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The Nobel Prize in Physics 2021

239 points by harscoat 5y ago

harscoat 5y ago
Summary Pr. John Wettlaufer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ezsbf42_RTA&ab_channel=NobelPrize https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ezsbf42_RTA&ab_channel=Nobel...
doctoboggan 5y ago
Can anyone with more insight into the three researchers explain if this is a political statement or if their work really represents the best physics research? I am genuinely asking as I don't know much about their research.
- Throwaway197401 5y ago
  Looks like this part is political: “for the physical modelling of Earth’s climate, quantifying variability and reliably predicting global warming”" And this part is actual science: “for the discovery of the interplay of disorder and fluctuations in physical systems from atomic to planetary scales”
  - baq 5y ago
    nope. before you ask me for sources, you haven't provided any, and you're quoting from a release with sources.
    - Throwaway197401 5y ago
      The source is the reason given. Modelling is NOT physics, it's not even science its statistics and does not actually produce the result that are claimed. There is a reason why the IPCC comes out with a range and not a specific number. They haven't found the right initial conditions or they would only use his to move forward. In fact if that had really been the case he should have been the only person who got the prize as that would have been an amazing achievement. This is just "sciencewashing" speculative modelling based on models about the climate that can't be proven to be correct in the future. (Hence the reason they are not going to stop modelling different initial conditions. So yes it's political nothing else. Politics not software is eating the world.
  - eganist 5y ago
    > Looks like this part is political: “for the physical modelling of Earth’s climate, quantifying variability and reliably predicting global warming” All this is saying is that the predictive models they devised were proven correct given climate behavior today, e.g rise of temperatures and a general uptrend in severe weather activity that followed.
    - fighterpilot 5y ago
      He predicted 0.57C of warming by the year 2000, and we saw 0.54C of warming. So accurate at least according to that. https://twitter.com/hausfath/status/1445359093905084417 https://twitter.com/hausfath/status/1445359093905084417
    - Throwaway197401 5y ago
      Which shouldn't be given a nobel price unless they can explain exactly why which they can't just like we can't really explain why the temperature didn't increase for a period after 2nd world war without getting into speculation. It's bogus and as far some anything related to scientific standards as we can come.
- sshb 5y ago
  Here is a nice summary: https://twitter.com/thePiggsBoson/status/1445334496857841668 https://twitter.com/thePiggsBoson/status/1445334496857841668
  - smarx007 5y ago
    Rather than reading what tech/science writers can summarize on a lap (remember, they only learned the laureates' names a hour ago or so), I prefer to simply head over to YouTube and look for a lecture given by a laureate themselves. Most likely, Nobel is not their first prize and they have given a lecture summarizing their lifetime contributions before. Plus, it's always more pleasure to listen to nice people than reading Twitter :)
    - Majestic121 5y ago
      You can also find a nice PDF summary of their contribution on the Nobel Prize website itself, including a popular version : https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2021/10/popular-physicsprize2021.pdf https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2021/10/popular-physicspr...
- mygoodaccount 5y ago
  High profile prizes will always be political. That said, Syukuro Manabe built the foundation for a lot of modern day computer-based climate simulation. I can't speak for the others but I'd say that's Nobel worthy.
  - paganel 5y ago
    > computer-based climate simulation I'm no scientist by any stretch of the imagination, the last time when I read something related to higher physics was ~20 years ago, in college, but I have to ask how is that topic related to modern physics. You're correct, it sounds like like a worthy Nobel for an Earth Sciences Nobel, or a Meteorology one (to be more direct), if those two things existed (maybe they should), but, again, don't know how meteorology (what computer-based climate simulation basically is) is the same thing as higher physics.
    - maep 5y ago
      Meteorology is a sub-branch of physics.
    - evanb 5y ago
      As a physicist, I try to avoid the snobbery of limiting myself to "higher physics". A wide variety of physical systems are interesting, not just fundamental particle physics. Physics contains multitudes; graphene, giant magnetoresistence, fiber optics, and systems more complex.
      - paganel 5y ago
        But then again physics risks following the (wrong) road taken by economics a while ago, when it decided that almost all modern human-activity can be in fact studied through the economics lens.
        jean_tta 5y ago
        Surely studying the climate, i.e. a physical system, is completely in the realm of physics. Certainly, it is closer to whatever definition of physics you may have, than education or kidney donation (to take two examples) are to economics.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- nabla9 5y ago
  Hasselmann deserved it. Hasselmann model is stochastic climate model that explains red noise. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.2153-3490.1976.tb00696.x https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.2153-3490.1976... I don't know much about Manabes work but he is a pioneer in climate modelling. ps. Climate science is political only because those who don't believe in science politicize it.
  - toolz 5y ago
    The fact people think anyone should believe in science speaks to how political many scientific subjects have become so political. Imagine if scientists just "believed" science and never tried to reproduce. Belief is an awfully terrible trait to have in science.
    - he0001 5y ago
      Isn’t that the problem? Because for most people, believing in it is the only option? They don’t have the tools or the ability to either refute nor confirm it.
    - butokai 5y ago
      Isn't trying to reproduce a part of believing science? It seems that you're loving less than half of it otherwise
      - toolz 5y ago
        No, verification is not belief. You can believe in the methodologies I suppose, but that is not what is being said when people say "believe in science". They are saying "believe in the findings from people you haven't met who have credentials", which is nothing more than a nonsense appeal to authority. If a subject is important to someone, they should try their best to understand the research and to more fully understand a claim, one would do well to research with a heavy dose of skepticism in everything, especially things that affirm their own bias.
    - chriswarbo 5y ago
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- dna_polymerase 5y ago
  Taking a look at Syukuro Manabe on Google scholar, one will find that his most cited work is decades old. They could have given him the prize years ago or years from now. Climate change being the biggest topic currently certainly was a contributing factor to the decision.
  - eganist 5y ago
    Manabe's work was predictive. It's only in recent years when we've started seeing those predictions come true. Less "politics" and more "hey his models were right."
  - _fizz_buzz_ 5y ago
