3 ms·

This is a truly idiotic thing to say. "none of which were particularly impressive" First who are you to judge quality of his work, that guy has a Nobel. Imagi

This is a truly idiotic thing to say. "none of which were particularly impressive" First who are you to judge quality of his work, that guy has a Nobel. Imagine if they did follow your utterly idiotic suggestion and did kick him out, other universities who recognize importance of his work and would instantly hire him. Years later when he would actually win the prize, Edinburgh University would look crazy for kicking out a Nobel prize winning physicist. So no Peter Higgs is a genius, he knew importance of what he had achieved and took leisurely path, nothing wrong in that. Edinburgh University knew importance of his work and correctly decided that keeping him was a great investment. The fact that you think that a researcher who won a Nobel prize somehow did not work "hard enough" in later years and should have been fired is a great indicator of dysfunctional academic culture.

Ar-Curunir 10y ago
Beyond his Higgs Boson papers, the rest haven't been cited particularly much. Not indicative of a genius. Sure, no-one is calling him stupid, but there are potentially many other people who have changed the field as much, or more than him. Just because he won a Nobel Prize for one work doesn't make him immune to criticism.
- aub3bhat 10y ago
  There is valid criticism, and then there's "this guy did not do anything after making a Nobel worthy discovery, should have been kicked out". Also "haven't been cited particularly much" is utterly bullshit. Unless the goal is to optimize for mediocrity (3 papers each year with 20-50 citations each) being better than one break-through Nobel worthy work. Frankly citations are very very easy to game if you are a professor with reasonable means at a good university, and are a really really bad indicator of success. Since he already had a very successful paper maybe he wanted to write risky papers. In any case that's not worse than other researchers who write cookie-cutter papers adding extra terms to equations that are guaranteed to be cited by the next guy adding even more terms. By finding these minor faults with a Nobel award winning researcher, you are displaying the same dysfunctional thinking that has plagued academia.
  - Ar-Curunir 10y ago
    I'm not sure why you have this idea that academia is resistant to paradigm shifts; they happen all the time. Any papers that are "risky" enough to start such paradigm shifts end up getting cited tons.
    - aub3bhat 10y ago
      Its not me but rather its you who has the wrong idea that all papers with 50 citations are good. Or rather the more citation == better research. Frankly almost 95% of papers are crap and better off not having been written, had it not been for publish or perish culture, or "lets count papers/cites to shame a Nobel award winning researcher culture" that you espouse. Citations are a self reinforcing metric. Once a community starts counting them, the only way to succeed is to publish more which in turns leads to higher counts. There is nothing wrong in publishing a good thorough paper over 4 years maybe slowly updating it as a working paper as done in economics.
      - Ar-Curunir 10y ago
        I am not saying that all papers with citations are good; rather, that most good papers get tons of citations.
      - gnipgnip 10y ago
        I wish papers were "running", as in a wiki page with developments being incrementally added. It'd certainly help reduce the amount of redundant reading, and much greater coherency.
anbende 10y ago
Except it wasn't a great investment. Unless he was doing something great besides research. If you put in amazing groundbreaking work in the first years of a startup and then started slacking off. How long before the company that you helped build has a right to kick you to the curb? A year? Five? More? How about 30? 5 papers, even good ones is pitiful for 30 years. Sure, it's possible that they were the culmination of long brilliant research projects. If that's the case then great. If it wasn't then the University has every right to ask what's up, which they did and decided to keep him on anyway.
- aub3bhat 10y ago
  Hahhahah if you think having a Nobel award winning professor is not a great investment, you frankly don't understand how world works. There are Universities in some part of the world that will gladly pay more than what Edinburgh U. could, just to have him listed on the website. Actually I have met people who did put in hard work in the initial years of a Unicorn statup. Guess what the value of their equity greatly exceeds the salary. And if the startup were to even kick them to curb they would live happily on their enormous earnings. Doing great research to an extent is similar.
  - anbende 10y ago
    Let's stick to the facts. University employs a Nobel Award winning scientist. He spends the next 30 years doing very little. The University says "hey, that's not cool. We thought you were going to keep doing research. Everyone says they're being too demanding." I didn't say Nobel Award winners AREN'T a good investment. I said this one WASN'T. The University clearly thought he was going to produce. He didn't, and they were unhappy... with the return on their investment in him. Right. The equity of early employees is high. My example wasn't about compensation, clearly. It was how long you continue to keep an underperforming employee in a position just because they did good work in the past.
    - hueving 10y ago
      You seem to have a problem with the concept of tenure. Why not just come out and say professors don't deserve tenure and they must keep pushing the rock up the hill grinding out paper after paper of incremental drivel?
sctb 10y ago
> This is a truly idiotic thing to say. We ask that you please leave these out of comments on HN. They're not OK and luckily not necessary.
- aub3bhat 10y ago
  Sure, but it wont let me edit to remove that line, now.

