Hamish Johnston presents data showing how long different nations have had to wait before winning a Nobel Prize in Physics.
How long did it take for your country to claim a physics Nobel laureate? Or perhaps you live in one of the 170 or so countries that has yet to produce a Nobel-prize winner?
The aim of our latest infographic (see figure) is to answer that question by exploring the geographical evolution of laureates. Creating it, however, quickly became an exercise in the history of the past two centuries.
Map-changing wars in Europe, the demise of colonialism and immigration made it surprising difficult to ascribe some laureates to specific countries and led to at least one debate amongst Physics World colleagues. I will get into some of these idiosyncrasies after I take a general look at the infographic.
What is obvious is the early Nobel physics laureates come from what many call the west. Germany is considered by many to be the birthplace of modern physics, so it is not surprising that the country had the shortest wait – with Wilhelm Röntgen bagging the first prize (in 1901) for his discovery of X-rays.
Until 1930, when the Indian physicist CV Raman won the prize for his eponymous scattering effect, the prize was only awarded to people from western countries. Indeed, of the 22 countries that can claim laureates (by our measures), only five are not in the west. These are India, Pakistan, Japan, Soviet Union/Russia, and China. So far, there have been no laureates from Africa, Latin America, and much of Asia and Oceania.
While much of this is down to better access to education and research resources in the west, the increasing global mobility means that students and researchers from all over the world are working in the west – and wealthy countries like China, South Korea and Japan. So why aren’t they bagging Nobel firsts for their home countries?
Indeed, only three laureates in the infographic who took that route are China’s Chen Ning Yang and Tsung-Dao Lee – who did their prize winning work in the US – and Abdus Salam, who did much of his prize winning work in the UK and Italy. Hopefully, this year’s crop of winners will include someone who is not from one of those 22 countries. While it’s likely that they will be working in the west, wouldn’t it be great if they won for work done in their home country.
Established nations
So how did we decide where a laureate is from? To work this out we considered where that person was born, where that place is today and in some cases – what we know about a laureate’s view on their own nationality.
A case in point is Ernest Walton, who we consider to be the first Irish laureate. He was born in 1903 in Dungarvan, which is on the south-east coast of the Republic of Ireland. At the time of his birth, however, his birthplace was in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland – as all of Ireland was then a constituent nation of the UK. So Walton was born a British subject.
However, we consider him Irish for several reasons. First, although Ireland was not a sovereign country in 1903, it was a well-established national entity that was on the road to independence before Walton reached adulthood. Second, although Walton did his award-winning research in England, he spent most of his life in Ireland. Third, there is no evidence that the was a unionist – someone who opposes Irish independence and considers themselves British.
The above might upset readers in Scotland and Wales because both of those nations have spawned physics laureates that don’t appear in our infographic. But unlike in international football, rugby and cricket, Scotland and Wales will have to wait for independence from the UK before they get their own laureate teams in our infographic.
Similarly, Marie Curie was born in a part of Poland, when it was a part of the Russian Empire. But Poland was identifiable as a country in 1867 and it gained independence during Curie’s lifetime. Indeed, Curie was clearly a proud Pole, because she named the element polonium after her homeland in the hope that Poland would become unified and independent.
We have included Lawrence Bragg as the first Australian to win a Nobel prize. He was born in Adelaide in 1890, when the Australian colonies began the journey to independence from the UK. While Bragg is often considered British, we have decided he is Australian because he left the country for the UK in 1908 – seven years after Federation created the Commonwealth of Australia, which was independent from the UK for domestic issues.
Dealing with decolonization
I mentioned that there are no laureates from Africa in our infographic, but three physics Nobel-prize winners were born on the continent. These are Claude Cohen-Tannoudji (born in Algeria), Serge Haroche (born in Morocco) and Pierre Agostini (born in Tunisia). However, all were born when these countries were French colonies and they all left for France when they gained independence.
Some readers might be scratching their heads over how we have dealt with the time Pakistan had to wait for its first Nobel Prize. Salam bagged that prize in 1979 – so a 78 year wait from 1901, when the first prize was awarded. So why have we calculated the wait as just 32 years?
The reason is that unlike Ireland, Poland or Australia, the concept of Pakistan didn’t exist when Salam was born in Lahore in the British Raj in 1926. The word Pakistan is thought to have originated in 1933 and the call for a Muslim homeland crystalized in 1940 with the Lahore Resolution. So, we have decided to start the clock for Salam in 1947.
Is this the year for a Nobel prize in condensed matter, or maybe particle physics?
Other laureates who merited scrutiny include Albert Michelson, who was born in Poland but arrived in the US age two. As a result, we consider him to be the first American laureate. Indeed, Michelson wouldn’t appear in the infographic if we considered him a Pole because he was pipped at the post by Marie Curie.
Similarly, Gabriel Lippmann was born Luxembourg to French parents and moved to France age three, so we consider him French and not the first laureate from Luxembourg. However, we are a big fan of Lippmann here at Physics World because of the nature of his award – which was for a still-obscure colour-photography technique.
Indeed, my colleague Margaret Harris bagged an award of her own from Association of British Science Writers for her feature article that explores Lippmann’s prize, and that of Gustaf Dalén the first Swede to win a physics Nobel prize. That article is called “The physics Nobel prizes you’ve never heard of”.
