The good news about winning the Nobel Prize: you get better parking on campus.
The bad news: Sheldon Cooper makes fun of you on national TV.
Of course you don’t need to watch the ceremonies to learn what all the scientists are wearing this year. I am reliably informed that a regular tuxedo is not good enough; you need to go full white tie and tails. (Interestingly, the Peace Prize is more casual; black tie or “national costume” is perfectly acceptable.)
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Cosmic Variance is a group blog by people who, coincidentally or not, all happen to be physicists and astrophysicists:
Our day (and night) jobs notwithstanding, the blog is about whatever we find interesting — science, to be sure, but also arts, politics, culture, technology, academia, and miscellaneous trivia. We have similar outlooks on many things, widely disparate opinions about others, and will do our best to keep the discourse reasonably elevated.
Copyright © 2012, Kalmbach Publishing Co.
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January 13th, 2012 at 9:27 am
Yeah, I remember the Nobel Laureate parking spots on the Berkeley campus. Does anyone else do that?
January 13th, 2012 at 10:27 am
A few technical comments:
Members of the High-Z Team all sent our (metric) dimensions to the Swedish Tuxedo Warehouse (actually a very posh shop called Hans Allde) and were fitted on arrival.
These are frock coats, not tuxedos. Don’t try to outfit a wedding party in Stockholm during Nobel week — they are sold out!
Women can choose their own outfits. It would be a good thing, and not just from the fashion point of view, if there were more women winning these prizes.
January 13th, 2012 at 10:32 am
I still get the rock pile at the top of the hill which my Subaru with good clearance comfortably clears. Feel a little left out not being derided by Sheldon though….
January 13th, 2012 at 10:36 am
If I ever get my own TV show, mocking Brian’s fashion choices will be high on my list of priorities.
January 13th, 2012 at 10:44 am
“…while ladies should be dressed in an evening gown.”
I see the sexist dress code is still in full swing. If I ever win a Nobel, I’m going in a suit, not a fucking dress.
January 13th, 2012 at 11:39 am
So what is the US national costume that one could wear instead?
January 13th, 2012 at 12:09 pm
Good question, Douglas. I wonder if it would be possible to convince them that it’s a T-shirt and jeans. Or maybe a Revolutionary War uniform complete with a tricorn hat?
January 13th, 2012 at 4:50 pm
Brian’s rocking the best tie:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Shaw2006astro.jpg
January 13th, 2012 at 8:42 pm
Brian is a deuteranope. Do not mock, or follow, his color choices.
January 13th, 2012 at 10:20 pm
I’m with Anne C. Hanna above: “If I ever win a Nobel, I’m going in a suit, not a fucking dress.”
January 14th, 2012 at 5:20 am
JR, that tie looks to me like it’s some kind of iridescent red/blue combo, color-distorted by the low quality of that photograph. I suspect it probably would look more normal in person.
January 15th, 2012 at 10:10 am
Here we go, maybe *this* is the American national costume:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/01/14/episode-ccxci-maybe-the-puritans-werent-all-bad/
January 15th, 2012 at 8:54 pm
A national costume is perfectly acceptable also in Stockholm, and was used e.g. by Abdus Salam (watch). A military gala uniform is also ok.
January 16th, 2012 at 1:50 am
Shame that the TBBT video cannot be seen from Germany, due to some obscure rights issue.
January 16th, 2012 at 12:21 pm
I think the Nobel ceremony attendees should take their “national costume” cues from the Miss Universe pageant. I’d have paid good money to see Dr. Perlmutter, Dr. Schmidt, or Dr. Riess show up in this:
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/211818/20110911/miss-universe-2011-u-s-voted-contestants.htm
January 16th, 2012 at 3:28 pm
How come Miss “Universe” is always from Earth?
January 16th, 2012 at 6:31 pm
The anthropic principle.
January 17th, 2012 at 3:21 am
“I am reliably informed that a regular tuxedo is not good enough; you need to go full white tie and tails. (Interestingly, the Peace Prize is more casual; black tie or “national costume” is perfectly acceptable.)”
I don’t know if this is the reason, but Norway is a bit more laid back than Sweden. Sweden was (and to some extent still is) a major industrial country (especially in relation to its small population) while Norway was a poor neighbour living mainly from fishing until oil was discovered in the North Sea. (As a result, it has a negative national debt, i.e. a surplus of about 50 billion (for a population of 4 million). Most of the oil money goes into a national pension fund.) Also, the fact that Sweden hasn’t had a war in a couple of hundred years means that more traditions have held on. In other countries, as a reaction to the (bad) past, there was a tendency to get rid of everything associated with it, whether or not it was bad in itself.
January 17th, 2012 at 3:25 am
A national costume is perfectly acceptable also in Stockholm, and was used e.g. by Abdus Salam
IIRC, Salam created some problems for the protocol folks when he showed up with more than one wife.