Talk:Nobel laureates by country

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Articles for deletion This article was nominated for deletion on July 23, 2007. The result of the discussion was keep.

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[edit] Incompleteness

The table and two charts in this page are based on a (very) incomplete list, and are therefore both highly inaccurate and misleading. For example, there have been at least 270 US Nobel Winners [1], of which only 160 are listed here — a big enough difference to make the table and charts pretty useless in my opinion. Udzu 12:06, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Top section moved to body

I added this page because, for a Spanish exam coming up, we have to name three laureates from a Spanish-speaking country. I also put this page into Spanish.

List is messed up. Lots of names listed twice, under native country, AND later residence. GangofOne 21:21, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

From the introduction:

Note: "country" refers to country of residence at the time of receiving the prize, not necessarily the country of birth; unless otherwise known by birth place (e.g. German scientist, Swiss physicist). In cases where the laureate was naturalized and received the prize in the country of naturalization, the birth country is represented in italics.

This seems very subjective. Who's to say whether a laureate is known by their birth place or not? Could we not use the country of origin as defined at nobelprize.org? Several people are listed by both country of birth and residence, so there would still be duplications in the list, but at least there would be consistency. Dillon256 15:55, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

In the absence of objections I'll make some changes according to the following policies:

  • Relying on the official website as a source for nationalities.
  • Listing laureates under more than one country if the official website does so.
  • For laureates whose birth country differs from their country of residence, putting a * next to their name when they appear in the list for their birth country, and putting their birth country in italics next to their name. Dillon256 15:18, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

If the criterion for listing a laureate under a particular country is the laureate's nationality as stated in the official website, then Sir Arthur Lewis should be listed under the United Kingdom, with his country of birth, Saint Lucia, following in italics.

How about moving this to Nobel Laureates by country? The phrase is more idiomatic, and the lower case is strongly supported by Wikipedia:Naming conventions. Septentrionalis 20:38, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

William Henry Bragg seems to be missing from this list. He is William L Bragg's father. The former was born in the UK, the latter in Australia. They both worked in both the UK and Australia. I'm not sure where you would want to put WHB. Ordinary Person

[edit] "Judaism"

Isn't it a bit ridiculous to list Jewish Nobel Laureates? "Judaism" is not a country. By that logic "Islam", "Christianity", "Buddism", "Hinduism" and "Atheism" (oh, how about "Voodoo"?) would be sections too. That would just be stuid, wouldn't it? The "Judaism" section also seems to have some racial overtones as well, suggesting that Jewishness is an inherited trait (we all know how that logic turned out). While I won't take the unilateral action of deleting it myself, it seems pretty idiotic to have it there.

Agreed. Jewish Laureates is already a separate list. Besides, Israel is a listed as a nation. Judaism doesn't fit in this list.

[edit] Measure Nobel Prize Fractions to Avoid Misleading Picture

Unfortunately, none of Wikipedia's Nobel laureate lists is taking into account that not all Nobel laureates are of equal importance. Some obviously had much more impact than others. One of them even achieved superstardom and became "man of the century", while most of them remain largely unknown. Here we cannot judge who deserved it etc. But we ought to report how the Nobel committee expresses its own view of the value of individual contributions by awarding fractional prizes. The official Nobel web site explicitly says for each laureate X how much of a Nobel Prize X really got, for example, "1/4 of the prize" or "1/2 of the prize" or "1/3 of the prize" etc. If X got less than 1.0 Nobel Prizes X is still a Nobel laureate, of course, but it's also clear that X could have done better. Everybody in the field, and especially the laureates themselves, are fully aware of the significance of these fractional prizes. Suppose the physics prize goes to 3 researchers, one of them gets 1/2, the others 1/4 each - it's absolutely clear whose contribution was larger in the eyes of the committee.

I think all Wikipedia Nobel Prize lists must be augmented by this crucial information. This will also put in perspective the recent inflation of Nobel laureates in the sciences, which is easy to explain: most of the recent laureates had to share the prize while most of the early laureates got a full prize. The sum of the Nobel Prizes per year is constant; you may divide it among many laureates, but then the laureates necessarily become less outstanding on average.

The list of laureates by country must take this into account as well. For example, Glauber (US), Hall (US) and Hänsch (Germany) shared the physics prize of 2005. But we cannot simply add 2.00 points to the US count and 1.0 to the German count. Instead we have to add 0.75 to the US count and 0.25 to the German count (Hänsch and Hall each got only 0.25 of the prize, Glauber got 0.5). Similarly, Einstein's entry in the Nobel WWW site mentions both Germany and Switzerland. But we may not simply add 1.0 points to Germany and 1.0 points to Switzerland. Instead we have to add 0.5 points to each nation. Otherwise we'd violate the Nobel Prize conservation law: the sum of the prizes per year is constant, only the number of laureates may vary. Science History 15:06, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

You could make a list to supplement the one currently on the page to show fractional prizes but you cannot compute fractional prizes and multiple birth/citizenship countries in the same list. That would require a third list. Rmhermen 14:12, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

==

[edit] Jewish statement

The sentence "The Jewish people have the largest percentage of Nobel prize winners (approximately 160 in all) compared to any other ethnic or religious group." is downright laughable. How did someone arrive at this conclusion given the fact that 758 prizes have been awarded? I'd love to see a non-Jewish source for this info, until then the statement has been removed. JRWalko 02:23, 8 May 2007 (UTC)


Well "DUDE" Jews make 0.05% of the world population so 160 out of 758 (which include organizations etc) is a pretty large number.

Jewish people are nothing more than plain people. Mentioning people's religion or race is just wrong in this section. We could also mention that most laureates are white people, but this is just the beginning of racial slurs. There are obvious reasons why the amount of Jewish people is high, e.g. wealth and good education, which are ironically a consequence of historic unjustness that was bestowed upon the Jewish people. FMB 21:13, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The Asterisk Business

This is a listing of Nobel laureates by country. Therefore ethnicity or parents birth-place is pretty much irrelevant. This list should only be sourced by the country precisely defined by the Nobel committee and nothing more or less. Bulldog123 17:54, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

The Nobel Price Committee actually does not pricisely define the laureate's "country". Besides, this articles says "Nobel laureates by country" and not "Nobel laureates by country (as viewed by the Nobel Price Committee respecitvely the Nobel Peace Price Committee)". To settle the "neutrality" dispute tag I propose the following criteria (that are the broadest I can think of; I think broadness will at the end lead to less controversy, rather than a narrow definition). A Nobel Laureate is considered of a certain country if

a. he or she is born in that country and had the citizenship of that country up to a certain point or until his death (e.g. Einstein = German)

b. he or she is not born in the country in question but gained its citizenship later on voluntary (e.g. Einstein = American)

c. he or she held the citizenship of a country that no longer exists AND had a strong personal connection (language, ethnicity, lived in the territory for a long time etc.) to the country in question and this country is one of the successor countrites to the country that no longer exists (e.g. Alfred Fried = Austrian; Austria-Hungary old country; new countries: Hungary, Czech Republic, Austria etc. OR Lev Landau = Azerbaijan; born in Baku and raised there; Sovietunion; new countries: Russia, Azerbaijan etc.)

BUT

d. if he or she just lived in a certain country, was not born there and did not hold the citizenship of that country or was born in a country that does no longer exist and did not have any ties to one special successor country (even though this is the legal successor to the old country), he should not be listed under that country (e.g. Shmuel Yosef Agnon who was born in Austria-Hungary in Galizia which is now part of Ukraine should not be listed under "Austria").

Please agree or disagree or comment on this proposal. Themanwithoutapast 19:10, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Comments and vote

Comment *Yes it does - in fact that is what was argued at the AfD for this article. Bigdaddy1981 21:33, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Bigdaddy, if you find an official definition for "country" of a specific laureate from the Nobel Prize Committee, please post a link here, because as far as I know there is none. Their categorization is as arbitrary as anyone's statement that one person "belongs" to one country or another. By the way, if we want to follow their categorization, it would for instance not be allowed to list Einstein under USA, because they list him under Germany and Switzerland. Themanwithoutapast 22:04, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
During the AfD debate - I amd another editor argued that country was subjective - subject additionally to changes in country boundaries and that the current article was flawed by the obvious attemot to add as many laureates as possible to all countries. It was insisted by other editors that these are in fact irrelevant concerns as all one needs to do is go to the Nobel website and see which country is listed for a given laureate. I am sure that all those in favour of keeing this article will be soon working diligently to make this change rather than simply moving on to the nect AfD. In any case, country *is* given for each laureate. I see no other way to avoid a violation of WP:SYNTH than to use the Nobel country selection. Bigdaddy1981 06:26, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Disagree Let's just use the country listed at NobelPrize.org the official website. or no country. The asterisks can be used for countries that were one thing when the prize was awarded and another today. And, Einstein is listed only under Germany and Switzerland. Why would anyone list him under USA? KP Botany 22:21, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
What about countries with multiple successor states - for instance the example of Agnon, above? Is it not more objective to use exactly what is on the Nobel website. I don't know how one would objectively implement in all cases the rule suggested by Themanwithoutapast regarding countries where the Laureate does "not have any ties to one special successor country" Bigdaddy1981 19:39, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
Yes, just using the country listed by the Nobel committee takes care of all sorts of issues. Just dealing with all the Poles who've one Nobel prizes and what the country was when they won could be an entire article. Just what the country is called by the Nobel committe, on the official web-site, and all other issues can be taken care of in articles about the laureate. KP Botany 22:00, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Top Rankings

..Country.......No.