    That is often the case with the Nobel prize though. Higg's most cited paper was also many decades old before he got the Nobel prize.
  - fenomas 5y ago
    That's how the scientific Nobel prizes work. The average delay between discovery and award for recent Physics prizes is over 25 years, and gaps of 40+ years are not uncommon.
  - photochemsyn 5y ago
    The point your comment makes is one I imagine you have not grasped - the basic science of climate and CO2 was figured out by the late 1970s. Everything else since has been fine-tuning. For example, if you go back to the early 1950s this was not well known, and you had theories about how variations in the tides controlled climate and so on. P.S. Exxon scientists knew in 1978 that the science was accurate, and yet their executives spent millions of dollars for decades lying about it - and are still at it.
- stathibus 5y ago
  It is obvious that the committee decided they wanted the prize to be about climate change this year before the selection process began, or it never would have shaken out this way.
  - gandalfgreybeer 5y ago
    How is it obvious?
    - SiempreViernes 5y ago
      I guess first stathibus defined that anything that indicates the reality of climate change is part of one big conspiracy, and then "obviously" this event is part of that?
      - stathibus 5y ago
        Tell me you're way out of your depth without telling me you're way out of your depth
- scythe 5y ago
  The Nobel Prize does not — and cannot reasonably — highlight the "best" physics research, because it is not possible to directly say one discipline is superior or more important than another. Rather, the Nobel features different disciplines in different years. In this context, it's important to recall that the development of modern climate science is one of the most significant developments of 20th-century physics, and before this year, no Nobel Prize had been awarded for climate science. Similar prizes were awarded for the development of the integrated circuit and the light-emitting diode, and in these cases almost nobody finds it to be in the slightest untoward that the Prize is awarded in relation to the social impact of the work. (There are always a few crotchety purists, but more people pretend to be so when it suits them.) So yes, awarding the Nobel for climate science is a political decision. Not awarding the Nobel for climate science would also be a political decision. In this context, it appears that the recipients are two of the most influential early theorists of climate science, who did their work decades ago. The Nobel committee has no choice but to be politicized when science is politicized. They handled it admirably.
- mstade 5y ago
  Is it unreasonable to suggest that maybe it could be both a reflection of politics and world class scientific achievements? To suggest that the prize is given simply in order to make a political statement seems like an insult to both the academy and the laureates. Besides, wouldn't it be just as bad to avoid awarding a prize that is politically sensitive, even though the actual science may well be prize worthy? It's fine to not consider a laureate a worthy winner, for sure, but it's not like they gave the Nobel prize in physics to Greta Thunberg..
  - whatshisface 5y ago
    It's a defensible suspicion given the other prize that shares the name "Nobel."
- pyb 5y ago
  I don't know the other two, but Parisi is definitely a star in his field.
- bluescarni 5y ago
  The fact that you think that climate change is a "political" topic speaks volume about the success of the right wing propaganda machine.
tumblewit 5y ago
The most fascinating physics nobel prize for me in recent times was for gravitational wave detection using LIGO. I spent days learning and watching videos of the three of them. The ingenuity of the detector is fascinating and the fact that every year they simply got closer but ‘not there yet’ and the fact that it took more than two decades says that the goal was probably secondary but they enjoyed the journey far more. Of course they would have hoped to see the waves be detected in their lifetime but for Kip Thorne it was 50 years from the start. Most of the stories behind Nobel prize winners are mind boggling.
spodek 5y ago
The climate and environment are critically important, as everyone knows from daily front page disasters that will increase. I have a PhD in physics and have made sustainability my mission. I wish I didn't have to as fixing problems past generations stuck us with isn't my first passion, but I can't change the past. As important as the science was to get us here, we have to move to the next stage, which is leadership. I don't mean just passing laws. Even prior to our twin problems of overconsumption and overpopulation, the damage we're suffering is the physical manifestation of our values, especially material growth, extraction, efficiency, externalizing costs, and comfort and convenience. Technology, innovation, laws, and markets augment those values. As long as we hold them as a culture and individuals, we will innovate technologies, laws, and markets that exacerbate the problem. I will always support more research and value these scientists' work that enabled us to get past the science to restoring our values of stewardship: personal growth, enjoying what we have, humility to nature, resilience, responsibility for how our behavior affects others, meaning, purpose, and the satisfaction of a job well done. With those values, we will innovate solutions that increase Earth's ability to sustain life. Again, as important as the science is, we must restore our personal and cultural values to solve the problems science revealed. That's leadership and teamwork. We can all act immediately. Since systemic change begins with personal transformation, the fastest, most effective way to change governments and corporations is to act here and now, learn from the experience, act more, and lead others to join.
- zarkov99 5y ago
  Sound like you are an ideologue posing as a scientist. When you see people everywhere loosing their trust in science look in the mirror for the reason.
- missedthecue 5y ago
  "I have a PhD in physics and have made sustainability my mission. I wish I didn't have to as fixing problems past generations stuck us with isn't my first passion, but I can't change the past." Somehow, I don't think you'd have a PhD in physics had the industrial revolution never occurred.
meister0 5y ago
Luboš Motl, "Global warming: Nobel Prize in Physics has become a joke, too" https://motls.blogspot.com/2021/10/global-warming-nobel-prize-in-physics.html https://motls.blogspot.com/2021/10/global-warming-nobel-priz...
- BoHerfVIJrEsq 5y ago
  A link to a substantive critique of this prize by a working theoretical physicist should not be downvoted.
  - smarx007 5y ago
    > The explanation of the award involving the "interplay" is incredibly vague. What is the precise discovery or the paper that is being appreciated here? Nobel award explanations are directed at the general public. Prizes themselves are awarded for a lifetime contribution to the field and/or to the society through the work in the field. > I reserve the right to ban any commenter who mentions the Nobel Prize in a positive sense. A substantive critique? As far as I understood the post, the main weakness of the laureates' research is that it was not "hard" enough. And that the contribution of their research to the society should not matter. I am watching some lectures from laureates on YT now and I already wrote down a favourite quote from Syukuro Manabe: "You can never win, competing with nature in complexity".
  - SiempreViernes 5y ago
    As it's published within an hour of the announcement, you will allow me a measure of scepticism that this is really something "substantive" as opposed to merely "wordy".
