Nobel Prize in Chemistry Awarded 114
An anonymous reader writes "The Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2005 has been jointly awarded to Robert H. Grubbs (California Institute of Technology), Richard R. Schrock (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), and Yves Chauvin (Institut Français du Pétrole) for the development of the metathesis method in organic synthesis." Advanced [PDF] and supplementary [PDF] information is also available from the Nobel Prize site.
Re:Embarassed of a Nobel prize? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:dupe (Score:3, Insightful)
<sarcasm style="dripping">
I'm sorry today's omelette [slashdot.org] wasn't to your taste. Maybe tomorrow they'll talk about Halo and Doom 3 instead! That'd be more interesting, right?
</sarcasm>
Not meant to be a lifetime achievement award (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, according to Alfred Nobel's will and the statutes [nobelprize.org] of the Nobel Foundation, the prizes are meant to be awarded rather promptly:
Granted, the passage of time is often necessary for the relative importance of a work to become apparent, since bold new ideas tend to be controversial and cannot be appreciated without hindsight.
Heros (Score:1, Insightful)
If mankind has any sort of saviour these days, it's these sort of men: scientists who give us the tools to cure blindness, disease, hunger, and poverty. I'd probably be dead today without technology; the survival rate for near-blind kids was pretty grim just a few centuries ago. Today, thanks to powerful eyeglasses, and later on, laser eye surgury, I've got a normal life.
It's nice to see that these scientists are finally getting some recognition for the great work they do. I wish more scientists got more recognition, everyday, for the contributions to our collective knowledge and future happiness that they quietly make they make on a daily basis, despite a public who is apathetic or hostile to their efforts.
To all the scientists out there on slashdot, thanks, and keep up the good work!
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AC
Re:Fuel? (Score:1, Insightful)