Nobel Week kicks off, Prize in Physics tipped Russians – Rosbalt.RU

STOCKHOLM, October 6. In Sweden, the Nobel Week begins, during which will be announced winners of the most prestigious award in the world of science.

The first – today – will be announced winners award in Physiology or Medicine, on Tuesday, his characters find Prize in Physics , and on Wednesday – in chemistry. After a break for the Nobel Peace Prize (Friday), next Monday, October 13, will be known laureates in economics. On the timing of the award of Nobel Prize in Literature will be announced later.

Prize in physics this year for the development of inflationary theory of creation of the universe, can get a Russian-born (although the chance of this is small), reports Newsru.com. On the inflation theory in 1979, said the young Soviet scientist Alexei Starobin. Then, in 1981, American Alan Guth used the term “cosmological inflation”, and in 1982 Moscow physicist Andrei Linde (who replaced the then American citizenship) proposed his theory model. A concept developed by three researchers received confirmation only in 2014 after the discovery by a radio telescope BICEP2 gravitational waves.

However, as said by the theory, the issue of awarding will be decided at a re-examination of the primary evidence for the existence of gravitational waves. Unfortunately, the American scientists, who said earlier about the opening, a few months later admitted that they are confident in the results of their research.

According to the tradition in the world are trying to guess the names of the winners in advance. The most successful in this company Thomson Reuters, which from 2002 to 2013 correctly predicted the names of 35 of the 112 laureates. At the current forecast of Thomson Reuters named 27 names of scientists working on 12 research areas. 17 of them from the United States, three from Australia and one each from Canada, Germany, Great Britain, Japan, China, South Korea and Saudi Arabia.

It is not surprising, therefore, that at the end of the Nobel Week in Russia could well begin again talk about the fact that the committee in Stockholm discriminate against Russians. However, the statistics do not confirm these allegations. If you take are listed in “Wikipedia” international scientific prizes, except the Nobel, and see how often received their Russian and Soviet scientists, it turns out, from the beginning of XX century on them, including immigrants, account for 58 of the total 953 different awards that is 6.1%. Nobel Prize the same ratio is 34 out of 636, ie 5.3% (and if you do not take into account the economy, which is not present in other bonuses, you get 32 ​​out of 562 = 5.7%), according to Radio “Liberty.”

Thus, the share of Russian Nobel laureates little different from the share of Russian holders of other prizes. This value seems very significant when you consider that the population and the economy of the Russian Federation accounted for about 2% of the world, and the funding of research in the country is much lower than in developed countries.

The Nobel Committee awards the winner of the gold medal with the image of Prize founder Alfred Nobel, a diploma and a cash prize. The size of the first prize in 1901 was 150 thousand. Kronor (6.8 million kroons in the calculus of 2000), then the award was reduced, and only in 1991 has reached the original level, notes RIA “News” .

In 2012, premiums have been reduced to 8 million kronor ($ 1.1 million). Total from 1901 to 2012 have been awarded the winner of 862 – 838 people and 24 organizations.