Brian Keating
W. W. Norton & Company (April 24, 2018)
Brian Keating hasn’t won a Nobel Prize. Who doesn’t know the feeling? But Keating, professor of physics at UC San Diego, isn’t similar yous in addition to I. He had a practiced shot at winning. Or at to the lowest degree he persuasion he had. And that’s what his mass is about.
Keating designed the BICEP telescope, whose upgrade – BICEP2 – made headlines inward 2014 past times claiming the kickoff indirect detection of primordial gravitational waves through B-modes inward the cosmic microwave background. Their supposed detection turned out to live on contaminated past times a foreground signal from dust inward the Galaxy and, later a few months, was declared inconclusive. And in that location went Keating’s Nobel Prize.
In his book, Keating tells the storey of the detection in addition to its problems. But actually the mass is nigh his obsession to win the Nobel Prize in addition to his ideas for reforming the award’s criteria. That’s because Keating has come upwards to the determination that pursuing scientific discipline to the destination of winning a Nobel prize is no good, in addition to he doesn’t desire his colleagues to become downwards the same road. He likewise doesn’t shout out upwards it’s fair to paw out the prize for maximally 3 people (who moreover should live on alive) because past times his ain accounting he’d convey been quaternary on the list. At best.
“Losing the Nobel Prize” is good written in addition to engaging in addition to has a lot of figures and, ah, hither I run out of squeamish things to say. But nosotros all know yous didn’t come upwards for the squeamish things anyway, thence let’s instruct to the beef.
I convey flora Keating’s mass outright perplexing. To laid about amongst allow us banknote that the Nobel Prize is non a global community award. It’s given out past times a Swedish commission tasked amongst executing the volition of a really dead man. Keating manifestly thinks he knows ameliorate what Alfred Nobel wanted than Alfred Nobel himself. Maybe he does. I don’t know, my contacts inward the afterworld convey non responded to requests for comments.
In whatsoever case, you’d shout out upwards if someone writes a mass nigh the Nobel Prize they’d take away heed what the Swedish Royal Academy has to say nigh the reformation plans. But for all I tin tell Keating never fifty-fifty contacted them. His within noesis nigh the Nobel Prize is having been invited to nominate someone.
Keating doesn’t bring upwards it, but the guild of those eligible to submit nominations for the Nobel Prize is non really exclusive. Every tenured professor inward the Nordic countries (in the respective discipline) tin nominate candidates. Right, that’s non really equal opportunity. Fact is the Nobel Prize is unashamedly North European. And North Europeans inward general, amongst Swedes inward particular, don’t assist whether United States of America Americans similar what they do. I’d live on surprised if the Royal Academy fifty-fifty bothers responding to Keating’s book.
Even stranger is that Keating indeed seems to believe most scientists pursue their inquiry because they desire to win a Nobel Prize. But I don’t know anyone who has e'er chosen a inquiry projection because they were banking on a Nobel. That’s because at to the lowest degree inward my dependent champaign it’s widely recognized that winning this honor doesn’t exactly require scientific excellence but likewise a big chunk of luck.
Maybe Keating is correct in addition to Nobel obsession is widespread inward his ain discipline, experimental astrophysics. But no such qualifier appears anywhere inward the book. He is speaking for all of science. “Battle is an apt metaphor for what nosotros scientists do.” And according to Keating, it’s non Nature’s reclusiveness that nosotros battle but each other. And it’s all because everyone wants to win the Nobel Prize.
Keating at some bespeak compares the Nobel Prize to Olympic Gold, but that’s a wretched comparison. If yous wanted to compare the Nobel Prize to say, discus throw, you’d convey to allow 99.9% of discuses randomly explode correct later existence thrown. And when that happens yous disqualify the athlete.
In my experience, spell almost everyone agrees that Nobel Laureates inward Physics deserve their prizes, they likewise admit it matters to live on at the correct house at the correct time. And since everyone knows talent isn’t the alone relevant component to win the Prize, few grip grudges nigh non winning it. It’s actually to a greater extent than a lottery than a competition.
