Who Will Win the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics?

[Ygggdrasil]

I didn't bring up that fact to argue against any of that. You're the one bringing up the fact that women's work was overlooked in the past, and because of that "it's about time the prize goes to a woman", as if two wrongs make a right (wrong in the sense of weighing in the scientist's gender to make a decision).

In your first post, you seemed to argue that there are many more people and discoveries deserving of the prize that can be awarded, so the decision of which discovery gets the prize is fairly arbitrary (I would also agree with this). Given that there are many scientists worthy of a Nobel prize, given that some are women, and given what we know about intrinsic biases, it would make sense to make a conscious effort to make sure womens' work does not get overlooked. No one is arguing to award the prize to a woman who has not done work worthy of the prize. But given that there are women who have done work worthy of a Nobel prize, why not make sure they get the award before they die (as in the case of Vera Rubin)? Unless, say, you want to argue that Lene Hau's work is not worthy of a Nobel prize.

 

[StatGuy2000]

Just a formality: There is no such thing as the "Nobel Academy". The Nobel Assembly is the body under Karolinska Institutet that selects the laureate(s) in Physiology or Medicine. The Physics and Chemistry laureates are selected by the Royal Academy of Sciences and is usually based on the suggestions by its Nobel Committees in the respective subjects.

Thanks for the clarification. I've edited my post accordingly.

 

[Ygggdrasil]

Does TALENS (an earlier technology than CRISPR) deserve a prize?

TALENS have not proven very useful as tools for gene editing because it is very difficult to engineer them to target specific sequences. On the other hand, a high school summer student that I supervised was able to design a CRISPR experiment. People working on TALENS (and the meganucleases and zinc-finger nucleases before them), certainly did contribute knowledge about how to perform gene editing, however, through using the cell's non-homologous end joining and homology directed repair pathways. Indeed, once Doudna and Charpentier (+ Siksnys) worked out the details of how to target CRISPR to specific DNA sequences, the other knowledge was already in place to allow the gene editing experiments to happen very quickly.

A Nobel prize, however, would probably go to the scientists responsible for earlier work on figuring out the non-homologous end joining and homology directed DNA repair pathways rather than the scientists who applied that knowledge for gene editing.

I will buy that the chemistry prize is more likely then, but would you consider it a stretch if they did get the prize in medicine? There have been previous prizes that could arguably have been in one of two categories, for example, the prize of Otto Hahn was already mentioned in this thread.

... Imagine the surprise of the Nobel Committee in Chemistry if they have decided to propose CRISPR to the academy and the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska announces it as the Medicine prize next Monday ...

I would be mildly surprised if it were a medicine prize because:
1) CRISPR itself, being a bacterial antiviral defense mechanism, is not really relevant to human health.
2) As a tool, CRISPR has not yet been shown to successfully treat any disease in humans.

The one thing going for CRISPR at this point is its utility as a tool for biomedical research (but again, development of tools for biomedical research generally falls into Chemistry, such as last year's prize for cryo-electron microscopy, or prizes for PCR, DNA synthesis, DNA sequencing, methods for x-ray crystallography of macromolecules, protein NMR or soft-ionization methods for mass spectrometry). While the CRISPR work is definitely worthy of a Chemistry prize, I'd say it's still premature to consider it for the Medicine prize.

I assume the committee chairs communicate with each other to avoid redundant awards.

 

[Ygggdrasil]

So what is the thought on this Newsweek prediction?

https://www.newsweek.com/betting-who-will-win-nobel-prize-year-79543

That prediction was from 2009...

However, it did pretty well for the Medicine category. Five of the six individuals named eventually won Nobel Prizes in Medicine.

For more recent predictions from the Web of Knowledge team (now Clarivate Analytics):

Physiology or Medicine

Napoleone Ferrara, University of California, San Diego, CA, for the discovery of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), a key regulator of angiogenesis, the process in which new blood vessels are formed, both in healthy tissue and in cancerous cells. Ferrera's work has led to the development of drugs that inhibit blood-vessel growth in cancer and in blinding eye disorders such as age-related macular degeneration.

