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Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to Englert and Higgs
- r0muald 13y agoApparently most commentators were expecting it. I wonder if there was a possibility that also the CERN team could be awarded the prize?
- peterjancelis 13y agoI think at most 3 people can be named for each nobel price.
- krischer 13y agoThe European Union won it before. So I think organizations are fine.
- kryptiskt 13y agoOrganizations can't be awarded the science prizes.
- _pferreir_ 13y agoAny references on that?
- drrotmos 13y agoThe statutes of the Nobel Foundation, § 4 reads (in part and translated): "If a work that is being rewarded has been produced by two or three persons, the prize shall be awarded to them jointly. In no case may a prize amount be divided between more than three persons." Source: http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_organizations/nobelfoundation/statutes.html#beginning http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_organizations/nobelfoundatio...
- dagw 13y agoEU won the peace prize, which is an entirely separate award from the science prize and handled by an entirely separate committee operating under entirely separate rules.
- henrikschroder 13y agoI was just listening to the news, and apparently over 3000 people were more or less involved with the work at CERN. I don't think the physics prize has ever been awarded to an institution like the peace prize has been in the past, and I think the Academy simply chose not to break tradition.
- _pferreir_ 13y agoThey could have awarded it to the CMS and ATLAS experiments as well. No need to award it to CERN.
- davrosthedalek 13y agoThat's not a significantly lower number of people.
- davrosthedalek 13y agoAnd I would like to add that the people building the accelerator play a significant role too.
- aestra 13y agoThey can't award it to CERN or CMS or ATLAS. At most 3 individual people can split one prize.
- gitaarik 13y agoThe award is for the theory that is confirmed. The people of CERN didn't get awarded because they didn't come up with the theory, they just tested it.
- bfe 13y agoThey often award the physics prize for experimentally verifying a theoretical prediction. For example, they awarded the prize to Paul Dirac for predicting the existence of the positron, and to Carl Anderson for confirming it.
- gitaarik 13y agoI guess the committee thought the theory was a more important achievement than the prove.
- ISL 13y agoUnlikely. Attribution in this case is a very thorny issue. People have been discussing it for decades. There may yet be an experimental prize, especially once the experimental work at LHC is complete. From a physics perspective, LHC has only just begun. For the Higgs alone, its spin has not yet been conclusively measured; it's an important parameter.
- r0muald 13y agoEven one jury member (Anders Barany) publicly stated his own doubts on the subject: http://www.khaleejtimes.com/kt-article-display-1.asp?xfile=data/international/2013/October/international_October262.xml§ion=international http://www.khaleejtimes.com/kt-article-display-1.asp?xfile=d...
- hwstartup 13y agoWhile I agree with your comment, I'd leave out the 'just' part.
- mnl 13y ago
- henrikschroder 13y agoAnyone with more insight know if this was overdue, but finally awarded after confirmation last year at CERN, or if it was pushed forward while last year's work was fresh in people's minds?
- jessriedel 13y agoThe Nobel committee doesn't give out the prize for theoretical advances that aren't backed up by experiment. Since the data was not yet overwhelmingly conclusive at this time last year, this year's award was basically the earliest possible award date for a decades-old idea.
- vanattab 13y agoReally? What do you call Obama peace prize then.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- dagw 13y agoThe peace prize isn't awarded by the Nobel Committee, but by the Norwegian Nobel Committee, which is an entirely separate organization.
- lucozade 13y agoWith a much deeper sense of irony
- tephra 13y agoWell first of all the peace prize is not a scientific prize. And the peace prize recipient is decided by a committee appointed by the Norwegian parliament and the physics prize is awarded by the Royal Swedish academy of Sciences (by actual scientist in the field).
- deleted 13y ago
- flexie 13y agoThey say that professor Higgs is shy and not at all comfortable with the attention and almost as hard to find as his particle.
- kemiller 13y agoI'm sensing you're being facetious, but not knowing the personalities involved, what does this mean? Is he a notorious publicity hound?
