Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Congratulations to Professors Karplus, Levitt and Warshel

Last night, (thanks to both Per-Ola Norrby and a whim), I tweeted right before bed:
I am down for some hot Karplus action. That is who I am rooting for. #chemnobel
I'm stunned to find that Professor Karplus won. Congratulations to him, Professors Levitt of Stanford and Professor Warshel of USC for winning the 2013 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Here is the initial NPR report on the computational chemistry Nobel Prize; listen as host Steve Inskeep and science report Richard Harris attempt to explain this work. (Here's a more detailed story from NPR.) Inskeep is known for his jokey demeanor, so I won't get too bent out of shape about his professions of ignorance; that said, it's hard not to take it as a sign of how far chemists have to go in communicating their science. 

3 comments:

  1. "It's hard not to take it as a sign of how far chemists have to go in communicating their science."

    Yes, because we certainly cannot expect the public to take any steps in that direction.

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    Replies
    1. This one was a bit of a reach for them, yes? That said, I was vaguely irritated that Inskeep basically started the conversation with "I give up! It's beyond all of us!"

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    2. I am disappointed nearly every year by Inskeep's reporting on the Chemistry Nobel so I didn't expect this year to be any different.

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looks like Blogger doesn't work with anonymous comments from Chrome browsers at the moment - works in Microsoft Edge, or from Chrome with a Blogger account - sorry! CJ 3/21/20