  - Ma8ee 5y ago
    I think we disagree about the "substantive" part.
  - freyir 5y ago
    Not a substantive critique by a working physicist, a rant by a blogger who thrives on controversy.
streamofdigits 5y ago
Complex systems are a largely unexplored area of physics in that we don't really have tools as powerful and generally applicable as the mathematical machinery developed to describe more "fundamental" physics. With the exception of near equilibrium phenomena of homogeneous systems like gases that can be described with 19th century statistical physics it is really hard to write down general laws or patterns. The work of Parisi (and quite a few others) in the eighties (non-linear systems, chaos theory, attractors, universality of power laws etc) have given us a first glimpse of what lies beyond, but a true revolution is still in the future and will require some pretty mind-bending mathematical inventions. Making serious progress is not just intellectually challenging, it is also of immense practical relevance for us understanding and moderating our impact on the biosphere. The Nobel committee, in their infinite wisdom, suggest as much.
- throwaway98188 5y ago
  > The Nobel committee, in their infinite wisdom, suggest as much. Usually this phrase is used ironically, as in “they don’t know what the [expletive] they’re doing,” but the rest of your comment reads genuine. Because people seem split on this and because I don’t fully understand any of it, can you clarify one thing: are you throwin’ shade?
  - streamofdigits 5y ago
    it was a bit of an innocent joke really, just to spice up the comment by alluding to the known fact that the committees are occasionally criticized. Granting Nobel prizes for science is not an exact science :-)
- carlob 5y ago
  Parisi work on spin glasses already has some pretty mind bending mathematics. That continuous limit where the rank of a matrix goes to zero for example?
  - trenchgun 5y ago
    >That continuous limit where the rank of a matrix goes to zero for example? What the fuck?
sanxiyn 5y ago
I first learned about Manabe's works from the wonderful "The Discovery of Global Warming" project. Looking at the Nobel prize citation, they seem to consider his work on climate sensitivity (2 degrees for doubled CO2, obtained in 1967) the most important, but I think his work on coupled model of atmosphere and ocean was equally important. It is interesting to note his own view. On climate sensitivity calculation: "it is not advisable to take too seriously". On coupled model: "I am very proud of it". https://history.aip.org/climate/GCM.htm https://history.aip.org/climate/GCM.htm
- sanxiyn 5y ago
  The linked page (and the whole site) is totally worth reading, but it is probably too long, so here are some quotes. On climate sensitivity calculation: > Wallace Broecker, who would later play a major role in climate change studies, recalled that it was the 1967 paper "that convinced me that this was a thing to worry about". Another scientist called it "arguably the greatest climate science paper of all time", for it "essentially settled the debate on whether carbon dioxide causes global warming". Experts in a 2015 poll agreed, naming it as the "most influential" of all climate change papers. So Nobel committee was right to cite it. On the other hand, the author's "don't take it too seriously" comment should be taken seriously. 2 degrees value is spot on, but knowing what we know now, it couldn't be the right value for the right reason. The most important is that 1967 model had no ocean. (Manabe went on to make the first successful attack with ocean in 1969.) Another is lack of data. The following quote is pretty funny: > Until satellite measurements became available later in the 1980s, most models used data from the 1950s that only gave averages by zones of latitude, and only for the Northern Hemisphere. Modelers mirrored the set to represent clouds in the Southern Hemisphere, with the seasons reversed -- although of course the distribution of land, sea, and ice is very different in the two halves of the planet. I mean, mirroring? It is obviously wrong, but what can you do? Other than waiting for satellites and noting the result shouldn't be taken too seriously, that is. Now we have adequate data and model, it is proper to acknowledge great effort went into these pioneering works. The last quote on amount of computation used (for 1969 paper). It was truly AlphaGo-scale computaiton of its time! It is interesting to note AlphaGo Zero trained for comparable time of 40 days. > Their costly Univac 1108, a supercomputer by the standards of the time... Manabe and Bryan were confident enough of their model to undertake a heroic computer run, some 1100 hours long (more than 12 full days of computer time devoted to the atmosphere and 33 to the ocean).
dandanua 5y ago
It's not politically motivated, it's "existentially" motivated. Especially when world leaders ridicule the problem and dismantle efforts to fight it [1]. [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-51213003 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-51213003
sydthrowaway 5y ago
Psychohistory by Hari Seldon
cft 5y ago
It's encouraging to see that the second part to Parisi (completely unrelated to the first) is still non-political.
- photochemsyn 5y ago
  The first is hardly political either. Most people simply don't want to admit that the science of carbon dioxide and climate was figured out by the late 1970s and everything since has been fine-tuning the models and improving their resolution.
  - Throwaway197401 5y ago
    Which have shown us that we are in much less danger than was originally believed yet the media and politicians keep pushing the climate catastrophist narrative. Thats the actual denial going on here.
photochemsyn 5y ago
Manabe (and a lot of other people!) really figured out the control dials on climate back in the 1970s The basic science on carbon dioxide and climate was settled by 1979, and ExxonMobil's scientists agreed internally, as recent revelations demonstrate (1). Everything since has mostly been fine-tuning and improved resolution due to computational technology advances. There has been a huge political effort to discredit this science ever since, by the fossil fuel industry and affiliated interests, since they have huge finacial interests in maintaining the current energy supply system - so, the science got politicized. Let's take a look at the general concept though, from Manabe et al.'s 1975 paper (2): > "The atmospheric part of the model incorporates the primitive equations of motion in a spherical coordinate system. The numerical problems associated with the treatment of mountains are minimized by using the “sigma” coordinate system in which pressure, normalized by surface pressure, is the vertical coordinate. For vertical finite differencing, nine levels are chosen so as to represent the planetary boundary layer and the stratosphere as well as the troposphere. For horizontal finite differencing, the regular latitude-longitude grid is used. To prevent linear computational instability in the time integration, Fourier filtering is applied in the longitudinal direction to all prognostic variables in higher latitudes such that the effective grid size of the model is approximately 500 km everywhere." So, let's note that this general approach is applicable to planets like Mars and Venus as well as Earth. There is no ocean on those planets, however, but the atmospheric radiative-convection model approach is identical. Mars has something like 1% of Earth's surface pressure, Venus has 90X that pressure, but the same approach works. It's even