Science per head of population
May. 8th, 2006 06:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
miriam_eHere is a surprising little thing that I just wasted spent my afternoon doing (instead of trying to earn an income -- dammit!!).
A little while ago I mentioned that Australia hits above its weight for science on the world scene. It bothered me that I passed on something that I'd heard even though it was from a reputable source, so I was compelled to find out for myself. A good way to do this would be to compare numbers of scientists in each of the countries, but I didn't have any figures on that. Another way might be to compare papers published, though I don't have figures on that either. I do, however, have the figures for Nobel Prizes awarded for science.
I only counted the country of birth, not that of final residence in order to eliminate places that poach brilliant scientists from other countries. Then I got the population figures from the CIA World Fact Book, and divided the number of nobels by the population for each country. Note that out of 242 major countries on this planet only 60 have received Nobel prizes, and of those I've only listed the top 30. The remainder have only ever received 1 or 2 Nobels and rarely for science (and I got a bit panicked about wasting time not trying to earn money) so I stopped there.
Would you have picked the top scientific countries in the world? I wouldn't.
I thought Australia would come out around 6th, but we are down at 10th, behind UK which is 9th.
Switzerland astonished me at more than 2 Nobels for science for every million people.
New Zealand was not a big surprise tying, at 4th.
I should try this calculation again sometime using a different way of estimating scientific capability though. Just + or - 1 prize on a small population shifts its rank far too dramatically for Nobels to be a reliable yardstick.
I probably shouldn't have included China and India because many smaller countries come in way ahead of them, but I wanted to see how the numbers looked, especially since our government is always making those countries out to be the great challengers. But I can't help wondering how China and India will be in the next decade. China, in particular is producing vast numbers of scientists and engineers now.
Considering Australia's political lack of willpower I wonder what will happen here in the future. At the moment, what I said is true, we do hit above our weight in science, but considering how our media and politicians constantly sell sports at us, I wonder how long that will last.
A little while ago I mentioned that Australia hits above its weight for science on the world scene. It bothered me that I passed on something that I'd heard even though it was from a reputable source, so I was compelled to find out for myself. A good way to do this would be to compare numbers of scientists in each of the countries, but I didn't have any figures on that. Another way might be to compare papers published, though I don't have figures on that either. I do, however, have the figures for Nobel Prizes awarded for science.
I only counted the country of birth, not that of final residence in order to eliminate places that poach brilliant scientists from other countries. Then I got the population figures from the CIA World Fact Book, and divided the number of nobels by the population for each country. Note that out of 242 major countries on this planet only 60 have received Nobel prizes, and of those I've only listed the top 30. The remainder have only ever received 1 or 2 Nobels and rarely for science (and I got a bit panicked about wasting time not trying to earn money) so I stopped there.
Would you have picked the top scientific countries in the world? I wouldn't.
I thought Australia would come out around 6th, but we are down at 10th, behind UK which is 9th.
Switzerland astonished me at more than 2 Nobels for science for every million people.
New Zealand was not a big surprise tying, at 4th.
I should try this calculation again sometime using a different way of estimating scientific capability though. Just + or - 1 prize on a small population shifts its rank far too dramatically for Nobels to be a reliable yardstick.
I probably shouldn't have included China and India because many smaller countries come in way ahead of them, but I wanted to see how the numbers looked, especially since our government is always making those countries out to be the great challengers. But I can't help wondering how China and India will be in the next decade. China, in particular is producing vast numbers of scientists and engineers now.
Considering Australia's political lack of willpower I wonder what will happen here in the future. At the moment, what I said is true, we do hit above our weight in science, but considering how our media and politicians constantly sell sports at us, I wonder how long that will last.
science pop. Nobels million Sci/pop country --- ------ ------- ------- 15 7 2.14 Switzerland 8 5 1.6 Denmark 12 10 1.2 Hungary 15 15 1 Netherlands 8 8 1 Austria 3 3 1 New Zealand 68 82 0.83 Germany 5 8 0.63 Sweden 28 59 0.47 United Kingdom 8 19 0.42 Australia 2 5 0.4 Finland 1 3 0.33 Ireland 85 275 0.31 United States 3 10 0.3 Czech Republic 3 10 0.3 Belgium 8 31 0.26 Canada 1 4 0.25 Norway 12 59 0.2 France 1 5 0.2 Israel 10 57 0.18 Italy 13 100 0.13 USSR and Russia 5 38 0.13 Poland 3 36 0.08 Argentina 3 43 0.07 South Africa 9 126 0.07 Japan 2 39 0.05 Spain 1 68 0.01 Egypt 1 100 0.01 Mexico 6 1261 0.005 China 3 1014 0.003 India