Musk Gets the Nobel Prize? No!
This years Nobel laureates in Physics will be announced on Tuesday.
Every year at this time in October it is Nobel prize week. Yesterday was medicine and today is physics. Here is the schedule:
PHYSIOLOGY OR MEDICINE – Monday, 7 October, Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun for the discovery of microRNA.
PHYSICS – Tuesday, 8 October, 11:45 CEST at the earliest
CHEMISTRY – Wednesday, 9 October
LITERATURE – Thursday, 10 October, 13:00 CEST at the earliest
PEACE – Friday, 11 October, by The Norwegian Nobel Committee in Oslo
ECONOMY Memorial Prize – Monday, 14 October, 11:45 CEST at the earliest
There are many unsolved mysteries in Physics, and that is the beauty of science. Every time an important knowledge is published, it opens up a new range of questions and counter-arguments that feed into the whole ecosystem of science. Every realization must be tested thoroughly until we feel assured that it cannot currently be disproved. Such is the scientific method that has worked for mankind for basically all of human history - observe, conceptualize, test if it works. If it fails, repeat the cycle.
Unfortunately, many people today have rejected this simple concept and have started to make up their own ‘theories’ that are easily proven false, but still appeal to followers for some reason or another. This can be easily exploited by charlatans, and soon grow into actual conspiracy theories. There is a need to reinstate scientific method as the gold standard even in schools, education in general, and in public life, even politics.
Theory in itself does not satisfy as knowledge in the real world, the physical world. Sabine Hossenfelder is an outspoken critic of modern theoretical physics, in particular the so-called string theory. She is herself trained in it and worked with it until her conviction and her career soured up. Now she makes educational material and debate pieces on many different topics. She explains difficult subjects similar to the way Neil deGrasse Tyson and Brian Cox and many others do, but with a distinctly critical mindset and tone, some may even say her style is that of a disgruntled person. But - she’s German so bear with her, she is still worth a listen for the insights.
Elon Musk could have been nominated in physics, but he cannot nominate himself. Nomination can only be done by scientists that have been specially invited by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences or the Nobel committee or that come from certain specific universities. Musk is not publishing many papers in physics, none, actually, but as an engineer, he produces tangible results within transport and space.
Youtube; Musk expresses his minimal respect for PhD papers.
Indeed, Musk dropped out of his PhD Engineering program, so he should know. But it probably does not makes him more respected in academia, as such. (Reddit) We can also point to the infamous discussion with Trump, where both of them aired unfounded ideas about natural resources, energy and science in general.
Especially SpaceX is noticeable as it is applied high-tech that does better than all, including NASA. As Sabine Hossenfelder suggests, just to make a re-usable rocket work could fit the criteria for the prize. In principle, the Nobel committee could honor that achievement, but most likely will not. He’s likely not nominated, but the committee does not publish lists of nominees until after 50 years have passed. He’s not selected because the price is rarely given to applied science, nearly always for groundbreaking research. Last year is was mostly experimental, because the team was awarded the price for developing a method for producing ultra short flashes of light, a sort of micro-stroboscope light which enables a number of research experiments on the subatomic level.
More realistic candidates for the Physics Nobel prize this year, of such we can mention more experiments with light, but since light was in focus last year, perhaps the committee will chose another subject. Lene Hau at Harvard University in 2001 froze light to standstill, whereas it normally moves of course at the speed of light in empty space. An obvious candidate is quantum computing, but there have been no major breakthroughs recently, after the initial proof of making it work at all. And finally, something on the cosmological level, like the origins of the universe. The new James Webb telescope has already revealed a number of things, like the most distant galaxies, and it is both spectacular and popular. Some cosmic research using the James Webb telescope would be a hit for this year’s Nobel prize in physics.
Revealed
The Nobel laureate(s) in physics have now been revealed. It was awarded for machine learning by artificial neural networks, as special branch of AI - artificial intelligence.