applied to the gas giants. Note that 9 layers in the model is quite simple relative to modern models. > "For the computation of radiative transfer, the distribution of water vapor, which is determined by the prognostic system of water vapor, is used. However, the distributions of carbon dioxide, ozone and cloudiness are prescribed as a function of latitude and height and assumed to be constant with time. The temperature of the ground surface is determined such that it satisfies the condition of heat balance." Here's another key point - water vapor is modeled as a feedback, CO2 is modeled as a forcing. About 2/3 of radiative forcing in the atmosphere is due to water vapor, but that water vapor increases due to CO2 forcing (which has greatest effect higher in the atmosphere, closing windows that would allow IR to escape to space). This was verified by the Pinatubo explosion incidentally, in which predictions about water vapor feedback were highly accurate (3). > "The prognostic system of water vapor includes the contribution of three-dimensional advection of water vapor and condensation in case of supersaturation. To simulate moist convection, a highly idealized procedure of moist convective adjustment is introduced. The prediction of soil moisture and snow depth is based upon the budget of water, snow and heat. Snow cover and sea ice are assumed to have much larger albedos than soil surface or open sea, and have a very significant effect upon the heat balance of the surface of the model." So, that's the albedo effect, and as the poles melt albedo drops and you get more warming. You also get polewards heat transfer. Thus these scientists predicted warming at poles would be much faster than warming at equator, and that's been proven as well. Cloud feedbacks introduce a certain degree of variability, but definitely don't change the overall conclusions (see MIT's Richard Lindzen for that worn-out fossil-hyped argument if you like). Now, I'll stop here but note that Manabe's other great contribution was linking the atmospheric model to the rather more difficult ocean circulation model. This allowed quantification of the lag effect, i.e. ocean warming absorbs a great % of the atmospheric forcing but warmer oceans warm the atmosphere and so on. Incidentally, none of this would be at all controversial if human civilization had exhausted global fossil fuel reserves by 1980 and renewable adoption had been forced by necessity. It's rather interesting though - science was once completely accepted by industry, but then scientific advances began undermining business profits - the discovery of industrial carcinogens, the discovery of fossil-fueled global warming, etc. really changed the dynamic and accurate science became as much of a threat to established interests as it was a boon. [edit sources]: 1. https://www.climatefiles.com/exxonmobil/1978-exxon-memo-on-greenhouse-effect-for-exxon-corporation-management-committee/ https://www.climatefiles.com/exxonmobil/1978-exxon-memo-on-g... 2. https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/phoc/5/1/1520-0485_1975_005_0003_agoacm_2_0_co_2.xml https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/phoc/5/1/1520-048... 3. https://www.science.org/doi/pdf/10.1126/science.296.5568.727 https://www.science.org/doi/pdf/10.1126/science.296.5568.727
spoonjim 5y ago
These are worthy winners of the Nobel Prize, but it also seems like we’re starting to see the science Nobels enter the Culture War.
- cratermoon 5y ago
  Say rather that the climate denialists have used politics to attempt to discredit science, thus politicizing, for their own purposes, the results of research.
tediousdemise 5y ago
Two of these awards seem like virtue signaling for climate change and global warming, topics which exploded in media and politics this year. I personally believe that global warming and climate change are the most pressing issues facing humanity, but I oppose the politicization of prestigious award platforms. It's simultaneously obnoxious and unfair to the other candidates. We see the same thing happen in racially-charged atmospheres for artistic awards.
leephillips 5y ago
These three propositions are all simultaneously true (in my opinion): 1) Every person who has ever received a Nobel Prize in physics has richly deserved it; 2) Culture and politics influence the awarding of the Prize; 3) Several people who did not get the Prize would have if they had not been women. (3) is a corollary to (2). One example is Jocelyn Bell Burnell, who discovered pulsars. The Nobel Prize for that was awarded to two men.
- tediousdemise 5y ago
  Although it's factual, many people put their fingers in their ear and scream when you mention point (2). I would extend that point to any prestigious award.
  - leephillips 5y ago
    At least (1) is still true. Contrast the Literature and Peace prizes, which have truly become bad jokes.
    - tephra 5y ago
      To argue a bit I'd say that the science prizes have it a bit easier. Here's the criteria that Alfred Nobel set out in his will[0] for the literature prize (kinda badly translated from 19th century Swedish): "one part to whom in literature have produced the most excellent work in an ideal direction". You have had 18 members of the Swedish Academy debating what the hell that means since forever. [0] https://www.nobelprize.org/alfred-nobel/alfred-nobels-testamente/ https://www.nobelprize.org/alfred-nobel/alfred-nobels-testam...
      - leephillips 5y ago
        Hmmm. OK, that’s quite something to have to interpret.
- barwell 5y ago
  But at least in the case of Jocelyn Bell Burnell, even though she put in a lot of the legwork, it was her supervisors who did much of the theoretical work to explain the discovery. Also of note is that she agreed with the Nobel committee decision. From her Wikipedia page: "First, demarcation disputes between supervisor and student are always difficult, probably impossible to resolve. Secondly, it is the supervisor who has the final responsibility for the success or failure of the project. We hear of cases where a supervisor blames his student for a failure, but we know that it is largely the fault of the supervisor. It seems only fair to me that he should benefit from the successes, too. Thirdly, I believe it would demean Nobel Prizes if they were awarded to research students, except in very exceptional cases, and I do not believe this is one of them. Finally, I am not myself upset about it – after all, I am in good company, am I not!"
bhu8 5y ago
Nice thread on Giorgio Parisi by Montanari: https://twitter.com/Andrea__M/status/1445405295811960841?s=20 https://twitter.com/Andrea__M/status/1445405295811960841?s=2...
dav_Oz 5y ago
As with the NP for Med/Physio it is unfortunate that the trope of "saving the planet" has such a vile revival. And if I'm not for the one team I'm for the other. Irrespective of that this years NP in Physics is an achknowledgment of a "young" (in terms of NPs) but promising field. For anyone interested, I found this podcast very informative: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2020/08/17/110-neil-johnson-on-complexity-conflict-and-infodemiology/ https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2020/08/17/110-...
inasio 5y ago
Physicists developed a whole bunch of tools to find the base energy levels of spinglasses, which were repurposed in the past 10 years as general purpose solvers for NP hard combinatorial optimization problems (by converting them to QUBO format, which is equivalent to the Ising format in spinglasses). There are pros and cons to them, but it opened a whole new area in optimization, currently multiple companies are building custom hardware QUBO solvers (D-Wave, NTT, Fujitsu, Hitachi, ...)

