3 Million Dollars?

August 1, 2012

Russian internet billionaire Yuri Milner institutes yet another Nobel alternative award – 3 M each for theoretical physics. In theory, this is awesome. But I wonder if all these monetary awards from “enthusiasts” of science will start to skew the field. (In other words, do some people have too much damn money?) How are awardees really being chosen? Sometimes there can be a tendency to pile on more and more accolades to some and ignore the important contributions of others. (Unless of course someone wants to give me an award…) But, there are probably still better ways to make money than in theoretical physics (see below).