The 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics

Congratulations to Francois Englert and Peter Higgs for the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics, for the theoretical discovery of the Higgs boson, announced earlier today after a one hour delay, presumably due to vigorous discussion within the academy.  Indeed, the award is controversial, as it excludes other theorists who some have argued are equally deserving.

At this hour the best write-up that I've found is by Dan Clery at Science Magazine.  It focuses on precisely this controversy.  Charles Day at Physics Today notes that the experimental groups that discovered the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider, though mentioned by the Nobel committee, were also not honored this year by the Prize.

The inherent difficulties of the Nobel Prize are illustrated by the controversy.  Underlining this, Tom Siegfried posted yesterday at Science News a list of "Top 10 Physicists with no Nobel", although his list is limited to physicists he has interviewed!  (This is hardly a fair criterion....)

The main issue here is that a prize such as this reinforces the undue emphasis on priority, or time of publication.  This is misleading in a discipline that seeks to establish fairly permanent (ie, reproducible) knowledge about nature.  It would be more fitting to celebrate the process of science by awarding a prize for an accomplishment, rather than a set of individuals.  That way, the cooperative nature of the scientific endeavor would receive focus, and all who take part in a particular achievement could be recognized for their contributions.

The emphasis on priority and publishing "first" has led many to publishing premature, and in many cases, non-reproducible findings.  This is one of the worst features of contemporary science, in my view.

Nonetheless, let us choose today to celebrate all who were involved in the discovery of the BEH mechanism (Brout-Englert-Higgs; the late Dr. Brout was disqualified from the Nobel solely due to not being alive).  Congratulations!