239 points by harscoat 5y ago

Summary Pr. John Wettlaufer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ezsbf42_RTA&ab_channel=NobelPrize https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ezsbf42_RTA&ab_channel=Nobel...

doctoboggan 5y ago

Can anyone with more insight into the three researchers explain if this is a political statement or if their work really represents the best physics research? I am genuinely asking as I don't know much about their research.

Throwaway197401 5y ago
Looks like this part is political: “for the physical modelling of Earth’s climate, quantifying variability and reliably predicting global warming”" And this part is actual science: “for the discovery of the interplay of disorder and fluctuations in physical systems from atomic to planetary scales”
- baq 5y ago
  nope. before you ask me for sources, you haven't provided any, and you're quoting from a release with sources.
  - Throwaway197401 5y ago
    The source is the reason given. Modelling is NOT physics, it's not even science its statistics and does not actually produce the result that are claimed. There is a reason why the IPCC comes out with a range and not a specific number. They haven't found the right initial conditions or they would only use his to move forward. In fact if that had really been the case he should have been the only person who got the prize as that would have been an amazing achievement. This is just "sciencewashing" speculative modelling based on models about the climate that can't be proven to be correct in the future. (Hence the reason they are not going to stop modelling different initial conditions. So yes it's political nothing else. Politics not software is eating the world.
- eganist 5y ago
  > Looks like this part is political: “for the physical modelling of Earth’s climate, quantifying variability and reliably predicting global warming” All this is saying is that the predictive models they devised were proven correct given climate behavior today, e.g rise of temperatures and a general uptrend in severe weather activity that followed.
  - fighterpilot 5y ago
    He predicted 0.57C of warming by the year 2000, and we saw 0.54C of warming. So accurate at least according to that. https://twitter.com/hausfath/status/1445359093905084417 https://twitter.com/hausfath/status/1445359093905084417
  - Throwaway197401 5y ago
    Which shouldn't be given a nobel price unless they can explain exactly why which they can't just like we can't really explain why the temperature didn't increase for a period after 2nd world war without getting into speculation. It's bogus and as far some anything related to scientific standards as we can come.
sshb 5y ago
Here is a nice summary: https://twitter.com/thePiggsBoson/status/1445334496857841668 https://twitter.com/thePiggsBoson/status/1445334496857841668
- smarx007 5y ago
  Rather than reading what tech/science writers can summarize on a lap (remember, they only learned the laureates' names a hour ago or so), I prefer to simply head over to YouTube and look for a lecture given by a laureate themselves. Most likely, Nobel is not their first prize and they have given a lecture summarizing their lifetime contributions before. Plus, it's always more pleasure to listen to nice people than reading Twitter :)
  - Majestic121 5y ago
    You can also find a nice PDF summary of their contribution on the Nobel Prize website itself, including a popular version : https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2021/10/popular-physicsprize2021.pdf https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2021/10/popular-physicspr...
mygoodaccount 5y ago
High profile prizes will always be political. That said, Syukuro Manabe built the foundation for a lot of modern day computer-based climate simulation. I can't speak for the others but I'd say that's Nobel worthy.
- paganel 5y ago
  > computer-based climate simulation I'm no scientist by any stretch of the imagination, the last time when I read something related to higher physics was ~20 years ago, in college, but I have to ask how is that topic related to modern physics. You're correct, it sounds like like a worthy Nobel for an Earth Sciences Nobel, or a Meteorology one (to be more direct), if those two things existed (maybe they should), but, again, don't know how meteorology (what computer-based climate simulation basically is) is the same thing as higher physics.
  - maep 5y ago
    Meteorology is a sub-branch of physics.
  - evanb 5y ago
    As a physicist, I try to avoid the snobbery of limiting myself to "higher physics". A wide variety of physical systems are interesting, not just fundamental particle physics. Physics contains multitudes; graphene, giant magnetoresistence, fiber optics, and systems more complex.
    - paganel 5y ago
      But then again physics risks following the (wrong) road taken by economics a while ago, when it decided that almost all modern human-activity can be in fact studied through the economics lens.
      - jean_tta 5y ago
        Surely studying the climate, i.e. a physical system, is completely in the realm of physics. Certainly, it is closer to whatever definition of physics you may have, than education or kidney donation (to take two examples) are to economics.
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nabla9 5y ago
Hasselmann deserved it. Hasselmann model is stochastic climate model that explains red noise. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.2153-3490.1976.tb00696.x https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.2153-3490.1976... I don't know much about Manabes work but he is a pioneer in climate modelling. ps. Climate science is political only because those who don't believe in science politicize it.
- toolz 5y ago
  The fact people think anyone should believe in science speaks to how political many scientific subjects have become so political. Imagine if scientists just "believed" science and never tried to reproduce. Belief is an awfully terrible trait to have in science.
  - he0001 5y ago
    Isn’t that the problem? Because for most people, believing in it is the only option? They don’t have the tools or the ability to either refute nor confirm it.
  - butokai 5y ago
    Isn't trying to reproduce a part of believing science? It seems that you're loving less than half of it otherwise
    - toolz 5y ago
      No, verification is not belief. You can believe in the methodologies I suppose, but that is not what is being said when people say "believe in science". They are saying "believe in the findings from people you haven't met who have credentials", which is nothing more than a nonsense appeal to authority. If a subject is important to someone, they should try their best to understand the research and to more fully understand a claim, one would do well to research with a heavy dose of skepticism in everything, especially things that affirm their own bias.
  - chriswarbo 5y ago
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dna_polymerase 5y ago
Taking a look at Syukuro Manabe on Google scholar, one will find that his most cited work is decades old. They could have given him the prize years ago or years from now. Climate change being the biggest topic currently certainly was a contributing factor to the decision.
- eganist 5y ago
  Manabe's work was predictive. It's only in recent years when we've started seeing those predictions come true. Less "politics" and more "hey his models were right."
- _fizz_buzz_ 5y ago
  That is often the case with the Nobel prize though. Higg's most cited paper was also many decades old before he got the Nobel prize.
- fenomas 5y ago
  That's how the scientific Nobel prizes work. The average delay between discovery and award for recent Physics prizes is over 25 years, and gaps of 40+ years are not uncommon.
- photochemsyn 5y ago
  The point your comment makes is one I imagine you have not grasped - the basic science of climate and CO2 was figured out by the late 1970s. Everything else since has been fine-tuning. For example, if you go back to the early 1950s this was not well known, and you had theories about how variations in the tides controlled climate and so on. P.S. Exxon scientists knew in 1978 that the science was accurate, and yet their executives spent millions of dollars for decades lying about it - and are still at it.
stathibus 5y ago
It is obvious that the committee decided they wanted the prize to be about climate change this year before the selection process began, or it never would have shaken out this way.
- gandalfgreybeer 5y ago
  How is it obvious?
  - SiempreViernes 5y ago
    I guess first stathibus defined that anything that indicates the reality of climate change is part of one big conspiracy, and then "obviously" this event is part of that?
    - stathibus 5y ago
      Tell me you're way out of your depth without telling me you're way out of your depth
scythe 5y ago
The Nobel Prize does not — and cannot reasonably — highlight the "best" physics research, because it is not possible to directly say one discipline is superior or more important than another. Rather, the Nobel features different disciplines in different years. In this context, it's important to recall that the development of modern climate science is one of the most significant developments of 20th-century physics, and before this year, no Nobel Prize had been awarded for climate science. Similar prizes were awarded for the development of the integrated circuit and the light-emitting diode, and in these cases almost nobody finds it to be in the slightest untoward that the Prize is awarded in relation to the social impact of the work. (There are always a few crotchety purists, but more people pretend to be so when it suits them.) So yes, awarding the Nobel for climate science is a political decision. Not awarding the Nobel for climate science would also be a political decision. In this context, it appears that the recipients are two of the most influential early theorists of climate science, who did their work decades ago. The Nobel committee has no choice but to be politicized when science is politicized. They handled it admirably.
mstade 5y ago
Is it unreasonable to suggest that maybe it could be both a reflection of politics and world class scientific achievements? To suggest that the prize is given simply in order to make a political statement seems like an insult to both the academy and the laureates. Besides, wouldn't it be just as bad to avoid awarding a prize that is politically sensitive, even though the actual science may well be prize worthy? It's fine to not consider a laureate a worthy winner, for sure, but it's not like they gave the Nobel prize in physics to Greta Thunberg..
- whatshisface 5y ago
  It's a defensible suspicion given the other prize that shares the name "Nobel."
pyb 5y ago
I don't know the other two, but Parisi is definitely a star in his field.
bluescarni 5y ago
The fact that you think that climate change is a "political" topic speaks volume about the success of the right wing propaganda machine.

