Nobel Prizes 2019

[lpetrich]

The official website of the Nobel Prize - NobelPrize.org

This year's Physics Laureates are awarded ”for contributions to our understanding of the evolution of the universe and Earth’s place in the cosmos”, with one half to James Peebles “for theoretical discoveries in physical cosmology” and the other half jointly to Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz “for the discovery of an exoplanet orbiting a solar-type star.”

James Peebles helped work on parts of the Standard Model of Cosmology, the Lambda-CDM model, where the lambda in it is the amount of cosmological constant or dark energy, and the CDM is cold dark matter. In particular, JP worked on how dark matter contributes to the structure of the Universe, especially early in its history.

That causes a big problem for awarding prizes: when several people worked on something, who deserves how much credit?

In 1995, Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz discovered a planet around a Sunlike star, 51 Pegasi, the first planet discovered to orbit a "normal" star.

51 Pegasi (Helvetios): mass = 1.11 MSun, radius = 1.24 RSun, luminosity = 1.36 LSun, temperature = 5768 K, age = 6.1 Gyr, spectral type = G2IV

Distance from Sun = 50 lyr / 15 pc

That planet is 51 Pegasi b (Bellerophon, Dimidium): distance = 0.0528 AU (1/19 AU), period = 4.24 d, equil. temp. = 1300 K - hot enough to glow

Consider a planet that orbits 51 Pegasi and that receives the same light flux from its star that the Earth receives from the Sun. Its distance = 1.17 AU, its period = 1.20 years

51 Peg b would have a maximum separation of 2.6 degrees and an apparent magnitude of around -15. It should easily be visible if 51 Peg is hidden from view, like during a total eclipse.

 

[skepticalbip]

Just damn... The Nobel committee overlooked me again.



I'll have to console myself with knowing that they didn't recognize uncle Albert for his Theory of Relativity either.

 

[lpetrich]

The others:

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2019 rewards the development of the lithium-ion battery. This lightweight, rechargeable and powerful battery is now used in everything from mobile phones to laptops and electric vehicles. It can also store significant amounts of energy from solar and wind power, making possible a fossil fuel-free society.

This year's Chemistry Prize is awarded to John Goodenough, M. Stanley Whittingham and Akira Yoshino “for the development of lithium-ion batteries”. Through their work, they have created the right conditions for a wireless and fossil fuel-free society, and so brought the greatest benefit to humankind.

Lithium-ion batteries have been the most successful high-performance batteries to date, but they have an Achilles heel: their lithium. It's extracted from brines in certain parts of the world, and there is not much of such brines. So we need alternatives, like flow batteries.

This year’s Nobel Laureates revealed the mechanism for one of life’s most essential adaptive processes. They established the basis for our understanding of how oxygen levels affect cellular metabolism and physiological function. Their discoveries have also paved the way for promising new strategies to fight anemia, cancer and many other diseases.

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2019 is awarded jointly to William G. Kaelin Jr, Sir Peter J. Ratcliffe and Gregg L. Semenza “for their discoveries of how cells sense and adapt to oxygen availability.”

 

[lpetrich]

Continuing:

The Nobel Prize in Literature for 2018 is awarded to the Polish author Olga Tokarczuk "for a narrative imagination that with encyclopedic passion represents the crossing of boundaries as a form of life."

The Nobel Prize in Literature for 2019 is awarded to the Austrian author Peter Handke "for an influential work that with linguistic ingenuity has explored the periphery and the specificity of human experience."

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali is awarded this year's Peace Prize for his important work to promote reconciliation, solidarity and social justice. The prize is also meant to recognise all the stakeholders working for peace and reconciliation in Ethiopia and in the East and Northeast African regions.

Abiy Ahmed Ali is Prime Minister of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia since April 2018. He was born in Beshasha, Ethiopia, and is the first Ethiopian to be awarded a Nobel Prize. This year's prize is also the 100th Nobel Peace Prize.

Especially peace with Ethiopia's neighbor Eritrea.

The research conducted by this year’s Laureates has considerably improved our ability to fight global poverty. In just two decades, their new experiment-based approach has transformed development economics, which is now a flourishing field of research.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2019 to Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer “for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty.”