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I have met a number of Nobel Prize winners in physics, and while it's dangerous to generalize, as a whole they seemed to me to actually be more interested in br
by tedsanders 12y ago
I have met a number of Nobel Prize winners in physics, and while it's dangerous to generalize, as a whole they seemed to me to actually be more interested in broader issues of physics and society. I can't say whether this changed after the prize thrust them into the limelight, but from my experience with Physics winners, your single-function hypothesis does not hold true. In fact, the Nobel laureate on my PhD reading committee is involved with a number of start ups and technologies and books all far afield of his Nobel research.
- larrys 12y agoI've clarified my "single function hypothesis" to say that they would tend to not find "everything and anything" of interest which is what I thought I was saying in my original comment. My point isn't that a Nobel Prize winner would be interested in "physics and society" or baseball or gardening or all three but they would not have a version of ADD (let's call it that for lack of a better diagnosis [1]) which caused them to continually fork on all sorts of things that just satisfied someone's curiosity so to speak. (I also noted in another comment that I found this as well in Physicians who I have known.) [1] I don't have ADD but sometimes I wonder if there is a version of intellectual ADD.
- trippy_biscuits 12y ago> sometimes I wonder if there is a version of intellectual ADD The xkcd comic describes it as nerd sniping. http://xkcd.com/356/ http://xkcd.com/356/