tumblewit 5y ago

The most fascinating physics nobel prize for me in recent times was for gravitational wave detection using LIGO. I spent days learning and watching videos of the three of them. The ingenuity of the detector is fascinating and the fact that every year they simply got closer but ‘not there yet’ and the fact that it took more than two decades says that the goal was probably secondary but they enjoyed the journey far more. Of course they would have hoped to see the waves be detected in their lifetime but for Kip Thorne it was 50 years from the start. Most of the stories behind Nobel prize winners are mind boggling.

spodek 5y ago

The climate and environment are critically important, as everyone knows from daily front page disasters that will increase. I have a PhD in physics and have made sustainability my mission. I wish I didn't have to as fixing problems past generations stuck us with isn't my first passion, but I can't change the past. As important as the science was to get us here, we have to move to the next stage, which is leadership. I don't mean just passing laws. Even prior to our twin problems of overconsumption and overpopulation, the damage we're suffering is the physical manifestation of our values, especially material growth, extraction, efficiency, externalizing costs, and comfort and convenience. Technology, innovation, laws, and markets augment those values. As long as we hold them as a culture and individuals, we will innovate technologies, laws, and markets that exacerbate the problem. I will always support more research and value these scientists' work that enabled us to get past the science to restoring our values of stewardship: personal growth, enjoying what we have, humility to nature, resilience, responsibility for how our behavior affects others, meaning, purpose, and the satisfaction of a job well done. With those values, we will innovate solutions that increase Earth's ability to sustain life. Again, as important as the science is, we must restore our personal and cultural values to solve the problems science revealed. That's leadership and teamwork. We can all act immediately. Since systemic change begins with personal transformation, the fastest, most effective way to change governments and corporations is to act here and now, learn from the experience, act more, and lead others to join.

zarkov99 5y ago
Sound like you are an ideologue posing as a scientist. When you see people everywhere loosing their trust in science look in the mirror for the reason.
missedthecue 5y ago
"I have a PhD in physics and have made sustainability my mission. I wish I didn't have to as fixing problems past generations stuck us with isn't my first passion, but I can't change the past." Somehow, I don't think you'd have a PhD in physics had the industrial revolution never occurred.

meister0 5y ago

Luboš Motl, "Global warming: Nobel Prize in Physics has become a joke, too" https://motls.blogspot.com/2021/10/global-warming-nobel-prize-in-physics.html https://motls.blogspot.com/2021/10/global-warming-nobel-priz...

BoHerfVIJrEsq 5y ago
A link to a substantive critique of this prize by a working theoretical physicist should not be downvoted.
- smarx007 5y ago
  > The explanation of the award involving the "interplay" is incredibly vague. What is the precise discovery or the paper that is being appreciated here? Nobel award explanations are directed at the general public. Prizes themselves are awarded for a lifetime contribution to the field and/or to the society through the work in the field. > I reserve the right to ban any commenter who mentions the Nobel Prize in a positive sense. A substantive critique? As far as I understood the post, the main weakness of the laureates' research is that it was not "hard" enough. And that the contribution of their research to the society should not matter. I am watching some lectures from laureates on YT now and I already wrote down a favourite quote from Syukuro Manabe: "You can never win, competing with nature in complexity".
- SiempreViernes 5y ago
  As it's published within an hour of the announcement, you will allow me a measure of scepticism that this is really something "substantive" as opposed to merely "wordy".
- Ma8ee 5y ago
  I think we disagree about the "substantive" part.
- freyir 5y ago
  Not a substantive critique by a working physicist, a rant by a blogger who thrives on controversy.

