The 2014 Nobel Prizes Thread

[jwl]

I don't know if this thread should go in this section or SLAM, but here it is.

Prizes awarded so far:

Medicine:

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2014 was divided, one half awarded to John O'Keefe, the other half jointly to May-Britt Moser and Edvard I. Moser "for their discoveries of cells that constitute a positioning system in the brain".

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/ ... ates/2014/

Physics:

The Nobel Prize in Physics 2014 was awarded jointly to Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano and Shuji Nakamura "for the invention of efficient blue light-emitting diodes which has enabled bright and energy-saving white light sources".

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/ ... ates/2014/

[Bedlam]

Are divided prizes common? and do they have any effect on how prestigious they are?

[Eternal_Freedom]

They're fairly common IIRC. AFAIK it doesn't lower the prestige. They're usually awarded that way because two people independently or jointly discovered something and it wouldn't be fair to single out just one person. Although you can't split it between more than three people I think.

Also, Nobel Prize for Physics goes to the inventors of blue LEDs. Why am I reminded of the Simpsons when Professor Frink wins one for inventing a hammer with attached screwdriver, saying "it was a slow year in physics."

[Gaidin]

Also, Nobel Prize for Physics goes to the inventors of blue LEDs. Why am I reminded of the Simpsons when Professor Frink wins one for inventing a hammer with attached screwdriver, saying "it was a slow year in physics."

Sometimes you're reminded of the wrong thing.

Three scientists have jointly earned the Nobel Prize in physics for their work on blue LEDs, or light-emitting diodes. Why blue in particular? Well, blue was the last -- and most difficult -- advance required to create white LED light. And with white LED light, companies are able to create smartphone and computer screens, as well as light bulbs that last longer and use less electricity than any bulb invented before.

LEDs are basically semiconductors that have been built so they emit light when they're activated. Different chemicals give different LEDs their colors. Engineers made the first LEDs in the 1950s and 60s. Early iterations included laser-emitting devices that worked only when bathed in liquid nitrogen. At the time, scientists developed LEDs that emitted everything from infrared light to green light… but they couldn't quite get to blue. That required chemicals, including carefully-created crystals, that they weren't yet able to make in the lab.

Once they did figure it out, however, the results were remarkable. A modern white LED lightblub converts more than 50 percent of the electricity it uses into light. Compare that to the 4 percent conversion rate for incandescent bulbs, and you have one efficient bulb. Besides saving money and electricity for all users, white LEDs' efficiency makes them appealing for getting lighting to folks living in regions without electricity supply. A solar installation can charge an LED lamp to last a long time, allowing kids to do homework at night and small businesses to continue working after dark.

LEDs also last up to 100,000 hours, compared to 10,000 hours for fluorescent lights and 1,000 hours for incandescent bulbs. Switching more houses and buildings over to LEDs could significantly reduce the world's electricity and materials consumption for lighting.

A white LED light is easy to make from a blue one. Engineers use a blue LED to excite some kind of fluorescent chemical in the bulb. That converts the blue light to white light.

Two of this year's prize winners, Isamu Akasaki and Hiroshi Amano, worked together on producing high-quality gallium nitride, a chemical that appears in many of the layers in a blue LED. The previous red and green LEDs used gallium phosphide, which was easier to produce. Akasaki and Amano discovered how to add chemicals to gallium nitride semiconductors in such a way that they would emit light efficiently. The pair built structures with layers of gallium nitride alloys.

The third prize-winner, Shuji Nakamura, also worked on making high-quality gallium nitride. He figured out why gallium nitride semiconductors treated with certain chemicals glow. He built his own gallium nitride alloy-based structures.

Both Nakamura's and Akasaki's groups will continue to work on making even more efficient blue LEDs, the committee for the Nobel Prize in physics said in a statement. Nakamura is now a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, although he began his LED research at a small Japanese chemical company called Nichia Chemical Corporation. Akasaki and Amano are professors at Nagoya University in Japan.

In the future, engineers may make white LEDs by combining red, green, and blue ones, which would make a light with tunable colors, the Nobel Committee wrote.