Ar-Curunir 10y ago

Beyond his Higgs Boson papers, the rest haven't been cited particularly much. Not indicative of a genius. Sure, no-one is calling him stupid, but there are potentially many other people who have changed the field as much, or more than him. Just because he won a Nobel Prize for one work doesn't make him immune to criticism.

aub3bhat 10y ago
There is valid criticism, and then there's "this guy did not do anything after making a Nobel worthy discovery, should have been kicked out". Also "haven't been cited particularly much" is utterly bullshit. Unless the goal is to optimize for mediocrity (3 papers each year with 20-50 citations each) being better than one break-through Nobel worthy work. Frankly citations are very very easy to game if you are a professor with reasonable means at a good university, and are a really really bad indicator of success. Since he already had a very successful paper maybe he wanted to write risky papers. In any case that's not worse than other researchers who write cookie-cutter papers adding extra terms to equations that are guaranteed to be cited by the next guy adding even more terms. By finding these minor faults with a Nobel award winning researcher, you are displaying the same dysfunctional thinking that has plagued academia.
- Ar-Curunir 10y ago
  I'm not sure why you have this idea that academia is resistant to paradigm shifts; they happen all the time. Any papers that are "risky" enough to start such paradigm shifts end up getting cited tons.
  - aub3bhat 10y ago
    Its not me but rather its you who has the wrong idea that all papers with 50 citations are good. Or rather the more citation == better research. Frankly almost 95% of papers are crap and better off not having been written, had it not been for publish or perish culture, or "lets count papers/cites to shame a Nobel award winning researcher culture" that you espouse. Citations are a self reinforcing metric. Once a community starts counting them, the only way to succeed is to publish more which in turns leads to higher counts. There is nothing wrong in publishing a good thorough paper over 4 years maybe slowly updating it as a working paper as done in economics.
    - Ar-Curunir 10y ago
      I am not saying that all papers with citations are good; rather, that most good papers get tons of citations.
    - gnipgnip 10y ago
      I wish papers were "running", as in a wiki page with developments being incrementally added. It'd certainly help reduce the amount of redundant reading, and much greater coherency.

anbende 10y ago

Except it wasn't a great investment. Unless he was doing something great besides research. If you put in amazing groundbreaking work in the first years of a startup and then started slacking off. How long before the company that you helped build has a right to kick you to the curb? A year? Five? More? How about 30? 5 papers, even good ones is pitiful for 30 years. Sure, it's possible that they were the culmination of long brilliant research projects. If that's the case then great. If it wasn't then the University has every right to ask what's up, which they did and decided to keep him on anyway.

aub3bhat 10y ago
Hahhahah if you think having a Nobel award winning professor is not a great investment, you frankly don't understand how world works. There are Universities in some part of the world that will gladly pay more than what Edinburgh U. could, just to have him listed on the website. Actually I have met people who did put in hard work in the initial years of a Unicorn statup. Guess what the value of their equity greatly exceeds the salary. And if the startup were to even kick them to curb they would live happily on their enormous earnings. Doing great research to an extent is similar.
- anbende 10y ago
  Let's stick to the facts. University employs a Nobel Award winning scientist. He spends the next 30 years doing very little. The University says "hey, that's not cool. We thought you were going to keep doing research. Everyone says they're being too demanding." I didn't say Nobel Award winners AREN'T a good investment. I said this one WASN'T. The University clearly thought he was going to produce. He didn't, and they were unhappy... with the return on their investment in him. Right. The equity of early employees is high. My example wasn't about compensation, clearly. It was how long you continue to keep an underperforming employee in a position just because they did good work in the past.
  - hueving 10y ago
    You seem to have a problem with the concept of tenure. Why not just come out and say professors don't deserve tenure and they must keep pushing the rock up the hill grinding out paper after paper of incremental drivel?

sctb 10y ago

> This is a truly idiotic thing to say. We ask that you please leave these out of comments on HN. They're not OK and luckily not necessary.

aub3bhat 10y ago
Sure, but it wont let me edit to remove that line, now.