Wednesday, October 07, 2009
Nobels and Politics
reports that one of its professors was about to receive the Nobel Prize in
Physics. See this for example:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull&cid=1254393089550
As it turns out, TAU was counting its chickens before the Nobel egg was
laid. He did not get the prize. TAU, which is arguably Israel.s most
politicized universities, has never produced a Nobel Prize winner.
On the other hand, Israel.s least politicized institutions, first the
Technion and today the Weizmann Institute, HAVE researchers who have won
Nobel Prizes. A woman chemist at Weizmann shares today.s Nobel in
chemistry.
It is not a coincidence that the most politicized institutions in
Israel are least likely to get a Nobel Prize. (Hebrew University, which
is politicized but less so than TAU, has one Nobel winner . it is
conservative religious economist Robert Aumann . but he is the exception
to this rule.) The Israeli institutions where leftist politicized
anti-Israel faculty are as rare as four leaf clovers are the ones
producing the champions of science.