  • 1 USA...........301
  • 2 UK.............114
  • 3 Germany......95
  • 4 France.........55
  • 5 Sweden........28
  • 6 Switzerland...25
  • 7 Austria.........22
  • 7 Russia..........22
  • 8 Italy.............20
  • 9 Netherlands..18
  • 10 Canada......17
  • ...
  • India................8
  • China...............5

Easier access to higher education would seem to answer why these ranking numbers are skewed this way.

Clearly the Irish with only 9 Nobel Laureates are under represented by a factor of ? 1,000 !!


Footnote: With most (40-50 % ?) of the world's population, China & India both have had a very low number of Nobel laureates (13 of 758 - 0.017 %). Why ?

Perhaps clues: In China, its long long history of wars , factions, under Warlords, and Emperors and under the present Communist party , eliminated a high % of the brightest. And in China, most (? 75% of the population) has not had a path to higher education due to poverty).

In India, esp also poverty kept un educated 100s of millions the past 60 years as it grew from 250 million to today's 1 - 1.25 billion.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.230.159.228 (talk) 17:50, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm curious how the pre-WW2 ranking would look like. After the Nazis took over in 1933, many Germans went abroad, and due to WW2, many other Europeans wound up in the US, too. Also, many prices are shared in recent decades, leading to an inflation of laureates. In comparison, Einstein would deserve more than the one he received for the photoeffect. No special Nobel prize at all for the theory of relativity is, in general, relatively few. -- Matthead  DisOuß   16:50, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
FYI, Einstein couldn't receive a Nobel prize for his theory of relativity since it wasn't proven in his lifetime, nor was there any way to prove it then. While the Swedish scientists recognized its importance, the prize can only be given to achievements that have already been shown to be beneficial for mankind, and the laureate must be alive at the time the award is announced. So instead, they chose the photoeffect work, to make sure he was at least honored for something. The rationale given for his award ended up being "for his services to theoretical physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect", where "his services to theoretical physics" included his work on the theory of relativity, although not specifically stated. –panda 17:19, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Question

Why is there a category for Russia and USSR? No other former country is so treated - there isn't Serbia and Yugoslavia, or Austria and Austria Hungary. If the idea is that Nobel Laureates are to be assigned to the successor states of former countries then this category makes no sense.

If there are both Serbian and Austrian Nobel laureates, then list both countries (actually, I thought they were). Soviet winners should be under Soviet, and Russian under Russia. The two countries are not precisely the same. KP Botany 18:13, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
I understand that they are not the same country precisely (just as Austria and Austria-Hungary and Serbia and Yugoslavia). So you suggest only assigning Laureates to successor states if those Laureates won their prize after that successor state was created? That isn't the way this page works at the moment. For instance, there is no Yugoslavia category. People who won the prize during the time of Yugoslavia are assigned to Serbia, Bosnia, and so on. Similarly Czechoslowakia, Austria-Hungary etc. It would make more sense to me to assign Laureates to the country that is listed for them on the Nobel website so for instance Lev Landau (http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1962/) would be listed under USSR. At the moment, Laureates are assigned in a highly subjective fashion to all sorts of countries based on editors' own beliefs/views etc. Bigdaddy1981 19:17, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] World map

I found this map of nobel laureates by country: [2]
I was wondering if it could be included in this page. By now, no page links to that map. Thanks.
--Emmanuel5h 16:58, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] RFC: Country data in Nobel lists

There is currently a Request for Comments about the country data in the Nobel lists at Talk:Nobel Prize in Chemistry#RFC: Country data in Nobel lists. Since this topic has been discussed fairly extensively for this article, your comments would be appreciated. panda 16:38, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Some RFC updates:

  • You can find the definition of the country data included in the Nobel lists in the RFC under the point Country data defined.
  • There is currently a consensus moving towards removing all of the flags in the Nobel lists unless someone can devise an acceptable scheme for them. This portion of the RFC (point 2) will be closed in 2 weeks, i.e., 31 October 2007, assuming it is not challenged. That is, the consensus will be to remove all flags from the lists.

