In its first year, this blog commented here and here on the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics; however I failed to comment on any of the prizes in following years. As we are now wrapping up Nobel week 2020, let me offer a few observations on the prizes in physics and chemistry in the years since 2013. Before I do that, I want to also note last year's Economics Prize for work applying randomized trials to social science. Such a worthy achievement reflects well on two earlier advocates of randomized trials, statisticians Ronald A. Fisher and Austin Bradford Hill, who pioneered their use in agriculture and medicine, respectively.
Physics
I am especially pleased to see two of the subsequent prizes in physics were awarded for technological innovations, namely 2014 (blue LEDs) and 2018 (inventions in laser physics). It is my view that applied physics is part of physics proper, and should be recognized as such at the highest levels. Other recent prizes in this vein include 2009 (fiber optics and CCD sensors), half of the 2005 prize (optical frequency comb), and 2000 (the integrated circuit, and semiconductor heterostructures).
The 2017 prize to the prime movers of the LIGO collaboration for discovering gravitational waves was arguably premature at the time, as I had misgivings about certain methodological details of the original discovery. However I think the evidence base accumulated since then, and the methodological improvements, have been both impressive and convincing. I am prepared to join other voices proclaiming that we are living in the era of gravitational wave astronomy.
The 2019 and 2020 prizes are unusual in that they have gone for two years in a row to achievements in astrophysics and astronomy. Following the same pattern, each year one theoretical astrophysicist and two observational astronomers shared the prize. In 2019, the theorist James Peebles essentially received a lifetime achievement award for his contributions to the standard model of cosmology, while Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz were honored for the first discovery of an exoplanet orbiting a solar-like star. This year, Roger Penrose was honored for his theoretical work on black holes. Laureates Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez are the heads of two competing groups making observations at Sagittarius A*, who determined that the center of the Milky Way galazy is occupied by a "supermassive compact object". This last is carefully worded; the obvious implication is that this object is a Black Hole, but the Nobel Committee chose not to use those words. I am pleased that the leads of these fiercely competitive groups were honored together.
Finally, it is notable that though the third year of the Nobel Prize in Physics included its first female laureate (Marie Curie, 1903), a 60 year gap occurred before the second (Maria Goeppert Mayer, 1963), and a 55-year gap occured before the third (Donna Strickland, 2018). Only a two-year gap separated the third and fourth women laureates. I started the study of physics 28 years ago and saw year after year pass with no female laureates, while several possible female candidates passed away, like Deborah Jin who died at age 47. It's therefore breathtaking to see two female laureates in just the last two years! Hopefully this is not simply a 'market correction' but rather a 'new normal' (apologies for the cliche'd analogy).
Chemistry
First I can't resist bragging that the 2014 prize was awarded to physicists. Most of the recent prizes have been for technological innovations like theirs, with many being specific to the life sciences. This is befitting chemistry's status as the "central science", overlapping on one end with physics and at the other with biology and medicine. Finally, it is notable that 4 of the 7 ever female laureates were awarded in the last 11 years (Ada Yonath, 2009; Frances Arnold, 2018; and this year's laureates Emannuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna).
Before this year, each woman laureate in physics or chemistry had died before the next one was awarded in her field; most tragically, Irene Joliot-Curie winning the year after her mother died. The exception was Frances Arnold's 2018 award while Ada Yonath was still alive. However now there are four living female laureates in chemistry and two in physics, an unprecedented occurrence, but let us hope these numbers will only increase moving forward.
(By my count, there are currently 7 living female laureates in physiology and medicine; 10 in peace; 6 in literature; and only 1 in economics, though that prize has a shorter history than the others.)
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