Minoru Kanehisa, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan, for contributions to bioinformatics, specifically for his development of the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG). This database of protein pathways involved in gene expression allows genomicists and other researchers to collect, compare, and interpret data on cellular processes – for example, those that underlie disease.

Solomon H. Snyder, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, for his identification of receptors for many neurotransmitters and psychotropic agents, including brain receptors associated with opiates. His insights have been applied in the development of many common prescription drugs, such as compounds for pain control.

Physics

David Awschalom, University of Chicago, IL, and Arthur C. Gossard, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, for observation of the spin Hall effect in semiconductors. This insight into how electrons behave under the influence of magnetic fields promises application in many areas, including quantum computing.

Sandra M. Faber, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA, for pioneering methods to determine the age, size and distance of galaxies and for other contributions to cosmology, including work on the "cold dark matter" believed to constitute the universe's "missing" matter.

Yury Gogotsi, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, Rodney S. Ruoff, IBS CMCM Center and Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology, South Korea, and Patrice Simon, Université Paul Sabatier Toulouse III - CNRS, Toulouse, France, for discoveries advancing the understanding and development of carbon-based materials including for capacitive energy storage and understanding the mechanisms of operation of supercapacitors.

Chemistry

Eric N. Jacobsen, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, for contributions to catalytic reactions for organic synthesis, especially for the development of Jacobsen epoxidation.

George M. Sheldrick, Georg-August-Universitat Gottingen, for his enormous influence in structural crystallography through the introduction and maintenance of the SHELX system of computer programs.

JoAnne Stubbe, MIT, Cambridge, MA, for her discovery that ribonucleotide reductases transform ribonucleotides into deoxyribonucleotides by a free-radical mechanism. These deoxyribonucleotides, in turn, are fundamental to the synthesis and repair of DNA.

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-rel...-future-nobel-prize-recipients-300715570.html
https://clarivate.com/2018-citation-laureates/

Another set of predictions for 2018, from a biophysicist blogger:

Chemistry: Cytoskeletal motor proteins (Ron Vale, Mike Sheetz, Jim Spudich)

Medicine: T-cell and cancer immunotherapy (Jim Allison, Stephen Rosenberg, Philippa Marrack)

Physics: Dark matter (Sandra Faber, Margaret Geller, Jerry Ostriker, Helen Quinn)

http://blog.everydayscientist.com/?p=3662

For predictions from past years, here are some links I compiled in a previous thread: https://www.physicsforums.com/threa...xpectations-and-opinions.925887/#post-5843790

 

[Ygggdrasil]

Although I'm kind of shocked that the Human Genome Project still hasn't gotten a shoutout after ~15 years (Craig Venter and Francis Collins being the obvious choices). Maybe Chemistry will go to CRISPR and Medicine will go to HGP.

At this point, that the committee hasn't awarded a prize for the human genome project suggests that they don't see it as worthy of a Nobel prize. It certainly was a big undertaking that provided a valuable resource for biomedical research, but perhaps it is not innovative enough. Similarly, the prize for the Higgs Boson went to the theorists who predicted it, not the team that performed the experiment to observe evidence of it.

Personally, I think a Medicine prize to Venter and Collins for the HGP would be warranted. Another option would be a Chemistry prize for DNA sequencing technologies to Venter for inventing the shotgun sequencing approach and to Shankar Balasubramanian and David Klenerman for developing the sequencing by synthesis approach that forms the basis for modern next-generation, high-throughput sequencing devices.

 

[Orodruin]

That prediction was from 2009...

However, it did pretty well for the Medicine category. Five of the six individuals named eventually won Nobel Prizes in Medicine.