Having said that, fifty-fifty later reading the mass I am non certain exactly how Keating proposes nosotros shout out upwards nigh the Nobel Prize. While he uses analogies to athletic competition, he likewise compares the Nobel Prize amongst the Oscar in addition to amongst a religious accolade, depending on what suits his argument. Possibly the argue for my difficulty agreement Keating is that he assumes his readers know what’s the quaternary in addition to 5th commandment in addition to what was upwards amongst that Golden Calf inward the Old Testament. I may know what B-modes are, but that i trounce me.
He likewise lost me at diverse other places inward the mass where I exactly couldn’t figure out what’s going on or why. For example, I approximate pretty much everyone who reads the mass volition know that BICEP failed to stair out the signal they were after. Yet the reader has to expect until Chapter xiv to take away heed what happened there. Chapter 15, then, is titled “Poetry for Physicists,” contains some reflections on how we’re all made of stardust in addition to thence on, praises Jim Simons for funding the Simons Observatory, mentions every bit an aside that Keating volition live on the Observatory’s director, in addition to ends amongst a poesy form nigh dust. The adjacent chapter is slap dorsum to Nobel’s volition in addition to thence goes on nigh the lack of woman individual laureates. If follows an icon of Keating’s academic genealogy, in addition to thence nosotros are transported into a infirmary room to witness his father’s death.
If that sounds confusing it’s because it is. There are thence many things inward the mass that didn’t brand sense to me I don’t fifty-fifty know where to begin.
Keating for illustration suggests that the Nobel Prize alone live on given to “serendipitous discoveries,” past times which he agency if a theorist predicted it thence it’s non worthy. You read that right. No Nobel for the Higgs, no Nobel for B-modes, in addition to no Nobel for a forthwith regain of night thing (should it e'er happen), because someone predicted that. Bad intelligence for theorists I suppose. The culprit hither seems to live on that Keating (an experimentalist) doesn’t believe theory evolution has whatsoever occupation to play inward experimental design. He exactly wants rich guys to crank out coin thence experimentalists tin produce whatever they want.
The most befuddling facial expression of this book, however, is that Keating indeed seems to believe he had a hazard of winning the Nobel Prize. But the Nobel Prize commission would convey done good non handing out a prize fifty-fifty if BICEP had been successful measuring the signal they were after.
B-mode polarization from primordial gravitational waves would convey been an indirect detection of gravitational waves, but in that location was a Nobel Prize for that already in addition to existence minute doesn’t count. And inward contrast to what Keating states inward the book, this detection would non convey been bear witness for quantum gravity because the measuring wouldn’t convey revealed whether the waves were or weren’t quantized.
Neither for that matter, would it convey been bear witness for inflation. As Keating himself notes inward the passing past times quoting Steinhardt, models for inflation tin predict whatsoever possible amount of B-modes. He doesn’t bring upwards it, but I’ll produce it for him, that some models without inflation likewise predict B-modes.
So the claim that B-modes would live on bear witness for inflation is already wrong. Even worse, Keating repeats the myth that such a detection would moreover live on bear witness for the multiverse because that exactly sounds thence spectacular. But it doesn’t thing how frequently yous repeat this claim it’s soundless wrong, in addition to it isn’t fifty-fifty hard to run across why. If yous desire to brand whatsoever calculation to predict the B-mode spectrum yous don’t demand to laid about amongst a multiverse. All yous demand is some effective theory inward our universe. And that theory may or may non convey an inflaton.
My bespeak existence simply if yous don’t demand X it to brand prediction Y, measuring Y isn’t bear witness for X. So, no, B-modes aren’t bear witness for the multiverse.
I don’t personally know Brian Keating, but he’s on twitter in addition to he seems to live on a squeamish guy. Also I got this mass for free, thence I desire to warmly recommend yous purchase it because what else tin I say. If zero else, Keating has a gift for writing. And who knows, his adjacent mass mightiness live on nigh non winning a Nobel Prize for Literature.
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