–panda 15:32, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

This RFC has been closed. The following was reach by consensus:

  • The country data on the Nobel Foundation list is the laureate's nationality (according to the book "Nobel: The Man and His Prizes"); knowing this, there are at least a couple errors for the laureate's nationality in the Nobel Foundation's list.
  • The countries/nationalities should be included in the list.
  • Use common names for the countries/nationalities. All variants of Germany should simply be called Germany except for West Germany, even though there never were any laureate's from East Germany. Only one editor commented on which variant of Germany should be linked to (the current one), so it's difficult to say if there is any consensus about that aspect.

For a list of inconclusive items, please see the closing comments. –panda 21:01, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Update totals

Anyone want to take a stab at including this year's winners in the opening statistics?== Czolgolz 05:56, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Some issues with this list

I've noticed a few errors here and I don't know how we should go about fixing them.

The Nobel website as a source should be inadmissible in many of these cases. It's important to note that their website is far from perfect. There's blatant errors and omissions there with regards to names and countries. One example is the person listed on their site as "Marie Curie nee Sklodowska" who was born "Maria Sklodowska" and received a Nobel prize which was for "Marie Sklodowska-Curie". The diploma has a different name than the website (I'd think Mrs. Sklodowska-Curie would've made sure they rendered her name as desired when she received it). It should be used in some cases but blind faith in it leads to the kind of errors that we currently have in this list.

Another problem has to do with countries. Leonid Hurwicz was a Polish Jew who was born in Moscow, Russia as a result of his family's displacement during WWI. Having "Russia" next to his name on this list seems a little misguiding. This is persistent on the list where people get reassigned to different countries according to some unknown formula. If someone from a country is born on land that is not currently that country they shouldn't be moved to the present day entity simply based on that fact. That's why over the last few months totals for some countries have jumped significantly. I see European countries who are missing people on account of changing borders and other countries being credited with the prizes of people who had nothing to do with that state.

This list also gives the impression that the US has a lot more prizes than it really does at the expense of other countries. The Nobel committees do not have a universally followed method of assigning prizes to people. Because many scientists retire to the US the US gets prizes that are awarded for research that was not done there by people who were not Americans.

If this list is going to propagate incorrect information it might as well not exist at all. JRWalko (talk) 01:36, 21 November 2007 (UTC)


[edit] International organizations

I would like to argue that awards for international organizations should not be counted by default for the country of the representative person. In the past, the Nobel Price comity has decided multiple times to award an organization AND an individual representing the organization, e.g. 2005 Peace, International Atomic Energy Agency plus Mohamed ElBaradei or 2001 Peace, the United Nations plus Kofi Annan. I think that in these cases, it is obvious that the awards should also be listed for the countries of these people. There are however cases, where only the organization is awarded, e.g. 2007 Peace, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In such cases, I recommend not to account the price for any country.

Since the list differs from this recommendation, I intend to make changes, namely with respect to the award for peace in 2007, where currently India has an entry for the respectable Rajendra Pachauri, who is personally not a laureat and does not appear in the listing on the official website. However, I wanted to give some time to discuss this issue first, in case anybody feels uncomfortable with the outlined ruling. Please, have a look on the official website for the Nobel Price, which points out clearly, whether an organization is awarded alone or in combination with a representative person. http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/lists/all/ Tomeasy (talk) 16:37, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ireland

The heading Ireland (which links to an article on the whole island of Ireland) seems inconsistent with the other categories since the island is not a single state like the others (or at least is disputed). The inclusion of David Trimble seems particularly ironic in this regard. --Carmock (talk) 13:26, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Fixed both points. Tomeasytalk 21:27, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Hungarisms

How does this list work after all? I though it is countries of residence or birth, at least this is said in its beginning.

However, Robert Bárány lived all his life, from birth till death, outside Hungary, no matter how would you define it - Hungary was no country of residence or birth for him. I don't see any Hungary mentions at http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1914/barany-bio.html . Hi lived 20 years in Sweden, but he is not mentioned under Sweden.

John Polanyi was born in Berlin and lived in many countries, but never in Hungary. He lived for 20 years in England, but his name doesn't appear under UK.

Richard Adolf Zsigmondy lived in Vienna and Germany, which again is outside any-size Hungary. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.136.109.247 (talk) 18:33, 10 June 2008 (UTC)