[jwl]

Also blue LEDs lead to the development of blue lasers, which have a shorter wavelength so can read a higher information density, allowing blu-ray disk players to be created.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Oh I know they're really useful, but on the face of it it's an "eh?" moment.

[jwl]

Chemistry prize out:

Press Release
8 October 2014

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2014 to

Eric Betzig
Janelia Research Campus, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Ashburn, VA, USA,

Stefan W. Hell
Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Göttingen, and German Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg, Germany

and

William E. Moerner
Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

“for the development of super-resolved fluorescence microscopy”



Surpassing the limitations of the light microscope
For a long time optical microscopy was held back by a presumed limitation: that it would never obtain a better resolution than half the wavelength of light. Helped by fluorescent molecules the Nobel Laureates in Chemistry 2014 ingeniously circumvented this limitation. Their ground-breaking work has brought optical microscopy into the nanodimension.

In what has become known as nanoscopy, scientists visualize the pathways of individual molecules inside living cells. They can see how molecules create synapses between nerve cells in the brain; they can track proteins involved in Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and Huntington’s diseases as they aggregate; they follow individual proteins in fertilized eggs as these divide into embryos.

It was all but obvious that scientists should ever be able to study living cells in the tiniest molecular detail. In 1873, the microscopist Ernst Abbe stipulated a physical limit for the maximum resolution of traditional optical microscopy: it could never become better than 0.2 micrometres. Eric Betzig, Stefan W. Hell and William E. Moerner are awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2014 for having bypassed this limit. Due to their achievements the optical microscope can now peer into the nanoworld.

Two separate principles are rewarded. One enables the method stimulated emission depletion (STED) microscopy, developed by Stefan Hell in 2000. Two laser beams are utilized; one stimulates fluorescent molecules to glow, another cancels out all fluorescence except for that in a nanometre-sized volume. Scanning over the sample, nanometre for nanometre, yields an image with a resolution better than Abbe’s stipulated limit.

Eric Betzig and William Moerner, working separately, laid the foundation for the second method, single-molecule microscopy. The method relies upon the possibility to turn the fluorescence of individual molecules on and off. Scientists image the same area multiple times, letting just a few interspersed molecules glow each time. Superimposing these images yields a dense super-image resolved at the nanolevel. In 2006 Eric Betzig utilized this method for the first time.

Today, nanoscopy is used world-wide and new knowledge of greatest benefit to mankind is produced on a daily basis.

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/ ... press.html

[Simon_Jester]

Oh I know they're really useful, but on the face of it it's an "eh?" moment.

True, but then, if you'd never heard of transistors before the invention of the transistor was probably even MORE of an "eh" moment for the Physics prize.

[Elheru Aran]

Is it common for a Nobel prize to be awarded for something that happened a long time ago? Just wondering. I don't really keep up with them. It would strike me as slightly ridiculous though if, say, Isaac Newton was given a posthumous Nobel for his theory of gravity and calculus and all that...

[TimothyC]

Is it common for a Nobel prize to be awarded for something that happened a long time ago? Just wondering. I don't really keep up with them. It would strike me as slightly ridiculous though if, say, Isaac Newton was given a posthumous Nobel for his theory of gravity and calculus and all that...

There is a certain delay built in, simply because we don't know what discoveries are the ones that turn out to be important in the long run.

[jwl]

Is it common for a Nobel prize to be awarded for something that happened a long time ago? Just wondering. I don't really keep up with them. It would strike me as slightly ridiculous though if, say, Isaac Newton was given a posthumous Nobel for his theory of gravity and calculus and all that...

You don't give posthumous Nobels, unless they decide on the prizewinner before the person dies and they die before the prize ceremony. Beyond that there is no limit.

[Irbis]

They're fairly common IIRC. AFAIK it doesn't lower the prestige. They're usually awarded that way because two people independently or jointly discovered something and it wouldn't be fair to single out just one person.

Unless that person is female, of course. Just check the Nobel in physics - zero women have won it in the past 50 years. Grand total of two women have won it ever, and on both times, only because of their husband who dabbled in similar work. Had a lot of women working in science had been male, they would surely get it ahead of guys who claimed all the credit later.

Just ask Jocelyn Burnell who got the (two) Nobels for pulsars, Dresselhaus (also two) for nanotubes, or Vera Rubin for pointing out dark matter. Ditto for other Nobel fields - Rosalind Franklin was never nominated for the Nobel Prize in physiology, medicine nor chemistry, despite only, oh, correcting crucial errors in work concerning DNA structure, for which Watson and Crick did get Nobel later.

[jwl]

They're fairly common IIRC. AFAIK it doesn't lower the prestige. They're usually awarded that way because two people independently or jointly discovered something and it wouldn't be fair to single out just one person.

Unless that person is female, of course. Just check the Nobel in physics - zero women have won it in the past 50 years. Grand total of two women have won it ever, and on both times, only because of their husband who dabbled in similar work. Had a lot of women working in science had been male, they would surely get it ahead of guys who claimed all the credit later.

Just ask Jocelyn Burnell who got the (two) Nobels for pulsars, Dresselhaus (also two) for nanotubes, or Vera Rubin for pointing out dark matter. Ditto for other Nobel fields - Rosalind Franklin was never nominated for the Nobel Prize in physiology, medicine nor chemistry, despite only, oh, correcting crucial errors in work concerning DNA structure, for which Watson and Crick did get Nobel later.

Dresselhaus and Rubin are still alive and can still get the prize, Franklin didn't get it because she was dead at the time the prize was awarded, Burnell didn't get it because she was a postgrad student. The main reason women didn't get a lot of nobels was because there weren't a lot of women in science (partially because the universities and research organisations locked them out of it, mind).

[jwl]

The Nobel Prize in Literature 2014

Patrick Modiano
Prize share: 1/1
The Nobel Prize in Literature 2014 was awarded to Patrick Modiano "for the art of memory with which he has evoked the most ungraspable human destinies and uncovered the life-world of the occupation".

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/ ... ates/2014/

[jwl]

The Nobel Peace Prize for 2014
The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2014 is to be awarded to Kailash Satyarthi and Malala Yousafzay for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education. Children must go to school and not be financially exploited. In the poor countries of the world, 60% of the present population is under 25 years of age. It is a prerequisite for peaceful global development that the rights of children and young people be respected. In conflict-ridden areas in particular, the violation of children leads to the continuation of violence from generation to generation.

Showing great personal courage, Kailash Satyarthi, maintaining Gandhi’s tradition, has headed various forms of protests and demonstrations, all peaceful, focusing on the grave exploitation of children for financial gain. He has also contributed to the development of important international conventions on children’s rights.

Despite her youth, Malala Yousafzay has already fought for several years for the right of girls to education, and has shown by example that children and young people, too, can contribute to improving their own situations. This she has done under the most dangerous circumstances. Through her heroic struggle she has become a leading spokesperson for girls’ rights to education.

The Nobel Committee regards it as an important point for a Hindu and a Muslim, an Indian and a Pakistani, to join in a common struggle for education and against extremism. Many other individuals and institutions in the international community have also contributed. It has been calculated that there are 168 million child labourers around the world today. In 2000 the figure was 78 million higher. The world has come closer to the goal of eliminating child labour.

The struggle against suppression and for the rights of children and adolescents contributes to the realization of the “fraternity between nations” that Alfred Nobel mentions in his will as one of the criteria for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Oslo, 10 October 2014

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/ ... press.html

[Agent Fisher]

What, there weren't any chemical weapons inspectors from Syria this year? Glad she got the recognition she deserves. I wish her many years of happiness and all the success in the world in her endeavors.

[Broomstick]

Is it common for a Nobel prize to be awarded for something that happened a long time ago? Just wondering. I don't really keep up with them. It would strike me as slightly ridiculous though if, say, Isaac Newton was given a posthumous Nobel for his theory of gravity and calculus and all that...

Yes, it's quite common for there to be a delay between Noble-earning thing and getting the aware.

