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I think the Nobel prize data can be explained quite simply: The Nobel prizes are only awarded in fields that were established early in the 20th century. Because
by roca 6y ago
I think the Nobel prize data can be explained quite simply: The Nobel prizes are only awarded in fields that were established early in the 20th century. Because they are long-established, we are seeing diminishing returns as the low-hanging fruit has been plucked. The latter half of the 20th century saw rapid development of new fields such as computer science ... and Nobel prizes are not awarded in these fields.
- roca 6y agoAnother example would be plate tectonics --- incredibly important, only settled in the 1960s, but no Nobel prize awarded because there isn't a Nobel prize for geology/earth sciences.
- ccortes 6y agoI don't think relativity, quantum theory, etc. Are low hanging fruits. Physics is super old and those discoveries are "recent" in comparison
- jhowell 6y agoEvery endeavor has low hanging fruit. I assume the GP is referring to The Great Stagnation.
- wongarsu 6y agoHowever they created lots of low hanging fruit. For example I would call relativity a monumental milestone, but the discovery that black holes are possible, the Schwarzschild radius etc were low hanging fruit made possible by Einstein's papers
- roca 6y agoPhysics is super old but for most of that time we didn't have the intellectual tools to do physics well. Once maths, engineering and the scientific method developed enough, the experiments were relatively easy to do (as the OP pointed out, Rutherford was able to do his experiments on his own) and the key results followed.
- godelzilla 6y agoNowadays progress in physics is spending trillions of dollars on underground tunnels to make computers go bloop.