perspective

I'm afraid you are comparing apples to oranges here. Why pick on Jon Stewart compared to say a chief executive in an insurance company or some other highly paid business employee ?
If you want real disparity of wages try comparing the average mid career post-doctoral scientist with other professionals with similar length of training, say a surgeon or lawyer (and even that latter example is a stretch as lawyers can become qualified in a much shorter time than the average post-doc).
How about comparing the job security and career prospects, the pension schemes and health insurance options ?
As for the $1.5 million you mentioned, I just worked out the other day that my sister (a high school english teacher - 3 year English degree, 1 year teacher training course but, in contrast to your average scientist, she has the long term job security necessary to get the housing loan in the first place) made almost that exact amount of money in the past five years by simply using using the rising property market to buy one and then two more properties. There is FAR more money to be made in this way in just a few short years than a lifetime of scientific salary.
Personally I think that giving a monetary prize as part of the Nobel award is completely pointless. I mean if you or I won a Nobel prize the job offers, potential speaking engagements etc would ensure that financial insecurity would not be a big issue in the future.

Rumsfeld, Ashcroft and Wolfowitz are probably receiving civil service pensions. We could do some resource levelling based on job competence and value to the public.

Rubbish.

Scientists are paid in more than just money. Part of the income is getting to do science. This is why the best postdoc positions are fellowships where you get to work on whatever you want. It's also why the best permanent positions have the best labs or scientific community for your subfield.

The skills that a physical scientist has would be worth plenty of money in industry, but we're still in science. We do it because we love doing the science. We scientists are very greedy for the science or we wouldn't do it.

Besides, does Jon Stewart have really cool bling?

Of course I'm comparing apples and oranges - neo-classically that is how you do it - "show me the money" - it is the means by which modern US society makes quantitative comparisons between disparate choices.
(I chose an orange btw, looks like the California citrus has bounced back from the winter frosts, while apples are just not in yet. Lovely)

And, Kayhan, you know, I think Jon Stewart actually enjoys what he does and part of the reason he is so poorly paid is that made the choice to retain control over what he does rather than go on the networks and be subject to editorial control.
He has cool bling also Emmy, Peabody and Grammy.

I picked on Jon partly because he was one of the first comparable figures I googled who happened to have a public annual base salary almost exactly the same as the Nobel Prize purse.
Also, my audience knows him (there's a reasons TIAA-CREF advertises on the Daily Show) both how good he his, and his limitations.
He is also a "not-applied" and in a niche field - it is not like I compared Jon to a bio Nobel laureate with patents and startup companies in medical fields. On the other hand I didn't compare Mather to Letterman, or for that matter anyone on American Idol or Survivor or some other idiocy.

Now - a Nobel prize is a lot of money, it is in fact about the total lifetime average salary in the US (40 years at recent average salary of bit under $40,000)
But, after taxes, Mather probably could not by a medium family house in a good neighbourhood in DC for the amount.
The point on houses is interesting, but, turnover like this is only possible in a few small markets for a short time, it requires capital to begin, and it is high risk.
It also leads to markets in which Nobel laureates can't afford to buy houses...

His salary is not at the very top of the list, but for science faculty, there are only a few positions where he'd earn significantly more - he'd have to go into admin, or at least be an institute director to earn more. With his background he'd not be able to step into a really high paying position like large university president (although the NASA Administrator could) - and we won't go into the whole football coach business.

As for speaking fees, they're just not that large, and you can't do that many speeches - he's not an ex-US president, just a Nobel laureate (also as a civil servant he could not take payment for a lot of engagements that other scientists could). He could and should write another book. But, guess what - Jon Stewart gives speeches, and writes books.

Finally: if Jon Stewart called a non-retired physics Nobel laureate and asked them to appear for free on his show, most would jump at the chance, and spend their time telling him what he wanted to hear.

It is all about our priorities.

So, Steinn, if someone offered you the choice of $1.5 million a year until normal retirement without any opportunity to do science, or the winning of a Nobel Prize, which would you choose. It wouldn't just be a medal sent to you in the mail. You would get to do all the hard work, get all of the rewards of figuring it out, and earn all of the prestige. Which would you pick? Is it even a difficult choice?

Remember that most burgeoning comics don't make it at all, and almost none makes it to the level that Stewart has.

(Cross-posted)

You know the answer, I already made my chocice.
The point is not what combination of job satisfaction, security and reward I chose; the point is how societal mechanisms reward the successful people within a field.

If anyone goes into science expecting a million dollar Nobel prize, they are idiots. Similarly, you don't go into media relying on being a national media star.
But, Mather is at the top of the game - that is as good as it gets for a physical scientis, he won the Nobel, he has major research success, he has his own multi-billion dollar project and a chief scientist position.
And the most reward he can get is less than the annual salary of a comic on a cable channel. Someone who is not in the top rank of salaried TV enetertainers.

The point is not that Mather should aspire to more, the point is that we should give him more. The Nobel prize was enormously prestigious because it was at the time a lot of money; it is not any more compared to other societal rewards.

The time for commenting on this thread has probably expired. We are in agreement that Mather's contribution to science and humankind's knowledge is mind-boggling. We are also able to appreciate what he has done more than others and therefore think that he deserves more than others. It is also interesting the cash generated by the free market for an entertainer (and not the highest-paid entertainer) is the same as the cash part of his reward. Incidentally, the prize value has increased, and even in the 1910s was less than top-paid entertainers, though I'm not sure who the early 20th century equivalent of Stewart is (Will Rogers?).

I just think that one should calculate into the reward that he has been paid with a multi-billion dollar project, paid directly by society.

But, as I said, the time for commenting has probably passed, and I should go back to guessing how low M*sin(i) is for the latest planet your sources have discovered.

The time for commenting on this thread has probably expired. We are in agreement that Mather's contribution to science and humankind's knowledge is mind-boggling. We are also able to appreciate what he has done more than others and therefore think that he deserves more than others. It is also interesting the cash generated by the free market for an entertainer (and not the highest-paid entertainer) is the same as the cash part of his reward. Incidentally, the prize value has increased, and even in the 1910s was less than top-paid entertainers, though I'm not sure who the early 20th century equivalent of Stewart is (Will Rogers?).

I just think that one should calculate into the reward that he has been paid with a multi-billion dollar project, paid directly by society.

But, as I said, the time for commenting has probably passed, and I should go back to guessing how low M*sin(i) is for the latest planet your sources have discovered.

(Apologies if posted twice. I'm having some technical difficulties.)