For more recent predictions from the Web of Knowledge team (now Clarivate Analytics):

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-rel...-future-nobel-prize-recipients-300715570.html
https://clarivate.com/2018-citation-laureates/

Another set of predictions for 2018, from a biophysicist blogger:

http://blog.everydayscientist.com/?p=3662

For predictions from past years, here are some links I compiled in a previous thread: https://www.physicsforums.com/threa...xpectations-and-opinions.925887/#post-5843790

I don't know about the other categories, but I am pretty sure that this

Unfortunately, Vera Rubin was never awarded a Nobel Prize, but the committee could honor her memory by awarding some other deserving astrophysicists with the prize this year.

is not how the Nobel Committtee thinks.

 

[atyy]

TALENS have not proven very useful as tools for gene editing because it is very difficult to engineer them to target specific sequences. On the other hand, a high school summer student that I supervised was able to design a CRISPR experiment. People working on TALENS (and the meganucleases and zinc-finger nucleases before them), certainly did contribute knowledge about how to perform gene editing, however, through using the cell's non-homologous end joining and homology directed repair pathways. Indeed, once Doudna and Charpentier (+ Siksnys) worked out the details of how to target CRISPR to specific DNA sequences, the other knowledge was already in place to allow the gene editing experiments to happen very quickly.

A Nobel prize, however, would probably go to the scientists responsible for earlier work on figuring out the non-homologous end joining and homology directed DNA repair pathways rather than the scientists who applied that knowledge for gene editing.

Yes, CRISPR is much easier to use. But I was thinking that TALENS is already useful, because of reports like the case of a baby girl cured of leukemia with the help of TALENS: https://www.nature.com/news/leukaemia-success-heralds-wave-of-gene-editing-therapies-1.18737.

 

[bob012345]

No prize for dark matter until we actually know what it is or if it actually exists. It's premature. I hope the physics prize is for a practical technology development this year.

 

[dipole]

Sorry, but this question shows profound ignorance of the history of the Nobel Prizes. There are many examples of women who arguably should have won a Nobel Prize, but did not. Of course, you can never prove that it was based on gender bias, but you asked for specific examples so let me just mention Lise Meitner who definitely should have shared the prize (in chemistry, but it might as well have been a physics prize) with Otto Hahn.

No, it should not be 50/50, but women in physics today are at least as prominent as men based on how big of a portion of the community they represent. To not have awarded a single prize to a woman for over 50 years is ridiculous.

I'm not denying that historically women were excluded from Science - I think that is pretty factual (as factual as historical claims can be). However, does that mean that we should exclude men from consideration to make up for that today?

Even if a deserving women did win this year - how does that make up for whatever wrong was done in the past? How many Black or Hispanic Nobel prizes were awarded in Physics? Should we only award prizes to underrepresented groups for the next century until the distribution of prizes roughly matches the distribution in population?

You're trying to bring identity politics and equality of outcome (a deeply flawed political ideology) into what is supposed to be the ultimate realm of objectivity - Science.

How about we just award prizes fairly without consideration of race/gender/sexuality etc... and not let politics infect every single aspect of our lives.

 

[Orodruin]

However, does that mean that we should exclude men from consideration to make up for that today?

I have never said that. You are making a straw-man argument.

You're trying to bring identity politics and equality of outcome (a deeply flawed political ideology) into what is supposed to be the ultimate realm of objectivity - Science.

No. The Nobel Prize is not about science and is nothing like an ultimate realm of objectivity. If you believe this you are living in a dream world.

 

[Ygggdrasil]

I don't know about the other categories, but I am pretty sure that this

is not how the Nobel Committtee thinks.

Agreed. I'm pretty sure people would interpret an award for dark matter after the death of Vera Rubin much more as a slight against her than a tribute.

Yes, CRISPR is much easier to use. But I was thinking that TALENS is already useful, because of reports like the case of a baby girl cured of leukemia with the help of TALENS: https://www.nature.com/news/leukaemia-success-heralds-wave-of-gene-editing-therapies-1.18737.

Most people in the field see CRISPR as a superior technology to TALENS, including the people who pioneered the use of TALENS, as most have pretty much moved on to using CRISPR.

