-10-07T20:43:17.058-04:002017-10-07T20:43:17.058-04:00Vera Rubin, together with Kent Ford made pretty ea...Vera Rubin, together with Kent Ford made pretty easy observations after getting access to the best telescopes. They weren't original observations, and they weren't intellectually deep - they got to check rotation speeds of galaxies, wow, that's kinda retard level science compared to all the particle physics discoveries and theoretical physics going on at the time. It's like peopleJimhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16192738560762633240noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-22603564166451156142017-10-07T11:05:31.642-04:002017-10-07T11:05:31.642-04:00"Things don’t get going because a thousand sc..."Things don’t get going because a thousand scientists spontaneously decide to make an experiment. It’s always but a few people who are responsible to make things happen." <br /><br />Things get going because a thousand scientists work on them. <br /><br />I'm not in favour of giving the prize to collaborations, but that description was off from what is happening in reality. It mightHelenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11146951539155326220noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-91370118707862632242017-10-06T06:53:01.650-04:002017-10-06T06:53:01.650-04:00As for "why was this astronomer not awarded t...As for "why was this astronomer not awarded the prize?", I think it took a while until astronomy became considered a branch of physics. One can think of many astronomers and cosmologists who didn't get the prize (for astronomy or cosmology) but whose work in this field was worthy of it: Einstein, de Sitter, Friedmann, Lemaitre, Eddington, Tolman, Hubble, Slipher.<br />Phillip Helbighttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12067585245603436809noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-86327727919629216202017-10-06T06:48:32.781-04:002017-10-06T06:48:32.781-04:00"You seem to be saying that no Nobel Prize sh...<i>"You seem to be saying that no Nobel Prize should have been awarded for the accelerated expansion."</i><br /><br />This is not my opinion, but rather speculation about the motivations of the Committee. Would the prize have been awarded if there was not a clear explanation for the effect?<br /><br /><i>"And are you seriously arguing that the value of the CC is important because Phillip Helbighttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12067585245603436809noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-82307403452946851262017-10-05T15:54:35.398-04:002017-10-05T15:54:35.398-04:00V nice article. It strikes me that, for all its fa...V nice article. It strikes me that, for all its faults, the Nobel prize is one of the very few PR successes of science. It has captured the public imagination in ways that little else associated with science does.<br />two other points;<br />(i) for scientists themselves, it would be more useful to know the nominees (and not 50 years afterwards)<br />(ii) while many deserving cases were not Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-90544374318752750392017-10-05T14:07:55.878-04:002017-10-05T14:07:55.878-04:00Sure, but why wasn't his discovery/work consid...Sure, but why wasn't his discovery/work considered worthy of a Nobel before he died? Sure, a lot of the work/findings corroborating his results weren't made until after he died - just like Einstein couldn't have got a Nobel for even the Hulse-Taylor findings, much less LIGOs - but much the same can be said of Rubin/Ford's work, especially re possible non-particle DM solutions. <brJeanTatehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08737430572613792118noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-26090963129199608322017-10-05T10:25:29.376-04:002017-10-05T10:25:29.376-04:00Because he died more than 40 years ago, that's...Because he died more than 40 years ago, that's why. Sabine Hossenfelderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06151209308084588985noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-63988679099807275882017-10-05T10:23:14.462-04:002017-10-05T10:23:14.462-04:00If Vera Rubin, why not Fritz Zwicky? Not only did ...If Vera Rubin, why not Fritz Zwicky? Not only did he coin the term decades before Rubin, he published robust obserational support for the idea, concerning concentrations of DM far, far more massive than found in wimpy spiral galaxies.JeanTatehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08737430572613792118noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-16199568107470871892017-10-05T10:19:59.084-04:002017-10-05T10:19:59.084-04:00Was Einstein's Nobel for experimental or theor...Was Einstein's Nobel for experimental or theoretical work? My memory, and a quick check, shows it was for his (1905?) work on the photoelectric effect. Also I recall Feymann et al another yr, etc. MSShttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10782385200928123717noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-72509201940091684842017-10-05T10:18:38.110-04:002017-10-05T10:18:38.110-04:00Phillip,
Sorry you lost me. You seem to be saying...Phillip,<br /><br />Sorry you lost me. You seem to be saying that no Nobel Prize should have been awarded for the accelerated expansion. If that was so, it would indeed make much more sense that none was given for galactic rotation curves, but that's not the branch of the wave-function we live in. <br /><br />And are you seriously arguing that the value of the CC is important because so many Sabine Hossenfelderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06151209308084588985noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-34090458029001558932017-10-05T09:49:55.337-04:002017-10-05T09:49:55.337-04:00Just to be clear, had Rubin received the Prize (pe...Just to be clear, had Rubin received the Prize (perhaps jointly with Ford), then I wouldn't have been surprised, I wouldn't have said that she doesn't deserve it, etc. However, some people (not you) make the claim that she is the only (until recently) living person who deserved the physics prize but didn't get it (and some even claim that this proves the existence of misogyny in Phillip Helbighttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12067585245603436809noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-31733332142156261782017-10-05T09:35:48.576-04:002017-10-05T09:35:48.576-04:00"The 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics was not awar...<i>"The 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics was not awarded for the discovery of dark energy, it was awarded for the discovery that the universe is accelerating."</i><br /><br />Even granted that that's the case, what is the big deal? It's either accelerating or decelerating, except in special cases. :-)<br /><br />How many papers have been written about the cosmological-constant Phillip Helbighttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12067585245603436809noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-63886658388011264532017-10-05T05:39:55.726-04:002017-10-05T05:39:55.726-04:00Phillip,
The 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics was not ...Phillip,<br /><br />The 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics was not awarded for the discovery of dark energy, it was awarded for the discovery that the universe is accelerating. On the same rationale, Rubin should have gotten the Prize for the discovery that galactic rotation curves flatten. That we don't know yet whether it's particle dark matter or a modification of gravity that merely Sabine Hossenfelderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06151209308084588985noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-40485738846231260512017-10-05T03:59:55.424-04:002017-10-05T03:59:55.424-04:00The observations are there and they're not goi...<i>The observations are there and they're not going to go away. We also don't know what dark energy is, but a Nobel Prize was handed out for that."</i><br /><br />Did she discover dark matter, or MOND? The situation is too unclear. In contrast, what puzzles some people about "dark energy" is that it is too clear: 1920s cosmology is still the best fit.<br /><br />While Phillip Helbighttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12067585245603436809noreply@blogger.com