Posted by Dave Bacon on October 7, 2009 The Nobel in Chemistry for 2009 has been awarded to Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, Thomas Steitz and Ada Yonath for “for studies of the structure and function of the ribosome.” And because I am (or was, or am, or..whatever) a physicist, I will note that Venkatraman Ramakrishnan has a Ph.D. in physics 
And today is even more busy than yesterday!
Theory? Experiment? Heck … *that* style of science is *so* twentieth century.
This particular prize was all about observation and simulation … and it has to make us wonder whether (essentially) *all* future Nobel prizes awarded for chemistry, condensed matter physics, and medicine will be similar.
The point being, many scientific disciplines are evolving to become more observation-intensive and simulation-intensive … and the quantum and informatic limits to to observation and simulation are very far from being exhausted.
Some folks claim that there will be four branches of science: theory, experiment, observation, and simulation.
But IMHO, this is baloney. Perhaps the four branches of science will be theory, experiment, observation, and … this is the heretical part … *narrative* … with simulation being (in essence) the software aspect of narrative.
The Nobel committee is having to become really creative in what counts as “chemistry” these days.
October 7, 2009
October 9, 2009