TALENS are still in clinical development in part because of the long time it takes to bring new therapies to the clinic as well as intellectual property issues.

 

[atyy]

My try: Zeilinger (probably sharing with someone else) for experiments on quantum foundations, especially for simultaneous closing of fair sampling and locality loopholes in tests of Bell inequalities.
https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.115.250401

+Clauser +Aspect ?

 

[mfb]

Similarly, the prize for the Higgs Boson went to the theorists who predicted it, not the team that performed the experiment to observe evidence of it.

The prize can be given to collaborations or institutes, it just has never been done. I guess they just don't want to do that for whatever reason. Picking (at most) three experimentalists from the discovery would have made no sense, the discovery was the work of hundreds to thousands.

 

[Orodruin]

The prize can be given to collaborations or institutes, it just has never been done. I guess they just don't want to do that for whatever reason. Picking (at most) three experimentalists from the discovery would have made no sense, the discovery was the work of hundreds to thousands.

Well, this is exactly what has been done historically, even though ATLAS and CMS are unusually large collaborations. The latest example would be the neutrino oscillation prize, where Kajita and McDonald were far from the only people in the collaborations, but they did play leading and crucial roles.

 

[Demystifier]

+Clauser +Aspect ?

They didn't close both loopholes simultaneously, so I woudn't bet on them.

 

[Demystifier]

The prize can be given to collaborations or institutes, it just has never been done. I guess they just don't want to do that for whatever reason. Picking (at most) three experimentalists from the discovery would have made no sense, the discovery was the work of hundreds to thousands.

Million dollars is a big money for a person, but small for a collaboration. The point of giving big money is to motivate people to work hard on big problems. It's not such a big motivation if you think: If I work hard, perhaps my big collaboration will one day get million dollars.

 

[mfb]

Getting the Nobel Prize itself is very motivating. It would motivate people a tiny bit to join larger collaborations.
If you choose your field of work based on the probability to win the Nobel Prize you make something wrong anyway.

 

[DrClaude]

3. Jocelyn Bell Burnell. Even astronomers were criticizing the Nobel Committee for overlooking what was really HER discovery, and gave the prize to her supervisor instead.

FWIW, she has now won a special Breakthrough Prize.

 

[Mlesnita Daniel]

Hi! I was just wondering who would you think will win the Nobel prize in Physics and for what.

Thanks! :)

 

[jedishrfu]

I don't know but here's how they decide the issue:

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

It seems the web is silent on the issue, no doubt afraid to jinx their favorite candidates. They must have been selected and notified already but have to stay mum until the big event.

 

[bob012345]

In your first post, you seemed to argue that there are many more people and discoveries deserving of the prize that can be awarded, so the decision of which discovery gets the prize is fairly arbitrary (I would also agree with this). Given that there are many scientists worthy of a Nobel prize, given that some are women, and given what we know about intrinsic biases, it would make sense to make a conscious effort to make sure womens' work does not get overlooked. No one is arguing to award the prize to a woman who has not done work worthy of the prize. But given that there are women who have done work worthy of a Nobel prize, why not make sure they get the award before they die (as in the case of Vera Rubin)? Unless, say, you want to argue that Lene Hau's work is not worthy of a Nobel prize.

Even limiting the choice to equally worthy candidates, choosing a woman because she is a woman demeans the meaning of the prize. They just have to decide which of the worthy work is the most worthy which is why it's so difficult. Making 'sure' someone's gets a prize before they die misses the point of the prize. It's not about the person, it's about the work. It would be better to change the rules such that a scientist's work could be recognized posthumously but that's not going to happen. Too bad though.

 

[mfb]

It seems the web is silent on the issue, no doubt afraid to jinx their favorite candidates. They must have been selected and notified already but have to stay mum until the big event.

They get notified very shortly before the announcement - something like 1-2 hours.

 

[sophiecentaur]

choosing a woman because she is a woman demeans the meaning of the prize

And for many years, NOT choosing a woman because she was a woman was pretty much standard practice. That also demeaned the meaning for the prize. Bearing in mind the huge number of deserving causes and the arbitrariness of choice for the final winner then why not tip the balance amongst the 'equally good' candidates and make up, in some small way, for many years of unfairness?

 

[atyy]

FWIW, she has now won a special Breakthrough Prize.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-45425872
"One of the UK's leading female astronomers is to donate her £2.3m winnings from a major science prize she was awarded.
The sum will go to fund women, under-represented ethnic minority and refugee students to become physics researchers."

 

[Dr. Courtney]

I prefer the Olympic sports with objective criteria rather than judges.

Beauty contests? Not my thing.

 

[Vanadium 50]

not tip the balance amongst the 'equally good' candidates and make up, in some small way, for many years of unfairness?

Not everyone thinks the solution to past unfairness is future compensating unfairness, and even among those who do can disagree on the right amount of compensating unfairness.

 

[StatGuy2000]

I prefer the Olympic sports with objective criteria rather than judges.

Beauty contests? Not my thing.

The thing is, if you really think about it, selection of Nobel Prizes in any category (including Physics) is a criteria determined by judges using criteria that isn't necessarily objective.

From the Nobel website, the following have the right to submit proposals for the award:

1. Swedish and foreign members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
2. Members of the Nobel Committee for Physics
3. Nobel Laureates in Physics
4. Tenured professors in the Physical Sciences at universities and institutes of technology in Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Iceland, and the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm
5. Holders of corresponding chairs in >=6 universities or university colleges around the worlds selected by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
6. Other scientists invited by the Academy

Each of these 6 groups consist of individuals who essentially, in their own opinion, submit proposals for those they deem worthy of the award. Of course, the accomplishments that individual scientists make are among the most important factors, and you could make the case that those accomplishments are objective, but the nomination process is not objective, and individual biases can filter into it.

 

[StatGuy2000]

Not everyone thinks the solution to past unfairness is future compensating unfairness, and even among those who do can disagree on the right amount of compensating unfairness.

My contention is that the very nomination process has never been "fair" in any meaningful case, because the nomination process (from which the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences then make the final selection) is itself not objective, but is instead an amalgamation of subjective opinions on the merits of various physicists and their contributions to the realm of physics.

Some questions have been raised in this thread about why there have been so few women who have been awarded the Nobel Prize in physics, and that the last award was made 50 years ago. One question that comes to mind would be how many women were even nominated to begin with (a question we won't know the answer to until 50 years from now, according to the Nobel Prize rules, btw). If over the past several decades, all of the various groups with the right to nominate candidates didn't nominate any female physicists, it's worth wondering why that is. Is it because female physicists didn't make any substantive contributions over the past 50 years? Or is it the case that there is a widespread bias (both conscious and unconscious) within the community of physics (in particular, the older members of the physics community) against women in physics?

 

[ZapperZ]

My contention is that the very nomination process has never been "fair" in any meaningful case, because the nomination process (from which the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences then make the final selection) is itself not objective, but is instead an amalgamation of subjective opinions on the merits of various physicists and their contributions to the realm of physics.

Some questions have been raised in this thread about why there have been so few women who have been awarded the Nobel Prize in physics, and that the last award was made 50 years ago. One question that comes to mind would be how many women were even nominated to begin with (a question we won't know the answer to until 50 years from now, according to the Nobel Prize rules, btw). If over the past several decades, all of the various groups with the right to nominate candidates didn't nominate any female physicists, it's worth wondering why that is. Is it because female physicists didn't make any substantive contributions over the past 50 years? Or is it the case that there is a widespread bias (both conscious and unconscious) within the community of physics (in particular, the older members of the physics community) against women in physics?

I am less concerned about that, because in the level of speculation, that will require a lot of it to address that issue.

My main point is that in cases where there were very clear involvement of women in a particular discovery (DNA, quasar, etc.), they were overlooked and the prize was given to the male colleagues or counterparts. And these instances are now widely acknowledged as being an egregious oversight of the awarding committee.