- discreteevent 13y agoThey couldn't contact him initially because he was away without a phone. If you want to be effective.... (He certainly isn't wasting part of his evening reading HN like me)
- nemesisj 13y agoThis is great news, and comes as a bit of relief to some. I remember talking with a professor at the University of Edinburgh who was concerned about delays with CERN referencing the fact that the Nobel prize isn't awarded posthumously, and not as many are saying, not for theory without proof. Really glad to see he made it!
- sambeau 13y agoI'd like to take this opportunity to remind people of the (sometimes a little forgotten) other person name-checked in the Higgs Boson: Satyendra Nath Bose. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satyendra_Nath_Bose http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satyendra_Nath_Bose He was an interesting chap!
- claudius 13y agoHe certainly had an interesting life, but I don't think the person giving their name to half the particles in the universe can be called ‘a little forgotten’.
- sambeau 13y agoHa. True. But, I'm not sure people know that a Boson is named after him at all and if they do I'd bet they assume (like I once did) that Bose was some German or Hungarian bloke. (Mind you, I also thought that the Bose of Bose Corporation[1] would have been a European rather than Indian descent, too. Clearly, I have some prejudice I need to work out). [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amar_Bose http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amar_Bose
- qq66 13y agoAlso one thing to keep in mind is that there are two eminent Bengali scientists named Bose -- there is of course Satyen Bose but there is also Jagadish Chandra Bose: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jagadish_Chandra_Bose http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jagadish_Chandra_Bose
- theorique 13y agoThat's funny because "böse" in German means "evil" or "nasty". I don't know if anybody has that surname, but I would suspect not.
- claudius 13y agoWikipedia mentions a couple of ‘von Bose’, and I have to admit that I don’t see any particularly tight link between ‘Bose’ and ‘böse’ – the umlaut does have a special pronunciation, after all.
- simbolit 13y agois the nobel prize still the cornerstone of rewarding achievement in the sciences? sorry to be so snarky, but i am genuinely interested, having long lost any trust in the peace prize comittee[0]. not to speak of the economics prize (which is not really a nobel prize [1]) [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_Peace_Prize_laureates http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_Peace_Prize_laure... [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Memorial_Prize_in_Economic_Sciences http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Memorial_Prize_in_Economi... edit: formatting
- notjustanymike 13y agoI certainly lost a lot of faith in the Nobel peace prize when they gave it to Obama. It seemed like a political gesture more than a true recognition of significant accomplishments.
- aestra 13y agoThe Nobel Peace Prize was a joke before Obama. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Prize_controversies#Peace http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Prize_controversies#Peace
- phaus 13y agoit took you this long? They awarded it to Al Gore for climate change awareness (has alot to do with peace i guess?) Even worse, they have awarded it to supporters of terrorism(Arafat), and other violent types of people(Mandela).
- tim_hutton 13y ago"While standing around at the back of morning assembly Higgs noticed a name that appeared more than once on the school's honours board. Higgs wondered who PAM Dirac was and read up on the former pupil. He learned that Paul Dirac was a founding father of quantum theory, and the closest Britain had to an Einstein. Through Dirac, Higgs came to relish the arcane world of theoretical physics." http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/oct/02/peter-higgs-profile-physicist http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/oct/02/peter-higgs-p...
- bvv 13y agoThis article provides some historical context to today's prize. http://profmattstrassler.com/2013/10/08/the-twists-and-turns-of-higgstory/ http://profmattstrassler.com/2013/10/08/the-twists-and-turns...
- sgt101 13y agoI think that there are about 15 events in the 125Gev bump. Just sayin'....
- alphaBetaGamma 13y agoRobert Brout would almost surely be sharing the prize if it could be awarded posthumously. I often saw him and Francois Anglert when doing my Ph.D. Robert Brout in particular struck me as the kindest man on earth, and was perhaps someone who though even deeper and more profoundly than Francois Anglert.
- cft 13y agothe theoretical foundation for Higgs mechanism was first discovered by Jeffrey Goldstone from MIT:http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nambu-Goldstone_boson http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nambu-Goldstone_boson
- namuol 13y agoFeynman on the Nobel Prize: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMaBmik4VYg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMaBmik4VYg
- m4tthumphrey 13y agoThanks, Englert and Higgs, thanks to you we won £300 at the pub quiz last night. You rock.