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There's a long backlog of major achievements in physics that haven't gotten a Nobel Prize in Physics. Giving the prize to something that has essentially nothin
by DiogenesKynikos 2y ago
There's a long backlog of major achievements in physics that haven't gotten a Nobel Prize in Physics.
Giving the prize to something that has essentially nothing to do with physics is just a slap in the face to the physics community.
- cosmic_quanta 2y agoI can only think of major achievements in my (narrow) field of study. What do you think could have reasonably been awarded?
- DiogenesKynikos 2y agoThree off the top of my head: The measurement of the Hubble constant using delay times between multiple images of lensed supernovae. The first transit spectrum of an exoplanet atmosphere. The first directly imaged exoplanet. (They could hand out Nobel Prizes in the field of exoplanets like candy.)
- xqcgrek2 2y agoExoplanet science is not physics, it's chemistry or planetary science. By your logic prizes to teams who send probes to the outer solar system planets could also be given prizes.
- bfmalky 2y agoOk, so under what logic does ML become physics?
- YeGoblynQueenne 2y agoWhat's "exoplanet science"? The above are applications of knowledge of physics to astrophysics, as far as I understand it. Certainly they sound more relevant to physics than neural networks.
- cosmic_quanta 2y agoI would argue that the first measurements of exoplanets' existence is definitely physics. This was a leap in our understanding of the makeup of the universe.
- Workaccount2 2y agoAlfred Nobel's stated standard for a prize is: "conferred the greatest benefit to humankind" So while those things are cool and groundbreaking, I'd say they have yet to cross the threshold into "greatest benefit to humankind"
- DiogenesKynikos 2y agoIf you define "benefit to humankind" narrowly, and don't view gaining pure knowledge about the workings of the universe as beneficial to humanity, then most physics Nobel Prizes over the last few decades fail the test. Detecting gravitational radiation from the merger of two black holes was an incredible step forward for our understanding of the universe. It will not practically change your life in any way.
- nodfyr 2y agoThe computation of the cosmic microwave background fluctuations hasn't received a nobel prize yet. It's had a deep impact on how we understand the Universe. Some people still alive who made important contributions to this are Rees and Sunyaev.
- topaz0 2y agoSomething for nonequilibrium statistical mechanics
- Kon-Peki 2y ago> a slap in the face to the physics community The physics community could use a few more slaps in the face, according to many physicists.
- mhh__ 2y agoThe response of the physicists they say should get a slap is, in programming terms, basically shut up and show me the code. It's a fairly one sided debate that we're blessed with seeing in literally every thread anywhere about it
- underlines 2y agoHere's a resounding 'slap' delivered by one physicist to his peers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBIvSGLkwJY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBIvSGLkwJY
- datavirtue 2y agoThis is like that sidebar you have with someone after you have joined a series of meetings and listened intently and have all these nagging suspicions and you are in denial about people who you think could not possibly be talking this much nonsense because they clearly should know more than you. A few seconds into the sidebar the person tells you that everyone is full of shit, and you find relief in that you were actually understanding everything you were hearing and yes, you were drawing the right conclusions.
- hcks 2y agoCould you please list say the top 5 Nobel worthy achievements of this backlog
- amusedcyclist 2y agoYeah this is absolutely disgusting tbh, revising my opinion of all previous nobels way down now
- tombert 2y agoIt still kind of baffles me that there isn't a Nobel Prize in Mathematics and/or computer science. The latter makes a bit more sense, computer science wasn't really a thing when Alfred Nobel was around, but mathematics certainly was! It seems like it would be perfectly reasonable to add a category for math, and I think Neural Nets would fit in there considerably better.
- shombaboor 2y agothe fields medal fills that gap
- tombert 2y agoYeah, and the Turing Award for CS, and there's probably a bunch more that I'm forgetting. Still kind of weird that the prestigious award that everyone has heard of doesn't have a mathematics category.
- shombaboor 2y agothe nobel prize has the best branding and name brand recognition pop culture wise. I'm sure winning all these others means nearly as much to those communities.
- lukasga 2y agoThe story is that it is because Alfred Nobel was cheated on by a mathematician (hilarious, but unconfirmed) http://nobelprizes.com/nobel/why_no_math.html#story http://nobelprizes.com/nobel/why_no_math.html#story
- aDyslecticCrow 2y agoThe Swedish central bank later added the price in economics (although controversial). So other things can be amended. However, I suspect we won't see any more amendments to the noble price. A different institution can step up and make a price on its own, though I'm not sure what institution would have that amount of prestige without weaponizing it for commercial purposes. I prefer a nicer price for mathematics that includes a bit of computer science than a price for computer science. I don't think there is much room for a "society-changing innovation" within CS that isn't either an engineering feat (Linux, Docker, FFmpeg) or an algorithm that could fit under a mathematics price (FFT, Navier Stokes).
- canjobear 2y agoI understand the frustration, but a lot of Geoff Hinton's foundational work was based on physics principles. For example https://proceedings.neurips.cc/paper/1993/file/9e3cfc48eccf81a0d57663e129aef3cb-Paper.pdf https://proceedings.neurips.cc/paper/1993/file/9e3cfc48eccf8...
- DiogenesKynikos 2y agoInformation theory, which is foundational to computing, has some mathematical similarities to statistical mechanics. That doesn't make it physics.
- gandalfgreybeer 2y agoMy adviser's PhD dissertation (PhD Physics) has Hopkins as one of her major references. This is grounded in Physics.