streamofdigits 5y ago

Complex systems are a largely unexplored area of physics in that we don't really have tools as powerful and generally applicable as the mathematical machinery developed to describe more "fundamental" physics. With the exception of near equilibrium phenomena of homogeneous systems like gases that can be described with 19th century statistical physics it is really hard to write down general laws or patterns. The work of Parisi (and quite a few others) in the eighties (non-linear systems, chaos theory, attractors, universality of power laws etc) have given us a first glimpse of what lies beyond, but a true revolution is still in the future and will require some pretty mind-bending mathematical inventions. Making serious progress is not just intellectually challenging, it is also of immense practical relevance for us understanding and moderating our impact on the biosphere. The Nobel committee, in their infinite wisdom, suggest as much.

throwaway98188 5y ago
> The Nobel committee, in their infinite wisdom, suggest as much. Usually this phrase is used ironically, as in “they don’t know what the [expletive] they’re doing,” but the rest of your comment reads genuine. Because people seem split on this and because I don’t fully understand any of it, can you clarify one thing: are you throwin’ shade?
- streamofdigits 5y ago
  it was a bit of an innocent joke really, just to spice up the comment by alluding to the known fact that the committees are occasionally criticized. Granting Nobel prizes for science is not an exact science :-)
carlob 5y ago
Parisi work on spin glasses already has some pretty mind bending mathematics. That continuous limit where the rank of a matrix goes to zero for example?
- trenchgun 5y ago
  >That continuous limit where the rank of a matrix goes to zero for example? What the fuck?

sanxiyn 5y ago

I first learned about Manabe's works from the wonderful "The Discovery of Global Warming" project. Looking at the Nobel prize citation, they seem to consider his work on climate sensitivity (2 degrees for doubled CO2, obtained in 1967) the most important, but I think his work on coupled model of atmosphere and ocean was equally important. It is interesting to note his own view. On climate sensitivity calculation: "it is not advisable to take too seriously". On coupled model: "I am very proud of it". https://history.aip.org/climate/GCM.htm https://history.aip.org/climate/GCM.htm

sanxiyn 5y ago
The linked page (and the whole site) is totally worth reading, but it is probably too long, so here are some quotes. On climate sensitivity calculation: > Wallace Broecker, who would later play a major role in climate change studies, recalled that it was the 1967 paper "that convinced me that this was a thing to worry about". Another scientist called it "arguably the greatest climate science paper of all time", for it "essentially settled the debate on whether carbon dioxide causes global warming". Experts in a 2015 poll agreed, naming it as the "most influential" of all climate change papers. So Nobel committee was right to cite it. On the other hand, the author's "don't take it too seriously" comment should be taken seriously. 2 degrees value is spot on, but knowing what we know now, it couldn't be the right value for the right reason. The most important is that 1967 model had no ocean. (Manabe went on to make the first successful attack with ocean in 1969.) Another is lack of data. The following quote is pretty funny: > Until satellite measurements became available later in the 1980s, most models used data from the 1950s that only gave averages by zones of latitude, and only for the Northern Hemisphere. Modelers mirrored the set to represent clouds in the Southern Hemisphere, with the seasons reversed -- although of course the distribution of land, sea, and ice is very different in the two halves of the planet. I mean, mirroring? It is obviously wrong, but what can you do? Other than waiting for satellites and noting the result shouldn't be taken too seriously, that is. Now we have adequate data and model, it is proper to acknowledge great effort went into these pioneering works. The last quote on amount of computation used (for 1969 paper). It was truly AlphaGo-scale computaiton of its time! It is interesting to note AlphaGo Zero trained for comparable time of 40 days. > Their costly Univac 1108, a supercomputer by the standards of the time... Manabe and Bryan were confident enough of their model to undertake a heroic computer run, some 1100 hours long (more than 12 full days of computer time devoted to the atmosphere and 33 to the ocean).

dandanua 5y ago

It's not politically motivated, it's "existentially" motivated. Especially when world leaders ridicule the problem and dismantle efforts to fight it [1]. [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-51213003 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-51213003

sydthrowaway 5y ago

Psychohistory by Hari Seldon

cft 5y ago

It's encouraging to see that the second part to Parisi (completely unrelated to the first) is still non-political.

photochemsyn 5y ago
The first is hardly political either. Most people simply don't want to admit that the science of carbon dioxide and climate was figured out by the late 1970s and everything since has been fine-tuning the models and improving their resolution.
- Throwaway197401 5y ago
  Which have shown us that we are in much less danger than was originally believed yet the media and politicians keep pushing the climate catastrophist narrative. Thats the actual denial going on here.

