October 15, 2014--Nobels

It is chauvinistic to worry about this year's spectrum of Nobel Prize winners?

For example, remember when Americans thought that though the Japanese economy was booming it was because they were assembling products for us and the rest of the West using our scientific and technological discoveries? That they were good at copying but not inventing?

For example, for decades TVs were manufactured almost exclusively in the U.S. but by the 1960s nearly all came to be manufactured in Japan. But, we were told and believed, the Japanese discovered and invented nothing having to do with television, from transistors (a Bell Lab invention) to the picture tubes themselves (developed by RCA and Western Electric). All the result of American research, ingenuity, and, unspoken, superiority.

So should we be upset that this year, of the 13 awarded, more Nobels were won by Japanese than Americans--three to one?

The three Japanese laureates are physicists who did important work on the development of blue, low-wattage LED light which is already revolutionizing lighting in resource-poor countries worldwide.

Even the Norwegians won more prizes than we--two to neuroscientists who did pioneering work on how the brain computes spacial memory. I imagine, why we don't bump into things. Though I do at night when staggering to the bathroom.

The coveted Peace Prize went to Malala Yousafzai, an inspired and courageous Pakistani advocate for girls' education, and Kailash Satyarthi, an Indian children's rights activist.

There is a Brit (John O'Keefe, physiology) and a Romanian-born German (Stefan Hell, who shared his prize in chemistry with the one American--W.E. Moerner) and then, as if to rub it in, there are two French winners--

In economics, Jean Tirole, whose award continues the Nobel's recent support for work that challenges the Chicago School's free-market orthodoxy. Tirole's work, in contrast, see markets as "imperfect."

So, not only didn't we as usual win an economics prize, but the one that was awarded attacks mainstream economic theory effectively made in America!

Finally, my personal favorite, literature.

The winner this year was Patrick Modiano. His Italian-sounding name not withstanding, he was born and raised in France.

Once again, no Philip Roth. As they say in my old Brooklyn neighborhood--Wait til next year.