> Isn't the error rate and the disagreement rate in the latter so high that any attempt to quantify it would end up in flame-wars and bicycle sheds?
Yes. Still much better than counting papers/journals/conferences/citation/degrees/students/PhDs.
> That is, do you have any point other than to express a sort of personal cynicism?
I believe that measuring science quantitatively is damaging. It creates a situation where those who game the system do much better than those who do good science.
> do you believe there is less growth in "real rigorous knowledge about the world" being done now than 100 years ago when the Nobel Prize was established? Because I would disagree with that assessment.
As a lay observer, I'd say that theoretical and particle physics is not advancing very quickly compared to 100 years ago. Late 19th century and early 20th century were magical times - 1905 alone brought special relativity, the photoelectric effect, and E=mc^2 (and that's just Albert Einstein).
Other fields, such as the more "mundane" areas of physics saw and still see a lot of progress, but Nobel prizes are rarely awarded there. Medicine had a great period in the first few decades after the war. Nutrition has gone backwards in recent decades.
Math, computer science, software, a lot of electrical engineering also saw a lot of progress, but it's irrelevant to the discussion. There's no Nobel prize in those fields.
BTW, Einstein never got a Nobel for special or general relativity.
I don't think it's fair to single out particle physics. The Standard Model is one of the best tested and most accurate theories we have. While there are certainly problems with it, it's a bit like saying that explorers these days aren't advancing as quickly as they did in the 1600s because we aren't discovering new islands at anywhere near the same rate.
Modern genetics is amazing. The new genome sequencing techniques have (among many things) helped us understand evolutionary history in a way that people didn't even dream of 75 years ago.
Astronomy has also undergone explosive growth in the last few decades. The discovery of new exoplanets doesn't even make the news any more.
The Nobel Prize for Physics in 2017 and 2011 were astronomy projects.
Some of the recent EE-related Physics Prizes were 2014 ("efficient blue light-emitting diodes"), and 2009 (fiber optics); at least one person in each case was an EE.
Yes. Still much better than counting papers/journals/conferences/citation/degrees/students/PhDs.
> That is, do you have any point other than to express a sort of personal cynicism?
I believe that measuring science quantitatively is damaging. It creates a situation where those who game the system do much better than those who do good science.
> do you believe there is less growth in "real rigorous knowledge about the world" being done now than 100 years ago when the Nobel Prize was established? Because I would disagree with that assessment.
As a lay observer, I'd say that theoretical and particle physics is not advancing very quickly compared to 100 years ago. Late 19th century and early 20th century were magical times - 1905 alone brought special relativity, the photoelectric effect, and E=mc^2 (and that's just Albert Einstein).
Other fields, such as the more "mundane" areas of physics saw and still see a lot of progress, but Nobel prizes are rarely awarded there. Medicine had a great period in the first few decades after the war. Nutrition has gone backwards in recent decades.
Math, computer science, software, a lot of electrical engineering also saw a lot of progress, but it's irrelevant to the discussion. There's no Nobel prize in those fields.
BTW, Einstein never got a Nobel for special or general relativity.