

9 Scientists Receive a New Physics Prize - shazad
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/31/science/9-scientists-win-yuri-milners-fundamental-physics-prize.html

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beloch
"Unlike the Nobel in physics, the Fundamental Physics Prize can be awarded to
scientists whose ideas have not yet been verified by experiments, which often
occurs decades later. "

About half those awards went to string theorists, and they'll likely be
waiting a _lot_ longer than a few decades for experimental verification. Try
centuries or _never_.

While I'm in favor of this kind of prize, I think this crop of winners shows a
clear bias towards things that may not ever pan out while ignoring much more
important contributions to science that are actually verifiable. Untestable
theories are all well and dandy in that they might one day lead to something
testable, but there's not much point in handing out awards for such stuff
until it does!

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danmaz74
Having half of the first winners from the same field, considering that they
will also constitute the committee that will choose the next winners, brings a
pretty big risk to keep these awards biased.

But even theories that are not proved correct can advance human knowledge, by
giving inspiration to other theories - even in different fields. So, in my
opinion, an award for that kind of work could be useful in advancing science
even if it doesn't award proven theories.

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beloch
untestable != unproven

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danmaz74
Granted - but also unestable != not useful/not inspiring

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carlob
As an ex-physicist, I think this is very good to keep young minds that would
be lured away from physics by the higher salaries elsewhere.

However, having visited IAS, where 4/9 of those guys are faculty I believe
they are probably the ones who least need it.

They already are at the top of their career, they've secured a position in one
of the most prestigious institutions in the world and they have amazing
material conditions. They don't need to take students (they are actually
discouraged to do so) and they have access to the most amazing cafeteria!

I'm also pretty sure that the prestige of the institution lands them some
pretty good speaking gigs and consulting jobs on top of all that.

I don't mean to sound sour-grapey, but please give this money to people for
whom this might actually make a big difference.

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spodek
It sounds like an odd award to me. I can't see how its existence would
motivate anyone to behave any differently, though I like that it creates more
social recognition of science and scientists.

It reminds me of Richard Feynman not seeing any point in honors like the Nobel
Prize. It may apply here, though many people think differently than he. Still,
I suspect people don't go into physics for the money. They probably like the
recognition of their peers, but I expect winners of this new award will
already have that.

Feynman said, "I don’t see that it makes any point that someone in the Swedish
academy just decides that this work is noble enough to receive a prize — I’ve
already gotten the prize. The prize is the pleasure of finding a thing out,
the kick in the discovery, the observation that other people use it — those
are the real things. The honors are unreal to me. I don’t believe in honors."

From the article: "future recipients of the Fundamental Physics Prize, to be
awarded annually, will be decided by previous winners."

More on Feynman, again not directly related, but close: he became so
exasperated [at the National Academy of Sciences] that he resigned his
membership, saying that he saw no point in belonging to an organization that
spent most of its time deciding who to let in.

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lusr
It rewards people who contribute to science, who in turn can use the reward as
they see fit. It is logical to believe that allocating wealth to people who
have demonstrated high quality results will increase the number of future high
quality results, which is surely a desirable result.

I'm puzzled by Feynman's attitude in those comments - he doesn't discuss the
prize money at all, which one can easily see e.g. funding a number of students
who might otherwise not be able to afford the type of education he received
and thereby not receive the type of pleasure he speaks of.

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emcl
It's amusing to see skeptical comments, but these are theorist who are held in
very high regard by their peers and not many in the community would dispute
their getting the award. The days of proposing easily provable conjectures are
over. Now its almost exclusively high energy physics that is being probed.

I feel that as the physics gets increasingly complex to formulate, the prize
money should go up too. And there's no better time to give away generous
prizes than the highly skewed economy of today.

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lancewiggs
This is just fantastic. Well done to Yuri Milner for putting a huge amount of
money ($3m per person, 9 people and the prize continues annually) into very
long term thinking.

What a wonderful way to encourage physicists to resist the lure of Wall St.

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cs702
What distinguishes this prize from others is the sheer amount of money. The
recipients gain a measure of financial freedom, allowing them to pursue their
lifelong goals with much less regard to job and other mundane considerations.

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niels_olson
Thank you for giving me something to share with people who tell my kids to
focus on sports.

