michael_nielsen

The Nobel Prize is an interesting event. The recipients go from being venerated by a few hundred or thousand of their peers to being celebrities. For the rest of their life they're often introduced as a "Nobel Prizewinner", their opinion is sought by media & the famous, etc.

Interesting in part because there's many almost-Nobelists - people who reasonably could have been given a Prize, but didn't get it because of politics, bad luck, the rule that only 3 people can be given the Prize, etc.

Evidence that citation counts are a better measure? (That's a very unexpected assertion from my point of view.)

If you look at the list of bad Nobels, think about the censoring from deaths, the many-nominated-but-not-winners etc, a large fractions of Nobels should've been awarded to other people. Plus the sampling error is *massive* due small n: Most 'cells' are just empty. Terrible.

Strange, from my point of view. I looked in depth at the lists recently, and was surprised by how good the discovery / Laureate selection was, especially the recent prizes in Physics (where I can best judge). There are errors, but I thought it was surprisingly good.