Nobel Oblige

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by wj

(Went to make an Open Thread type post and noticed how long since we had one.  So here is some new place to babble/burble.) 

I have been reading the stories about the Nobel Prize for Medicine.  Specifically about how Penn deemed Katalin Karikó's work of such low quality that it kicked her off the tenure track.  And is now trying to claim credit, or at least some kind of positive press, for her previous association with it. 

Naturally, I immediately thought of nous recurrent comments about how universities have been pushing to have more work done by temporary employees rather than tenured/tenure track faculty.  I suppose it is too much to hope that universities generally will look at Penn and thing "Gee, maybe we need to take another look at how we deal with our teachers.:  But one can dream. 

And, since this is an Open Thread, I was amused last night to hear this in Colbert's monologue" 

"It's great to be back!  We were gone so long.  Check my numbers here, for 154 indictments." 

Again, Open Thread

 

Edit: with a title finally added

10 thoughts on “Nobel Oblige”

  3. At least she was an Adjunct, and got to share the Nobel.
    Unlike a postdoc. The Nobel for “millisecond pulsars” went to the Sr. faculty AND grad students, but left out the postdoc becuase “hired help”.
    Luck plays a huge role.

  4. And now, we have a Speaker Pro Tem in the US House. It seems that, being someone whose word is considered utterly worthless by everybody, left and right alike, is not a career enhancer.
    Who wants to bet on how long it takes to elect a new Speaker this time?

  7. Agreed, on Mike the Mad Biologist. Also, I was delighted to read that Kariko is Hungarian: it was only when Janie mentioned John von Neumann some months ago, and I looked him up, that I discovered what Szilard said when people were discussing the Fermi paradox and wondering why no aliens had been discovered: “They are already here among us – they just call themselves Hungarians.”
    Individuals named as members of The Martians group include:
    Paul Erdős, Paul Halmos, Theodore von Kármán
    John G. Kemeny, John von Neumann, George Pólya
    Leó Szilárd, , Edward Teller, Eugene Wigner
    Franz Alexander, Peter Carl Goldmark,
    John Harsanyi, Peter Lax, George Olah
    Egon Orowan, John Polanyi, Valentine Telegdi
    Cornelius Lanczos
    When the question was put to Edward Teller – who was particularly proud of his monogram, E.T. (abbreviation of extraterrestrial)[2] – he looked worried, and said: “Von Kármán must have been talking.”
    According to György Marx, the extraterrestrial origin of the Hungarian scientists is proved by the fact that the names of Leó Szilárd, John von Neumann, and Theodore von Kármán cannot be found on the map of Budapest, but craters can be found on the Moon bearing their names:[2] Szilard, Von Neumann, Von Kármán, and a crater on Mars, Von Kármán.
    From Wikipedia on The Martians, of course.
    For some reason which remains obscure to me, the humour of mathematicians (when I understand it) makes me laugh.

  9. “They are already here among us – they just call themselves Hungarians.”
    And all this time I thought it was the French.

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