The chances are slim that I am going to get this right. But if I do I can brag to everyone who will listen. If I’m wrong no one will remember what I said anyway. So here goes . . .
The 2006 Nobel Prize for Physics will be awarded this coming Tuesday, October 3, 2006 to Bruce Campbell, G.A.H Walker, and S. Yang for the discovery of the first confirmed planet in a solar system outside of ours. In the grand scheme of things, it could be one of the greatest discoveries ever, particularly if we find signs of life on another planet . . . or even better, signs of intelligent life.
You heard it here first!
Thomson Scientific, publishers of the Science Citation Index, has made some predictions based on how often various scientists have their work cited by other scientists. Here’s their list of likely Physics Nobel Laureates
-Emmanuel Desurvire (Alcatel Technical Academy), Masataka Nakazawa (Tohoku University) and David N. Payne (University of Southampton) for the Erbium-doped Fiber Amplifier
-Albert Fert (University of Paris-Sud) and Peter Gruenberg (Julich Research Center) for their work on Giant Magnetoresistance
-Alan H. Guth (MIT), Andrei Linde (Stanford University), and Paul J. Steinhard (Princeton University) for proposing Cosmic Inflation
The cowards! Picking 3 possibilities. Pshaw. At least I’m brave enough to pick one. 😉
Thomson brags that of the 27 possibilities they have picked since 2002, 4 have won, for a hit rate of 15%.
Not bad, but if I’m right this year, I’ll be at 100%.