I think nobels are overrated as an indicator of scientific research, because they don't capture most of the research but only the "super-star" researchers. This is great for figuring out which flagship institutions are attracting the best of the best, but this is not what you want to measure if you think of "research output".
> Nobel-prize data suggest the productivity of American science has fallen<p>Nope, it could also be that suddenly the rest of the world is starting to catch up. There is a fixed number of Nobel-prizes, it's not a measure of productivity -- unless you figure research is fixed sum game.
Why does this graph show only 4 countries as if they are the top 4?<p>Per capita, Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark, Austria, Norway all have more Nobel prizes per capita than UK.<p><a href="https://www.nejm.org/na101/home/literatum/publisher/mms/journals/content/nejm/2012/nejm_2012.367.issue-16/nejmon1211064/production/images/img_xlarge/nejmon1211064_f1.jpeg" rel="nofollow">https://www.nejm.org/na101/home/literatum/publisher/mms/jour...</a><p>Their statement "Accounting for population, it is the British who have accumulated the most Nobel prizes" is wrong.
I'm not sure I find those statistics compelling. I'd like to see the numerical method used to compute the first derivative. Was it just a finite difference? The Nobel prizes are lumpy and so they smoothed the function as well.<p>I'd be much more interested in a comparison between the European union and the USA, which are similar in GDP and population.<p>Would be very interesting to see the aggregate and slope of China and India as well. Are they gaining? My perception has been that they are not, but the data is so lumpy, and the nobel such a lagging indicator, that I'm not sure it has meaning.
From the numbers it looks like Nobel per capita in western countries should be even out over long term, but things like immigration and wars, and economics produces temporary (even century long) disruptions.
Of course. It's common sense. As the rest of the world gets more industrialized, wealthier and better educated, it's inevitable the awards will be less concentrated in one place. It's keep spreading out as time goes on.<p>It's not just nobel prizes in science. It's billionaires list, chess rankings, supercomputers list, top polluters list, top colleges, everything.<p>China by itself has more people than US and Europe combined. India by itself has more people than the US and Europe combined. ASEAN has more people than europe. If they are able to continue to develop and contribute, it's inevitable that their share of the prizes will increases sooner or later.<p>What's tragic is that the opportunity costs for them being so underdeveloped. How many geniuses and entrepreneurs were wasted because of lack of development and opportunity? How much human progress have we left of the table as a result? It's sad to think about.
Nobel prices come in lumps, as Feynman would say. Missing out on a just one lump can skew that graph significantly.<p>Going back in time, both the German and UK graphs have points where one could've come to the same conclusion, except they quickly recovered.