This is not a "hey, you should award a prize to so-and-so", but rather "hey, you awarded the Nobel prize for this. Why didn't you include so-and-so since SHE did a huge portion of the work?"

Zz.

 

[Dr. Courtney]

The dearth of women recognized for scientific accomplishments seems like a think globally, act locally opportunity. Sure, we can decry the Nobel distribution among sexes, But it would be more meaningful and impactful for us to invite more women to collaborate in our own research and make sure we are providing equal research and mentorship opportunity to women as we do men.

How would most mid- and late- career scientists here fare if our publications lists were reviewed for the presence of women co-authors?

 

[StatGuy2000]

I am less concerned about that, because in the level of speculation, that will require a lot of it to address that issue.

My main point is that in cases where there were very clear involvement of women in a particular discovery (DNA, quasar, etc.), they were overlooked and the prize was given to the male colleagues or counterparts. And these instances are now widely acknowledged as being an egregious oversight of the awarding committee.

This is not a "hey, you should award a prize to so-and-so", but rather "hey, you awarded the Nobel prize for this. Why didn't you include so-and-so since SHE did a huge portion of the work?"

Zz.

But this raises the very question about why the women involved in a particular discovery were overlooked. Recall that according to the Nobel Prize criteria, only specific groups have the ability to even nominate candidates for the Nobel Prize. So the question is this -- was it the case that

(a) The woman involved in the study wasn't even nominated for the Nobel Prize.

(b) The woman was nominated, but was overlooked by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (or more specifically, their Nobel Prize committee responsible for selecting the winner).

If the situation is due to (a) above, then the conclusion is that there is a deep-seated bias (whether conscious or unconscious) against female scientists, which has certainly been the case until relatively recent times (and some argue may still be the case).

If (b), then the bias could be more limited to those within the Nobel committee.

 

[ZapperZ]

But this raises the very question about why the women involved in a particular discovery was overlooked.

That is the question that, I believe, only the Nobel organization can address. Without in-depth investigation, all we can do is speculate, and it requires no knowledge or skill in anything to do that.

Zz.

 

[Duplex]

I think it is way past time to award the prize to a woman again. There are many women who have made important discoveries and it is unreasonable to ignore those accomplishments.

The Nobel Foundation and the committees responsible for the election of Nobel Prize winners have had meetings 2017 and 2018 to discuss the skewed gender distribution among Nobel Prize winners.

According to the chairman of the Nobel Foundation, several proposals regarding gender distribution have been discussed: "Everyone realizes that we have a problem that we must take seriously. We must do our utmost to ensure that women are not disadvantaged."

 

[Duplex]

The prize can be given to collaborations or institutes, it just has never been done.

Not yet, but it’s discussed at least in the Nobel Committee for Physics.
One reason for the delay is that the Nobel Foundation has been traditionally close to Alfred Nobel's will. But it is now 100 years later and the scientific research has shifted to large research groups often in global collaboration with other groups. The Nobel Foundation is very aware of the situation.

 

[Duplex]

In this thread have been some relevant criticisms of previous selection of Nobel Prize winners. It will not be easier in this time of growth of research and researchers at the Nobel Prize level.
But look at the professionally orchestrated Nobel banquet. I can assure everyone that the same professionalism permeates the entire Nobel project, a huge continuous project with thousands of people involved.
An enormous effort is also made to find worthy Nobel Prize winners.

What happens in Stockholm in the beginning of October? In physics and chemistry.
On Tuesday morning 2018-10-02, members of the Royal Academy of Science gather together to make the final decision of the Nobel Prize winner/winners in Physics. Immediately after the decision, the famous magic phone call will take place ... and a few minutes later the names of the names of the Nobel laureates are announced.
There are about 450 members of the Royal Academy of Science who are entitled to participate, but there is usually around one third who participates in the final decision in the Beijer Hall of the Academy.

The procedure for the Nobel Prize winner in chemistry is repeated the following day,
Wednesday 2018-10-02.