From: sichase@csa2.lbl.gov (SCOTT I CHASE)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: 1992 Nobel Prizes: a prediction
Date: 8 Oct 1992 10:45 PST
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory - Berkeley, CA, USA
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In article <1992Oct8.155709.7074@cbnews.cb.att.com>, ran@cbnews.cb.att.com (Robert A. Neinast) writes...
>In article <138426@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV>, chaiken@cmsgee.llnl.gov (Alison Chaiken) writes:
>> Every year for the last 5 years or so I have predicted in this group
>> the winners of the physics and chemistry prizes.  So far I have an
>> unblemished record of being wrong every year.     Here are my
>> predictions for 1992:
> 
>> Physics: Leonard Mandel and Alain Aspect, for fundamental tests
>> in QED

Thanks for reminding me.  I have meant several times to post a note about
the Nobel Prize.  Here's what I think.  There are two major experimental
results this year, COBE and SAGE/GALLEX.  Unfortunately, COBE is somewhat
marginal in the sense that the analysis may still be a little shakey.  It
has also not yet been confirmed.  The neutrino experiments are important,
but not complete yet.  They do, however, confirm the original work of 
Ray Davis.  It's possible that he gets the prize for discovering the
solar neutrino deficit.  Unfortunately, until the problem is solved, there
is still the possibility that the entire "solar neutrino problem" has a 
rather trivial solution, i.e., tweaks to the solar core temperature, better 
calculations of the Standard Model predictions, and some experimental
error rolled up together to make the discrepancy disappear.

Aside from that, I think we are looking at a prize which awards some 
deed long past and unrelated to this year's flashy physics.  One possibility
that comes to mind is Aharanov-Bohm.  

It can be very difficult for any one person to have enough perspective
to appreciate ahead of time the contributions of many worthy people.  For
example, when de Gennes won last year, I hardly knew who he was.  After all,
what did I know about liquid crystals? 

>What I want to know is why Hawking hasn't won it, particularly since
>the Nobel is only awarded to living people, and every year he hangs
>on seems miraculous.
> 
>Is there some general concensus that his work just isn't of Nobel
>caliber?

No.  But there is a very natural tendency to lean toward experimental 
results when awarding the Nobel prize.  First of all, Nobel was a practical
man, and there was established a tradition of awarding practical results.
But probably more important, it's harder to make a mistake.  Awarding the
first person to do a reproducible experiment is unlikely to cause embarassment
later.  Awarding a theorist who may turn out to have been wrong is riskier.

For that reason, Einstein never won a Nobel Prize for SR or GR, but rather
for his interpretation of the photoelectric effect, a result much more closely
linked to experiment than his other work.

What if it turns out that black holes *don't* evaporate?  Hawking's work
is so far out on the fringe that there is little hope of his major predictions
being experimentally verified beyond dispute in his lifetime.

The committee very rarely makes mistakes as the result of it's conserative
approach.  The only case of which I can think, which later turned out to 
be an award for a failed discovery, is in biology and medicine, when the
gave it to the fellow who invented the use of lobotamy for the treatment
of psychiatric illness.

In physics they have an excellent record.  With few exceptions, (who ever
heard of Jean Baptiste Perrin?)  the list of Nobel laureates is a list
of Who's Who in physics, the names we all know and love.  Nor can I think
of any grossly offensive ommissions, at least off the top of my head.  Can
anybody?

-Scott
--------------------
Scott I. Chase			"The question seems to be of such a character
SICHASE@CSA2.LBL.GOV		that if I should come to life after my death
				and some mathematician were to tell me that it
				had been definitely settled, I think I would
				immediately drop dead again."      - Vandiver