Newton, however, will never receive one because only living people can receive a Noble Prize. Yes, there have been a few people who missed out on one because they died before the prize was awarded.

[jwl]

The science of taming powerful firms
Jean Tirole is one of the most influential economists of our time. He has made important theoretical research contributions in a number of areas, but most of all he has clarified how to understand and regulate industries with a few powerful firms.

Many industries are dominated by a small number of large firms or a single monopoly. Left unregulated, such markets often produce socially undesirable results – prices higher than those motivated by costs, or unproductive firms that survive by blocking the entry of new and more productive ones.

From the mid-1980s and onwards, Jean Tirole has breathed new life into research on such market failures. His analysis of firms with market power provides a unified theory with a strong bearing on central policy questions: how should the government deal with mergers or cartels, and how should it regulate monopolies?

Before Tirole, researchers and policymakers sought general principles for all industries. They advocated simple policy rules, such as capping prices for monopolists and prohibiting cooperation between competitors, while permitting cooperation between firms with different positions in the value chain. Tirole showed theoretically that such rules may work well in certain conditions, but do more harm than good in others. Price caps can provide dominant firms with strong motives to reduce costs – a good thing for society – but may also permit excessive profits – a bad thing for society. Cooperation on price setting within a market is usually harmful, but cooperation regarding patent pools can benefit everyone. The merger of a firm and its supplier may encourage innovation, but may also distort competition.

The best regulation or competition policy should therefore be carefully adapted to every industry’s specific conditions. In a series of articles and books, Jean Tirole has presented a general framework for designing such policies and applied it to a number of industries, ranging from telecommunications to banking. Drawing on these new insights, governments can better encourage powerful firms to become more productive and, at the same time, prevent them from harming competitors and customers.

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/ ... press.html

[Ziggy Stardust]

The Nobel Prize in Literature 2014
Patrick Modiano
Prize share: 1/1
The Nobel Prize in Literature 2014 was awarded to Patrick Modiano "for the art of memory with which he has evoked the most ungraspable human destinies and uncovered the life-world of the occupation".

I'm rather surprised Modiano won. In recent years, the Nobel committee has had a trend towards what is sometimes referred to as "paying off debts". It's rather hard to describe exactly what that means without going deep into the history and politics of the Nobel (note I am specifically referring to the Literature prize here, as this is the one I know the most about; things work differently for the other prizes), but for example, Alice Munro won last year less because of the merits of her work in and of itself and more for the fact that she wrote short stories, a literary form that has long been neglected compared to novels or poetry. Mo Yan, the year before that, won because an East Asian writer hadn't won the prize in over a decade. The year before that Transtromer won because a poet hadn't won the prize in over a decade. The year before that Llosa won because a Spanish language writer hadn't won the prize in two decades. Etc. etc.

I'm not saying that the writer's individual merits aren't taken into account. But there is an immense level of subjectivity involved in rating who the "best" writers in the world are. Historically, the prize has been awarded almost exclusively to Western (i.e. white) men, very often with a bias towards the English language as well (33 of the 111 winners have been English-language; 92 have been from Western Europe; 98 have been men). The past 5-10 years or so, the committee has adopted what could loosely be described as "affirmative action", wherein they try to combat bias by intentionally spreading prizes out to recognize a variety of cultures and forms. That is, if there are a dozen writers who are all considered great and prize-worthy, they are more likely to choose the one that belongs to a category that is considered to have been neglected.

All to to say that many people were expecting the prize to be awarded either to someone from the Muslim/Arab world (such as the poet Adunis or the novelist Assia Djebar), from Africa (particularly Ngugi Wa Thiongo), South America (Ferreira Gullar), or from somewhere in central/eastern Europe (Milan Kundera, Peter Nadas, or Laszlo Krasznahorkai), etc. Modiano was a bit of a left-field choice; a French-speaking writer (Le Clezio) won only a few years ago, and historically France has more laureates than any other country with 15.

Also, just what in the hell does the phrase "uncovered the life-world of the occupation" mean?