These have been pretty trying days for some of the smartest people on the planet. Each morning, their hearts have been skipping a beat when the phone rings.
Every time they will have wondered if the caller has a Scandinavian accent and news that they’ve won the ultimate accolade in academia, the Nobel Prize.
For some, the waiting will have be especially difficult, as they’d already been singled out as likely winners by a company that claims to be able to track academic brilliance by computer analysis.
Since 2002, Thomson Reuters has been building up a list – perhaps that should be The List – of top brains with the best chances of winning the Nobel Prize.
And it’s had startling success. Up until last week it had correctly predicted the names of 27 Nobellists winning the prizes in physics, chemistry, medicine/physiology and economics.
Given that literally hundreds of academics have been contenders over this time, that’s a pretty impressive strike rate.
As of last week, it had become even more impressive, correctly predicting five more Nobellists, with the economics prize to be announced tomorrow [[Mon 14 Oct]].
Admittedly, two of the five – theoretical physicists Peter Higgs and François Englert, who independently predicted the eponymous particle discovered by the Large Hadron Collider last year – were shoo-ins. But the others would have had most science commentators reaching for Wikipedia in the hope of finding out something, anything about them.
So how do Thomson Reuters do it? Their success lies in analysis of that most precious of academic commodities, research citations.
Having one’s research papers cited by others has long been deemed a key metric of importance and influence in academia. And as a rule of thumb, the more influential one is – at least, in the fields of physics, chemistry, medicine and economics - the higher the chances of bagging a Nobel.
The list consists of so-called Citation Laureates – researchers who have written a substantial number of highly-cited papers over many years – which helps rule out the one-trick ponies and flashes-in-the-pan.
It’s an effective set of criteria: anyone appearing on the Thomson Reuters annual list has a roughly one in four chance of being among the winners of a Nobel.
But while vast numbers of citations and a Nobel Prize are generally reliable markers of great research, the reverse is far from true. Many academics have come to loathe the focus on citations, especially by university administrators, who increasingly use them to decide who gets hired and fired.
Academics see citations as a crude way of keeping score, and one that often says more about what issues are currently in vogue than in what is actually important.
This in turn can distort the research agenda, persuading young academics to chase topics currently in favour with journals rather than follow their instincts.
A classic example dates back to the era when Professors Englert and Higgs were working in particle physics, more than 50 years ago.
They were among the relatively small group of theorists trying to succeed where Einstein failed, and find a unified theory for the forces of nature.
This was widely regarded as hopeless, pretty much guaranteeing those who worked on it minimal citations.
Back then, it didn’t matter so much, and many of those involved in this “hopeless” quest were still active in 1971, when a huge theoretical breakthrough suddenly made the quest credible.
Within a few years, those once poorly-cited theorists were winning Nobel Prizes – and, as last week showed, they still are.
But there was a downside to these triumphs. They have led to the quest to succeed where Einstein failed dominating theoretical physics – and with it, the league tables of citations.
Yet many theorists now suspect the quest is an intellectual bandwagon that’s going round in circles.
Still, academics can hardly be blamed for being eager to jump aboard. After all, the depressing truth is that around 90 per cent of research papers are never cited at all. There is safety – and continued employment and funding – in bandwagons.
This, in turn, makes the focus on getting cited a potential threat to the march of science.
Nor is this a mere theoretical possibility. Take the case of the Swiss theorist Ernst Stueckelberg, the most brilliant scientist you have never heard of.
Born into a minor Swiss aristocratic family in 1905, Baron Ernst Carl Gerlach Stueckelberg studied physics in Basel and Munich before embarking on what should have been a standard academic career at various Swiss universities.
But from his late 20s, Stueckelberg began making a series of extraordinary advances in the field of sub-atomic particle physics.
The first centred on the nature of the so-called strong nuclear force, which binds together atomic nuclei.
Stueckelberg showed that the force could be explained in terms of a “carrier particle” which transmitted forces from place to place.
It was a radical idea, far removed from the vague force-field ideas that had been circulating for years.
Unfortunately, Stueckelberg was talked out of publishing by a colleague – only to see it discovered independently shortly afterwards by another theorist, Hideki Yukawa in Japan – who duly won the 1949 Nobel Prize for physics.
