@ulytau, I tend to disagree that the Peace Prize is a race for everybody, people without a conflict in their country (who tend to do better at physics) are definitely not receiving a Nobel Peace Price in the same ratio as the people in 'more dangerous' countries. Not that a lot of people mind, but don't say it's an equal race.
@abg, nice!
@red, I don't know whether that'll help you, there's usually a difference between the ordinary people (who just work) and top scientists (as is in your home country). On a not-so related note: I'm going to Switzerland start of next month (for half a year), maybe I can tell you if it's worth living there.

@carpenter, yes keep me informed! I don't know what you mean by the "people who do the work thing" though.
By the way: http://www.areppim.com/analysis/stats/stats_nobelxpeacexcapita.htm
What the Swiss do fricking EVERYTHING in the world?? Who are these people??? :)

Switzerland alone has only slightly less peace prizes than all the countries with internal conflict (how's that defined?) combined. Race for everyone, like I said. Just because some countries couldn't care less about it and don't care to promote peace (then, it's more about struggle for human rights these days) is an entirely different thing.

@red, I meant, well, ordinary people. Those that work from 8am to 4pm (not that top scientists don't, but I don't consider them very representative for a whole society (especially when they're dead)). Knowledge does diffuse through people, but not as fast as I think you claim it to be. (No stats to back this up, though). The first two Nobel Peace Prices (1901/1902) were awarded to them: 4 persons in total.
@uly, okay, read you wrong, a race for everybody it certainly is.

I"d like to point out that the Peace Prize is a total and absolute joke.

I'll bite. Why is the NPP a joke?

Just look at some of the people who've won it:

Obama, Gore, United Nations.

Look at who hasn't won it:

Gandhi, that Chinese woman under house arrest

It's a joke.

@abg, which Chinese woman? Do you mean Aung San Suu Kyi? She's Birmese and did win it, I don't know exactly which other Asian woman you could mean. But yes, American notables winning this price could become actually a significant pool in this price (next to freedom fighters and armed conflict resolvers). Maybe the need to award the Price nowadays is higher than making it exclusively for people that really matter (and put the price money to good use).

And even the Dalai Lama has a Nobel Peace Price. For the people who find this comment remarkable, please read yourself in to the pre-chinese era of Tibet.

carpenter couldn't you give a summary here? I'm really quite lazy.

@red, lazy myself as well, but very short: Dalai Lama were the oppressive rulers of Tibet, people literarily starving to death (in my opinion the most horrible death of them all) due to their rule. In 1950s there was a local uprising, supported by the Chinese, resulting in annexation of their grounds by the Chinese.
I'm not saying the Chinese are right in randomly killing Tibetans that flee/follow the Lamas, but their regime is better (how cruel that may be) than the one of the Lamas were. Media-bias or better: government-bias prevented this story from surfacing. Penn and Teller made a nice episode on this issue (at P&T:Bullshit!(?)), concluding with a nice quote: "The enemy of my enemy is not my ally."

dang carp. That Brad Pitt movie makes no mention of this, shame on them!

By the way this really seems to suck as well
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine

Lol henry kissinger won the NPP.

Yeah and not for his best achievement. largeham, (autocorrect makes that large ham by the way that's just rude I think) did you know I'm quite a fan of HK? I named several games after this guy..

@Carpenter

Yes, I did mean Aung San Suu Kyi. For some reason, I thought she didn't.

My point still stands that a lot of people/organizations have one the award for no particular reason while other, very deserving people, did not.

Well, i hope i'm not rude by saying red house? :)
As for your admiration for hk, i dare say you are in minority here (I can't debate now, maybe later)

@abg, but it would also not surprise me that you don't believe in a human-caused global warming. But that way this topic will divert from the original topic: Nobel Prices.

@Carpenter

Excuse me? That's a rather preposterous assumption to make.

@abg, you actually do think global warming is caused by humans? Have you ever tried and investigated sincere and serious anti-global warming arguments? I'm not saying there's no global warming, but I do doubt global warming is caused by humans.

I just think it's odd you think you can determine my views on global warming based on who I think deserves the Nobel Prize.

I'll say two things on global warming:

1) I would have to image that humans at least contribute *in some part* to climate change. How could we not?

2) