you missed the Nobel Prize and whereas
last year when we did the Nobel Prize
and I had to sit there and say I have no
idea what this was about on this
occasion I knew and so I had no one to
tell
well it's gone to Peter Higgs and France
we're on glare for some wonderful work
that they did back in the 60s which has
become known as the Higgs mechanism the
the way in which the fundamental
particles in nature acquire a mass three
different groups independently we're all
working on the same physics they all on
the same kind of time scale came up with
the same essentially the same result and
yet they didn't all get the prize I did
watch it and in fact I was with them
with a mixture of happiness and to be
honest I was quite sad the cars it well
first of all one of the people that
should have got it sadly died last year
Brown too worked with on glare and so he
couldn't get it and but then there's a
there were three more who did the the
work together and one of them was my
friend I've collaborated with Tom kibble
and I feel he should have got it you
know you have to draw a line somewhere
it's the way it is and at the moment I
think the Nobel Prizes rule is that
three is the maximum number that you can
actually award it to which is you know
it's a completely arbitrary number it
could be six it could be ten and so you
know it's just just a rule that they
have they have a little write-up of you
know why did they give the prize and I
looked at it and I thought well it's
exactly what they did tell Mandy's
collaborators did and it seems that they
just missed out because of a rule that
and it doesn't even seem to be a very in
writing it's just that a rule that
they've developed which is that you
don't give it to more than three people
but Higgs and Anglais fully deserve it
it's a fantastic piece of theoretical
work back in the 60s and all credit to
them I suppose the complication in this
on this occasion was that the there
wasn't a simple third person there were
three other people that I mean the story
of the the papers is remarkable we're
talking back in the 1960s 64 in the
summer of 1964 three groups working
basically on the same topic and they all
wrote papers within a few months of each
other
I think on Blairs might have been the
first and then Higgs came kind of hot on
the heels of that
and there was definitely then a delay
between that and Tom's paper coming out
and in fact Tom knew about the papers of
Higgs and on glare and Browns but they
were doing their work independently and
they were on you know they were
basically finishing their work on the
equivalent mechanism in those days they
didn't have the archive you couldn't
simply submit your paper to the archive
and have it read within by the next day
you you sent it out as a preprint to
those people that you thought would be
interested so Bratton and he'll glare
and Higgs of course sent their paper to
Tom but it got stuck in the London
sorting office because there was a
postal strike so for at least two weeks
it got stuck there and then Tom when
they eventually delivered all the mail
to Imperial College Tom collected the
papers both together on that day and
I've presumably read through them and
then they because they actually
reference some of this their work in in
their own paper Tom's own paper so I
think the issue is that probably that it
wasn't a single authored a third paper
it was three authors and so if you've
decided there a rule that says there's
only going to be three people getting it
you can't how do you then give it to
three more once I realized they haven't
got it I just texted him and said then
I'm very sorry to hear you didn't get I
think you deserved it and he replied he
replied almost immediately and he just
said thanks very much it's such about
this guy you didn't say I got as people
of equal magnitude to this fantastic
theoretical work easily of equal
magnitude must have been the
experimental work to actually get the
Higgs I mean it's a tour de force right
and you've got the you've got the
accelerator people who actually run the
LHC and get the beams so that they're
sufficiently high energy and
sufficiently stable that you can make
use of them then you've got these two
huge groups working in CMS and in Atlas
each have got thousands of people in the
collaboration they know and I'm not
suggesting all the thousands of them
made a big contribution to the Higgs
discovery but I'm sure hundreds did and
what do you do I mean without without
the discovery of these decay channels
and without the
that the painstaking effort that went
into actually showing that there these
primary decays were likely to to eggs we
would we wouldn't have this discovery
and yet you can't it doesn't seem to me
you can even simply give it to the
spokesperson of these experiments
because the experiments are so
long-running that they've been through a
number of spokespeople
so which spokesperson do you give it to
do you give it to the spokesperson that
was in charge
you know when the discovery was made you
give it to the spokes people who sort of
came up with the idea of the experiment
somehow I think you may have to
contemplate giving it to CERN yeah I
think I mean they already do that with a
Peace Prize I do that right there