Stueckelberg was no one-trick pony, however. Around the same time, he set about tackling fearsome problems that plagued the theory of how electrons interact with light.
He succeeded in solving the problems, only to make a catastrophic professional blunder: he wrote up his work using a strange notation, and published in French in an obscure Swiss journal.
Once again, his work was ignored, and he had to endure seeing others solve the same problem and win another clutch of Nobel Prizes.
Undaunted, Stueckelberg made yet another seminal advance in the 1950s by discovering the so-called renormalisation group, a set of mathematical tricks that has since proved useful throughout theoretical physics.
But once again, he refused to play the academic game, published in an obscure journal – and again watched others pick up Nobel Prizes for the same idea.
Stueckelberg himself seemed quite unconcerned by all this. Just before his death in 1984, he told two science historians that he knew he was his own worst enemy when playing the game of science.
Today, winning that game is in danger of becoming more important to some scientists than science itself.
O Robert Matthews is visiting reader in science at Aston University, Birmingham, England
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The National's picks
4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
5.10pm: Continous
5.45pm: Raging Torrent
6.20pm: West Acre
7pm: Flood Zone
7.40pm: Straight No Chaser
8.15pm: Romantic Warrior
8.50pm: Calandogan
9.30pm: Forever Young
Anghami
Started: December 2011
Co-founders: Elie Habib, Eddy Maroun
Based: Beirut and Dubai
Sector: Entertainment
Size: 85 employees
Stage: Series C
Investors: MEVP, du, Mobily, MBC, Samena Capital
'Spies in Disguise'
Director: Nick Bruno and Troy Quane
Stars: Will Smith, Tom Holland, Karen Gillan and Roshida Jones
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
A MINECRAFT MOVIE
Director: Jared Hess
Starring: Jack Black, Jennifer Coolidge, Jason Momoa
Rating: 3/5
Election pledges on migration
CDU: "Now is the time to control the German borders and enforce strict border rejections"
SPD: "Border closures and blanket rejections at internal borders contradict the spirit of a common area of freedom"
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The bio
Favourite book: Peter Rabbit. I used to read it to my three children and still read it myself. If I am feeling down it brings back good memories.
Best thing about your job: Getting to help people. My mum always told me never to pass up an opportunity to do a good deed.
Best part of life in the UAE: The weather. The constant sunshine is amazing and there is always something to do, you have so many options when it comes to how to spend your day.
Favourite holiday destination: Malaysia. I went there for my honeymoon and ended up volunteering to teach local children for a few hours each day. It is such a special place and I plan to retire there one day.
If you go
Flights
Emirates flies from Dubai to Phnom Penh with a stop in Yangon from Dh3,075, and Etihad flies from Abu Dhabi to Phnom Penh with its partner Bangkok Airlines from Dh2,763. These trips take about nine hours each and both include taxes. From there, a road transfer takes at least four hours; airlines including KC Airlines (www.kcairlines.com) offer quick connecting flights from Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville from about $100 (Dh367) return including taxes. Air Asia, Malindo Air and Malaysian Airlines fly direct from Kuala Lumpur to Sihanoukville from $54 each way. Next year, direct flights are due to launch between Bangkok and Sihanoukville, which will cut the journey time by a third.
The stay
Rooms at Alila Villas Koh Russey (www.alilahotels.com/ kohrussey) cost from $385 per night including taxes.
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
Fighting with My Family
Director: Stephen Merchant
Stars: Dwayne Johnson, Nick Frost, Lena Headey, Florence Pugh, Thomas Whilley, Tori Ellen Ross, Jack Lowden, Olivia Bernstone, Elroy Powell
Four stars
The specs
Engine: 4.0-litre flat-six
Torque: 450Nm at 6,100rpm
Transmission: 7-speed PDK auto or 6-speed manual
Fuel economy, combined: 13.8L/100km
On sale: Available to order now
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
FINAL RESULT
Sharjah Wanderers 20 Dubai Tigers 25 (After extra-time)
Wanderers
Tries: Gormley, Penalty
cons: Flaherty
Pens: Flaherty 2
Tigers
Tries: O’Donnell, Gibbons, Kelly
Cons: Caldwell 2
Pens: Caldwell, Cross
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Our family matters legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.