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In the name of science, let's congratulate Israel for winning the Nobel prise in chemistry.
Cheers
http://news.yahoo.com/israeli-wins-chem ... 20081.html

Be careful herve - RC will chastise you for a misleading thread title. The nobel prize isn't awarded to countries.

Schectman's win is well deserved - great to see science advance. It is a shame that there are so few Arab/Muslim scientists these days - the education and focus on technology has a lot of failings in it. It is particularly a shame given that the Islamic empire was once at the cutting edge of science. It could be again.. the Mullahs have a lot to answer for.

Congratulations to Israel for producing another Nobel prize winner though - on this, they do deserve credit and I just hope that the rest of the region tried to emulate them more in this regard. Many countries have the money - so that isn't an excuse any more.

Cheers,
Shafique

Number 11? Thats more than all Arab countries together. Wow!!!

Yes, that is a phenomenal feat. And if you count the number of Jewish nobel prize winners (not Israelis) I suspect there is a higher number.

IIRC the first Muslim scientist to win a Nobel prize in science was back in 1979 when Prof Abdus Salam won it for Physics. I know a couple of his sons personally, and had the priviledge of meeting him when I was younger - but I was too young to have a meaningful conversation with him. His writings on Islam and science are inspirational.

The sad thing is that he was an Ahmadi Muslim and Pakistan never really recognised him. He had to set up his centre for scientific research in Trieste - the goal was to get scientists from developing countries a place to do research. It is now called the Abdus Salam centre, IIRC.

Edit - the centre is described below:

For more than 45 years, the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) has been a driving force behind global efforts to advance scientific expertise in the developing world.

Founded in 1964 by the late Nobel Laureate Abdus Salam, ICTP seeks to accomplish its mandate by providing scientists from developing countries with the continuing education and skills that they need to enjoy long and productive careers. ICTP has been a major force in stemming the scientific brain drain from the developing world.

http://www.ictp.it/about-ictp.aspx

On technology and marketing, the Arab world has a lot to learn from Israel. They are catching up on the latter - the former will take more time.

Cheers,
Shafique

Prize

His English is better than your French - so give the guy a break. I mean, he's probably still investigating DearJohn...

Just kidding herve - I hope you appreciate that I am indeed congratulating Israel for the prize.

Cheers,
Shafique

shafique wrote: And if you count the number of Jewish nobel prize winners (not Israelis) I suspect there is a higher number.

Yep, from the first 7 winners so far, 5 are jewish.

Thanks - that makes the point very nicely. (I'm not a believer in eh's belief that it is down to genetics, I'm more inclined to believe it is nurture, not nature that explains it.)

I suspect that over the next few decades you'll see more and more Chinese names appear - as they start excelling in research as well. They are certainly well placed and hungry for developing knowledge this way.

Cheers,
Shafique

-- Thu Oct 06, 2011 7:26 am --

on a related note:

Despite the Nobel win, science education said in 'very deep crisis'

Prof. Ehud Keinan, chairman of the Education Ministry's advisory panel on chemistry, and other educators say Prof. Daniel Shechtman's prize is a product of an education system that no longer exists.

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/ne ... s-1.388413