It's Nobel Prize Season Again

Discussion in 'Off-Topic Discussions' started by Kizmet, Oct 5, 2016.

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  1. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

  2. heirophant

    heirophant Well-Known Member

    It's interesting to look at the recipients' institutional affiliations.

    So far, the Medicine/Biology prize (for investigating how cells adapt to changing oxygen levels) has gone to Harvard, Johns Hopkins and Oxford researchers.

    Although William Kaelin, the Harvard researcher, seems to actually be on the staff of the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, which is a teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School. I wonder if he's just an adjunct at Harvard (the way that scientific staff at the Salk Institute are all adjuncts at UCSD. I'm sure that Harvard will lose no time in claiming him as one of theirs, though). What's more, his highest degree is an MD. ([irony]Imagine how he might have succeeded if he had a real doctorate![/irony])

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Kaelin_Jr.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dana–Farber_Cancer_Institute

    The Chemistry prize (for lithium ion batteries!) to chemists at U. Texas Austin, SUNY Binghamton and Meijo University in Japan (I believe that this is their third Nobel laureate).

    Though Akiro Yohino appears to mostly be an industrial researcher, having spent his career (to the present) with the Asahi Kasai Company where he's General Manager of his own Yoshino Laboratory, doing advanced battery research. (He's probably just an adjunct at Meijo, advising doctoral students or something like that.) Interestingly he did a bachelors and masters in engineering (U. Osaka) in the 1970's, and only completed a doctorate (U. Kyoto) in 2005, after he had co-invented the lithium-ion battery in the 1980's. ([irony]Thus proving once again that a person is nothing without a doctorate.[/irony].)

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akira_Yoshino

    https://www.asahi-kasei.co.jp/asahi/en/
     
    SteveFoerster likes this.
  3. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    You're right, that was illuminating!
     
  4. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

    This is a great (and funny) observation. There's this too,

    Jack Kilby won the Nobel prize in physics in 2000 for inventing the first integrated circuit. He has 'only' a masters in electrical engineering from the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee.

    Koichi Tanaka shared the Nobel prize in chemistry in 2002 for developing a novel method for mass spectrometric analyses of biological macromolecules. He has 'only' a bachelors in electrical engineering from Tohoku University.
     
  5. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

  6. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    Here come old flat top....
     
  7. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    Not only was it absurd to give it to a songwriter, they didn't even get it right. Leonard Cohen (now passed) and Tom Waits should both have been ahead of Zimmerman.
     
  8. John Bear

    John Bear Senior Member

    Embarrassingly, I've never heard of either Literature winner. Has Ted Heiks???
     
  9. heirophant

    heirophant Well-Known Member

    The thing with the Literature Prize is that you are always safest picking the authors that you (and everyone else you know) has never heard of.
     
  10. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

    SteveFoerster likes this.
  11. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    Sounds like a neat guy and a worthy recipient.

    I had my money on the guy next door, Sheikh Djibouti. (Apologies to both Frank Zappa and Hugh Casey.)
     
    SteveFoerster likes this.
  12. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

  13. mbwa shenzi

    mbwa shenzi Active Member

    Well, the member of the Shenzi pack who was born in Addis Abeba is both happy and proud, but also aware of the challenges Ethiopia is facing.
     
    SteveFoerster likes this.
  14. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

  15. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

  16. Maniac Craniac

    Maniac Craniac Moderator Staff Member

    K, well if Yasser Arafat can win a Nobel Prize for only being a per-diem terrorist instead of a full time terrorist and if Barack Obama can win a Nobel Prize just for existing (or, to be fair, also using polling data to determine what his supposed personal opinions should be at any given moment), then I see no reason why Greta shouldn't have gotten a Nobel Prize for making mean faces at a president that the press doesn't like.
     
  17. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    "Terrorist" is one way of looking at it. "Effective asymmetric warrior" would be another. As a (now retired) military officer, I got to study this subject in my professional development. The idea of asymmetric war--war using guerrilla tactics and other means--against a mightier foe to expel him from your land--was a robust one. My favorite example is the North Vietnamese. They failed to win a single major battle against the US--including the Tet Offensive. But they won the war, just as Ho predicted (and explained to the US when they refused to help him get rid of the French).

    One person's terrorist is another's freedom fighter.
     
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  18. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    Star Trek fans will remember the episode where Dr. Crusher is kidnapped by a terrorist leader who tells her, "I've studied your history. I am no different from your own George Washington."
     
    Maniac Craniac likes this.
  19. Steve Levicoff

    Steve Levicoff Well-Known Member

    Different perceptions are nothing new. (Paul Simon: "One man's ceiling is another man's floor.")

    From 1947's Finian's Rainbow:

    When a rich man doesn't want to work
    He's a bon vivant.
    But when a poor man doesn't want to work,
    He's a laughter, he's a lounger
    he's a lazier good for nothing
    He's a jerk!

    When a rich man loses on a horse
    Oh, isn't he the sport!
    When a poor man loses on a horse
    He's a gambler, he's a spender
    He's a low life, he's a reason for divorce!

    When a rich man chases after dames
    He's a man about town,
    But when a poor man chases after dames
    He's a bounder, he's a rounder
    He's a rotter, and a lot of dirty names!
     
  20. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

    I think that people's willingness to agree with this idea is likely to be dependent on how you define those terms. They are both used widely and variously by many people.
     

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