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Jewish World Review Oct. 17, 2005 / 14 Tishrei, 5766 Norway's Nobel agenda By Jeff Jacoby
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Scientists have known since the early 20th century that quantum theory applied to light — sometimes it behaves like waves, sometimes like a stream of particles.
But it wasn't until Roy Glauber's work in the early 1960s that physicists began to understand the mathematical architecture that underlay light's double nature. In particular, a paper he published in 1963 made it possible to explain in theoretical terms how the hot light emitted by an incandescent bulb differed from the focused beam of a laser.
Glauber's insights spawned a host of practical applications. From the ultraprecise measurement of time to the accurate determination of the color emitted by molecules to — someday, perhaps — the invention of 3-D holographic movies, much of modern optics's cutting edge can be traced back to Glauber's work. For his 1963 paper, he came to be known as the ''father of quantum optics" and was honored by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences with the Nobel Prize in Physics. In 2005.
If good things come to those who wait, a Nobel Prize must be a very good thing indeed. According to Alfred Nobel's will, the annual prizes were to go to those who had conferred the greatest benefit on mankind ''during the preceding year." Yet the Swedish committees that award the science, literature, and economics prizes routinely choose honorees whose greatest work was done years, even decades, earlier. Glauber was 38 when he published his seminal paper; only now, at 80, has he become (with John Hall and Theodor Hansch) a Nobel laureate in physics.
At 84, Thomas Schelling is older and has waited even longer. One of this year's two winners in economics, Schelling was hailed by the Nobel committee for his pathbreaking analysis of game theory in ''The Strategy of Conflict," a book he published in 1960. His fellow recipient, Israeli mathematician Robert Aumann, is being honored for a body of work stretching back to 1959.
Harold Pinter, this year's Nobel laureate in literature, published his first play, ''The Room," in 1957. Whatever one thinks of his strident politics, Pinter has long been considered one of the great dramatists of the 20th century.
In short, the Swedish committees that choose the Nobel laureates in physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, and economics have again selected persons of undoubted accomplishment whose work has stood the test of time. The Swedes may not move as fast as Alfred Nobel envisioned. But the prizes they confer tend to stand the test of time as well.
Then there is the peace prize, which this year went to Mohamed ElBaradei and the International Atomic Energy Agency he heads. Unlike the other Nobels, the peace prize is awarded not by Swedish scientists and scholars but by a committee of Norwegian politicians. That no doubt explains why the choice so often seems political.
The selection of ElBaradei and the IAEA certainly can't be a reward for results. The international nuclear watchdog failed to uncover Iraq's nuclear weapons program before the 1991 Gulf War. It missed Libya's nuclear activities, which Moammar Khadafy voluntarily gave up after Saddam Hussein was toppled in 2003. ElBaradei was shocked when Pakistan's global nuclear black market came to light — which underlined, as The Economist noted, ''how little he and his agency had known about an enormous operation that had been going on right under his inspectors' noses." They found out about Iran's nuclear program only after Iranian dissidents told them where to look.
Then again, ElBaradei was a vocal opponent of the US war in Iraq, and the Norwegians are not above using the peace prize to send a message to the United States.
When they gave the prize to Jimmy Carter in 2002, the committee chairman emphasized that it was intended to be ''a kick in the leg" of the Bush administration. This year, the committee insisted that any nuclear threat from rogue regimes ''be met through the broadest possible international cooperation" — a condemnation in advance of any US decision to deal with Iran unilaterally if worse comes to worst.
The five Swedish Nobels are almost always rewards for true achievement. The one Norwegian Nobel too often smacks of an agenda. What a pity that the peace prize isn't chosen in Stockholm too.
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Jeff Jacoby is a Boston Globe columnist. Comment by clicking here. © 2005, Boston Globe |
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