Charles Lieber case: A high-energy probe of science
There's a phenomenon in high-energy particle physics that I've found instructive as a metaphor to explain some things whose inner character may not be apparent to us but whose true nature is e…
Nobel Prizes
23 posts
Some thoughts on Robert Downey, Jr.'s science funding idea
On December 12, Iron Man, a.k.a. Robert Downey, Jr., and David Lang coauthored an op-ed in Fast Company that announced a grant-giving initiative of theirs designed to help fund scientists doing work t…
The great Nobel Prize hypocrisy
Katie Langin's report for Science on October 12 is an eye-opening account of one reason why the committees that pick every year's Nobel Prize winners almost never pick women: because they aren…
Are major science prizes a form of philanthropy?
The Association for the Advancement of AI conferred its 'Squirrel AI Award' on Cynthia Rudin, and Duke University – her employer – published a press release celebrating it. Here's one para…
The Nobel Prize, its men and climate change
The sciences part of this year’s Nobel Prize announcements have concluded. These are the new laureates: * Physics – Syukuro Manabe 🇯🇵 🇺🇸, Klaus Hasselmann 🇩🇪 and Giorgio Parisi 🇮🇹 * Chemist…
Science prizes, wealth location and social signals
One count on which I almost always find myself to be an outlier in India is my opinion that the Nobel Prizes and their derivatives belong in the gutter. But while many people in other countries share…
Caste, and science's notability threshold
A webinar by The Life of Science on the construct of the 'scientific genius' just concluded, with Gita Chadha and Shalini Mahadev, a PhD scholar at HCU, as panellists. It was an hour long and…
Review: ‘Salam – The First ****** Nobel Laureate’ (2018)
Awards are elevated by their winners. For all of the Nobel Prizes’ flaws and shortcomings, they are redeemed by what its laureates choose to do with them. To this end, the Pakistani physicist and acti…
Two sides of the road and the gutter next to it
I have a mid-October deadline for an essay so obviously when I started reading up on the topic this morning, I ended up on a different part of the web – where I found this: a piece by a journalist tal…
Why do we cover the Nobel Prize announcements?
The Nobel Prizes are too big to fail. Even if they've become beset by a host of problems, such as: 1. Long gap between invention/discovery and recognition, 2. A large cash component given to ol…
The notion of the Nobel Prizes
Some points generated during a discussion with a friend: 1. The Nobel Prizes used to be definitive of the orientation of scientific research in the past; however, staying on top of all recognition n…