Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

He was probably considered since he is mentioned in the reasoning paper, still it could be one of those unfortunate omissions in the nobel history since those deciding the prize might have a hard time to measure impact.


Then they shouldn't be trusted to give awards in an area they are not experts in.


Trusted? The will of Alfred Nobel states that the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences is the body that selects the winner, you can't change that.

Also, I think the process looks fairly decent:

https://www.nobelprize.org/nomination/physics/

Gather nominations, make a shortlist, research the shortlist with actual field experts, present candidates, discuss, and vote.

And in 50 years you'll be able to find out who the other candidates were!


Impact is hard to quantify. There have been several occasions where someone who very well deserved a Nobel prize didn't get one. There are all kinds of reasons. Given he is mentioned in the reasoning he was probably considered. We can't know the reason he did not get the prize.

I recently watched this quite video on the subject: https://youtu.be/zS7sJJB7BUI?feature=shared and found it quite enjoyable.


A funny one is that there was so much objection to General Relativity that they compromised by giving Einstein a Nobel for his work on quantum mechanics.

His acceptance speech was about general relativity.


Shouldn't be trusted? They are a random swedish foundation. How is one going to change that? Or disallow it or what you want.


That would probably leave the prizes awarded in a very narrow field, also the prize is supposed to be given to the thing that has "conferred the greatest benefit to humankind".

So in this case they picked something that might be viewed as only having a tangential connection to the field, but the impact has been so immense that they probably went outside their regular comfort zone (and how many prizes can we give for LHC work that really don't touch regular human lives in the foreseeable future anyhow?).


This is where passive voice highlights a weak position.

Trusted… by who?


Don't indulge in meritocracy. It's essentially a "prize".




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: