The Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine to Mario Capecchi (go Utes!) and two other blokes who knocked mice out (or rather genes in them), that's something I'm stoked about. These three guys developed methods that are used everywhere in the study of the processes of life, disease and death.
About the Chemistry and Physics Prizes I cannot say much. Apparently my miniPod and my latest investment, a 160GB drive for my laptop, benefit from it. And equally apparently, processes of industrial chemistry are so much more efficient and clean thanks to improved surface catalysis. So be it.
About Doris Lessing I won't say a thing. I haven't read her books. Some commentators say she's no John Updike or Philip Roth.
What I can do, today on Friday, is shake my head over the Peace Prize for Al Gore. Whose idea was that? I mean, come on, this guy is kind of responsible for the mess in Iraq and the concurrent resurgence of al Qaida by losing an unlosable election to George Bush. Without his incompetence on the campaign trail, the excesses of the current American administration wouldn't throw the world in disarray.
So he made a movie about global warming. Big effing deal. It was a summary of the known, and while it started a discussion, it didn't really contribute anything to it.
On the other hand – and on the bright side – there is no danger anymore that Al Gore will run for president again. Americans would never elect anyone so spectacularly endorsed by the international community.
2 comments:
I've meet Gruenberg in the last millenium - already then there was some mystic gossip about how many millions his patent has brought him. Back then I worked on quantum transport through layered mesoscopic structure - like what these read-heads are made off. I refer for more detail to my publication list on http://www.its.caltech.edu/~iriedel.
The other winners I haven't met (yet??) (although an old class mate - then graduating in Utah - speculated on Capecchi and the Nobel prize a while ago - which reminded me of him when reading about the prize...)
The thing about Gore feels to me like the prize for Arafat/Perez/Rabin - it is given in the hope to keep the momentum on the issue rather then acknowledging the real achievement by the particular person(s) - in that respect I think it was a good (obviously political) decision...
See you not in Stockholm!!!
Not so sure about Doris Lessing myself. I've never read her. Perhaps I'll check her out.
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