photochemsyn 5y ago

Manabe (and a lot of other people!) really figured out the control dials on climate back in the 1970s The basic science on carbon dioxide and climate was settled by 1979, and ExxonMobil's scientists agreed internally, as recent revelations demonstrate (1). Everything since has mostly been fine-tuning and improved resolution due to computational technology advances. There has been a huge political effort to discredit this science ever since, by the fossil fuel industry and affiliated interests, since they have huge finacial interests in maintaining the current energy supply system - so, the science got politicized. Let's take a look at the general concept though, from Manabe et al.'s 1975 paper (2): > "The atmospheric part of the model incorporates the primitive equations of motion in a spherical coordinate system. The numerical problems associated with the treatment of mountains are minimized by using the “sigma” coordinate system in which pressure, normalized by surface pressure, is the vertical coordinate. For vertical finite differencing, nine levels are chosen so as to represent the planetary boundary layer and the stratosphere as well as the troposphere. For horizontal finite differencing, the regular latitude-longitude grid is used. To prevent linear computational instability in the time integration, Fourier filtering is applied in the longitudinal direction to all prognostic variables in higher latitudes such that the effective grid size of the model is approximately 500 km everywhere." So, let's note that this general approach is applicable to planets like Mars and Venus as well as Earth. There is no ocean on those planets, however, but the atmospheric radiative-convection model approach is identical. Mars has something like 1% of Earth's surface pressure, Venus has 90X that pressure, but the same approach works. It's even applied to the gas giants. Note that 9 layers in the model is quite simple relative to modern models. > "For the computation of radiative transfer, the distribution of water vapor, which is determined by the prognostic system of water vapor, is used. However, the distributions of carbon dioxide, ozone and cloudiness are prescribed as a function of latitude and height and assumed to be constant with time. The temperature of the ground surface is determined such that it satisfies the condition of heat balance." Here's another key point - water vapor is modeled as a feedback, CO2 is modeled as a forcing. About 2/3 of radiative forcing in the atmosphere is due to water vapor, but that water vapor increases due to CO2 forcing (which has greatest effect higher in the atmosphere, closing windows that would allow IR to escape to space). This was verified by the Pinatubo explosion incidentally, in which predictions about water vapor feedback were highly accurate (3). > "The prognostic system of water vapor includes the contribution of three-dimensional advection of water vapor and condensation in case of supersaturation. To simulate moist convection, a highly idealized procedure of moist convective adjustment is introduced. The prediction of soil moisture and snow depth is based upon the budget of water, snow and heat. Snow cover and sea ice are assumed to have much larger albedos than soil surface or open sea, and have a very significant effect upon the heat balance of the surface of the model." So, that's the albedo effect, and as the poles melt albedo drops and you get more warming. You also get polewards heat transfer. Thus these scientists predicted warming at poles would be much faster than warming at equator, and that's been proven as well. Cloud feedbacks introduce a certain degree of variability, but definitely don't change the overall conclusions (see MIT's Richard Lindzen for that worn-out fossil-hyped argument if you like). Now, I'll stop here but note that Manabe's other great contribution was linking the atmospheric model to the rather more difficult ocean circulation model. This allowed quantification of the lag effect, i.e. ocean warming absorbs a great % of the atmospheric forcing but warmer oceans warm the atmosphere and so on. Incidentally, none of this would be at all controversial if human civilization had exhausted global fossil fuel reserves by 1980 and renewable adoption had been forced by necessity. It's rather interesting though - science was once completely accepted by industry, but then scientific advances began undermining business profits - the discovery of industrial carcinogens, the discovery of fossil-fueled global warming, etc. really changed the dynamic and accurate science became as much of a threat to established interests as it was a boon. [edit sources]: 1. https://www.climatefiles.com/exxonmobil/1978-exxon-memo-on-greenhouse-effect-for-exxon-corporation-management-committee/ https://www.climatefiles.com/exxonmobil/1978-exxon-memo-on-g... 2. https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/phoc/5/1/1520-0485_1975_005_0003_agoacm_2_0_co_2.xml https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/phoc/5/1/1520-048... 3. https://www.science.org/doi/pdf/10.1126/science.296.5568.727 https://www.science.org/doi/pdf/10.1126/science.296.5568.727

spoonjim 5y ago

These are worthy winners of the Nobel Prize, but it also seems like we’re starting to see the science Nobels enter the Culture War.

cratermoon 5y ago
Say rather that the climate denialists have used politics to attempt to discredit science, thus politicizing, for their own purposes, the results of research.

tediousdemise 5y ago

Two of these awards seem like virtue signaling for climate change and global warming, topics which exploded in media and politics this year. I personally believe that global warming and climate change are the most pressing issues facing humanity, but I oppose the politicization of prestigious award platforms. It's simultaneously obnoxious and unfair to the other candidates. We see the same thing happen in racially-charged atmospheres for artistic awards.

leephillips 5y ago

These three propositions are all simultaneously true (in my opinion): 1) Every person who has ever received a Nobel Prize in physics has richly deserved it; 2) Culture and politics influence the awarding of the Prize; 3) Several people who did not get the Prize would have if they had not been women. (3) is a corollary to (2). One example is Jocelyn Bell Burnell, who discovered pulsars. The Nobel Prize for that was awarded to two men.

tediousdemise 5y ago
Although it's factual, many people put their fingers in their ear and scream when you mention point (2). I would extend that point to any prestigious award.
- leephillips 5y ago
  At least (1) is still true. Contrast the Literature and Peace prizes, which have truly become bad jokes.
  - tephra 5y ago
    To argue a bit I'd say that the science prizes have it a bit easier. Here's the criteria that Alfred Nobel set out in his will[0] for the literature prize (kinda badly translated from 19th century Swedish): "one part to whom in literature have produced the most excellent work in an ideal direction". You have had 18 members of the Swedish Academy debating what the hell that means since forever. [0] https://www.nobelprize.org/alfred-nobel/alfred-nobels-testamente/ https://www.nobelprize.org/alfred-nobel/alfred-nobels-testam...
    - leephillips 5y ago
      Hmmm. OK, that’s quite something to have to interpret.
barwell 5y ago
But at least in the case of Jocelyn Bell Burnell, even though she put in a lot of the legwork, it was her supervisors who did much of the theoretical work to explain the discovery. Also of note is that she agreed with the Nobel committee decision. From her Wikipedia page: "First, demarcation disputes between supervisor and student are always difficult, probably impossible to resolve. Secondly, it is the supervisor who has the final responsibility for the success or failure of the project. We hear of cases where a supervisor blames his student for a failure, but we know that it is largely the fault of the supervisor. It seems only fair to me that he should benefit from the successes, too. Thirdly, I believe it would demean Nobel Prizes if they were awarded to research students, except in very exceptional cases, and I do not believe this is one of them. Finally, I am not myself upset about it – after all, I am in good company, am I not!"

bhu8 5y ago

Nice thread on Giorgio Parisi by Montanari: https://twitter.com/Andrea__M/status/1445405295811960841?s=20 https://twitter.com/Andrea__M/status/1445405295811960841?s=2...

dav_Oz 5y ago

As with the NP for Med/Physio it is unfortunate that the trope of "saving the planet" has such a vile revival. And if I'm not for the one team I'm for the other. Irrespective of that this years NP in Physics is an achknowledgment of a "young" (in terms of NPs) but promising field. For anyone interested, I found this podcast very informative: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2020/08/17/110-neil-johnson-on-complexity-conflict-and-infodemiology/ https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2020/08/17/110-...

inasio 5y ago

Physicists developed a whole bunch of tools to find the base energy levels of spinglasses, which were repurposed in the past 10 years as general purpose solvers for NP hard combinatorial optimization problems (by converting them to QUBO format, which is equivalent to the Ising format in spinglasses). There are pros and cons to them, but it opened a whole new area in optimization, currently multiple companies are building custom hardware QUBO solvers (D-Wave, NTT, Fujitsu, Hitachi, ...)