Nobel Prize winnng Americans

CBL4

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Once again the Nobel prizes are being awarded and once again Americans shared in all the prizes in the sciences. It must be something in the water because there is no way that our evil, capitalist culture could be good in any way. Six American shared the prizes along with 2 Israelis. This century, an American has always at least shared in every science prize.

In Medicine, Richard Axel from Columbia and Linda B. Buck from Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center shared the prize.

In Physics, David J. Gross from UC Santa Barbara, H. David Politzer from Cal Tech and Frank Wilczek from MIT shared the prize.

In Chemistry, Irwin Rose form University of California Irvine shared the prize with Israelis Aaron Ciechanover and Avram Hershko.
http://nobelprize.org/

CBL
 
Yeah, but the people winning prizes today are a product of our system over the last 40 years. The products of our system today will be determined 40 years from now and the number of Americans going into the sciences isn't what it used to be (per capita at least) nor is funding for basic research, which makes me worry about the long term. Thank God (figure of speech) so many brilliant foreigners want to come to the US to live and become scientists because not enough people born here are getting it done.
 
CBL4 said:
Once again the Nobel prizes are being awarded and once again Americans shared in all the prizes in the sciences. It must be something in the water because there is no way that our evil, capitalist culture could be good in any way. Six American shared the prizes along with 2 Israelis. This century, an American has always at least shared in every science prize.

In Medicine, Richard Axel from Columbia and Linda B. Buck from Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center shared the prize.

In Physics, David J. Gross from UC Santa Barbara, H. David Politzer from Cal Tech and Frank Wilczek from MIT shared the prize.

In Chemistry, Irwin Rose form University of California Irvine shared the prize with Israelis Aaron Ciechanover and Avram Hershko.
http://nobelprize.org/

CBL
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Hey, CBL4, there's no Nobel prize for gloating, so let it go ...

Charlie (still, it's good news) Monoxide
 
Yeah, but the people winning prizes today are a product of our system over the last 40 years.
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That's a good point but a bit of an overstatement. The prizes were awarded for work done in 1973, early 1980s and 1991.

I am sure it is a coincidence that all the work was done while we had a Replublican presendent.

CBL
 
CBL4 said:
That's a good point but a bit of an overstatement. The prizes were awarded for work done in 1973, early 1980s and 1991.

I am sure it is a coincidence that all the work was done while we had a Replublican presendent.

CBL
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That´s even more to his point. These people went to school and college/university in the 50´s, 60´s, 70´s and 80´s.

What do you think will people achieve who have to suffer through the current education system?
 
What do you think will people achieve who have to suffer through the current education system?
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They will be better than today. Our research university have been the the best in world for decades and I think, with the influx of top foreigners, they will only get better.

I should note that other countries may improve their university as well. I have not heard good things about Universities in UK, France and Germany but I am not sure if this is real or the constanting complaining about the present.

CBL
 
CBL4 said:
Once again the Nobel prizes are being awarded and once again Americans shared in all the prizes in the sciences. It must be something in the water because there is no way that our evil, capitalist culture could be good in any way. Six American shared the prizes along with 2 Israelis. This century, an American has always at least shared in every science prize.
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A clear indication of Anglo-American scientific hegemony. :)
 
Would be interesting to see a comparison between different countries where the size of the population is taken into account. Anyone know of any?
 
This Nobel success of countries has changed quite a bit over time:

From 1901 to 1950, Europeans won 79% of science prizes vs. 19% for American.
From 1951 to 2002, Europeans won 38% of science prizes vs. 55% for Americans.
http://www.jobseducationwis.org/175 Nobel Prizes 2003.doc

From 1988 to 2001, Europeans won 23% of total prizes vs. 75% for Americans.
http://www.physicsforums.com/archive/t-23452_Most_Nobel_Prize_Winners_by_Country_and_University.html

Sorry to combine two measurements but it was all I could find quickly. Since Americans have not won a prize in literature since 1993, the trend is even greater than it appears..

CBL
 
CBL,

Interesting numbers that certainly show that US education, has been among the world's best(4-5 decades ago). The numbers doesn't really tell anything about present day education, but interesting to see afterall. Though I don't think it makes much sense to compare with Europe as a whole, since countries in Europe vary widely. Nothern Europe is at the forefront together with the US, while southern and eastern Europe fall quite a bit behind.
 
Public education in general in the Eastern Europe countries is certainly way better than in Western Europe or in USA. Although it has began to decline recently, possibly due to the introduction of capitalism and commercialising of education. Anyway i'm sure that a mediocre high-school graduate in 'east' used to know A LOT more than its 'western' counterpart. Aquiring higher education is more troublesome, because it requires more money and so they tend to move to westwards. Most american Nobel prize winners are immigrants, 'bought-in' people.
 
Interesting numbers that certainly show that US education, has been among the world's best(4-5 decades ago). The numbers doesn't really tell anything about present day education, but interesting to see afterall. Though I don't think it makes much sense to compare with Europe as a whole, since countries in Europe vary widely. Nothern Europe is at the forefront together with the US, while southern and eastern Europe fall quite a bit behind.
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I agree somewhat. Nobel Prizes have a lag but the trend to US superiority is getting greater. This is clearly not a statement of the total educational system for the US but only for our top reasearch universities. This show that for the last fifty years they are the best and every indication is that they are getting better. At least, I have not seen any evidence that they are getting worse.

As far as Europe, most individual countries have too few prizes to make many statements. Clearly the UK has had great success but their trend is downward. I have read articles about UK Universities having problems but I do not know enough about them to be sure.

As far as the US education system, I think the problems are extremely overstated at best or, more likely, non-existant. All the research about how bad we educate our students tend to ignore the fact that our education system (and the standardized test taking )is more universal than other countries. The downward trend in the US also seem to be related more students staying in school and more diverse population taking the tests.

One infamous example was falling SAT scores. For decades the overall scores were dropping but among each individual group (boys, girls, whites, blacks, Asians, Hispanics, American Indians, etc) it was rising. The apparent fall in scores was due to more people taking the test not poorer performance. I am sorry I do not have a reference for this.

CBL
 
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