actually it's come to the Red Cross and
things like that from time to time so
actually it does go to that one guys
does go to organizations so there's a
reasonable argument says well why don't
we do the same thing for science some
big prizes of doing that I mean I think
W map the big microwave cosmic microwave
background experiment it doesn't have as
many people on it as CERN but they got
was it the group a prize that they they
got a big prize anyway that was shared
amongst the the members of the group it
went to the group I think it will be a
mistake because actually at some level
you know the the Nobel Prize it's like a
man of the match award it's not you know
no one really thinks when somebody gets
the man-of-the-match award in some
sporting event that they were the only
person who contributed to the team it's
just the way in some way of
personalizing and highlighting the
performance of the team by picking on
one person and in that sense the Nobel
Prize is just doing the same thing it's
just putting a personal face on a piece
of science which makes it you know more
more general interests it makes it
easier to tell the story but but I don't
think anyone really thinks that he was
the only person responsible for the
Higgs boson just because he's names
associated with it and he's one of the
people who got the Nobel Prize I can see
the point
and the ideal nature of it going to an
individual you'd like to think of an
individual has done this and and but the
reality is some of this work really is
Multi multi person involvement you can't
I doubt that you can pin it down to one
person and yet it's so importantly these
big high energy physics projects do need
that kind of level of input in order to
be able to reach
the the accuracy and the statistical
significance that they need to to be
able to claim a result I mean if you did
start giving out Nobel Prizes to
organizations there is this real danger
you know you get this nice shiny thing
and you know suppose you gone to CERN
they get this nice shiny award and they
put it on a shelf somewhere and it would
end up being just you know another
corporate Excellence Award and and
really no one cares about corporate
Excellence Awards they want to know
about human interest stories they want
to know about exciting pieces of science
and just saying some large organization
succeeded in this you know they did then
that's part of the story but it really
shouldn't be the headline item because
that's not going to infuse anyone about
science or to the other three no I don't
think so no because the thing that
they've given it for is what they did
they all did very similar things and I I
mean maybe I'm not reading it the
wording subtly enough perhaps there's
some very subtle use of the language in
there which means you could actually
drop off those three and just use the
other two papers I don't think so I so I
don't think they can give it that again
you know as scientists we have a
responsibility not only to discover
stuff but to tell the world what it is
we've discovered and the Nobel Prize is
a very effective mechanism for getting
some of those stories out and we need to
use the most appropriate mechanism for
getting those stories out and giving out
corporate Excellence Awards is not the
right way to get that story out telling
a story about an individual discovering
something their contribution to a
particular subject and putting it in the
context then having established them of
saying that actually there was this all
this other stuff going on is the right
thing to do and then people get this
picture of actually that there is this
very large organization and lots of
works gone in but they way they were led
into that story was through what one or
two individuals where the individual was
part of a team every time I've ever seen
one of these Nobel Prize winners talk
about their work they're always the
first to give the credit to everybody
else and so they really are just then at
that point their spokesman for the
science that they've done or spokeswoman
for the science that they've done and
actually are putting that story out
there to the world and so the fact you
know it has to be I think it has to be
an individual doing it because if you
just gave it to an organization then you
know one of their PR department will be
the person who come out before the press
and that doesn't create the same kind of
inspiration of having that you know
sometimes slightly eccentric but usually
quite interesting scientists being the
person who stands up and does it and the
other you know the other side it is a
friend and colleague of mine Brian
Schmidt who want it in astronomy a few
years ago is now an amazingly effective
advocate for science in Australia and so
having won that Nobel Prize he is now in
a position to actually influence
politicians to get out there to get the
science message across to a much wider
market then you would ever do if you
weren't giving it to some individual and
putting you know creating a figurehead
in that sense and you're right it's kind
of arbitrary who gets to be the
figurehead but nonetheless I think it's
important that we do have those forgets
what if you were there for that I'm
probably telling you a slightly
different story now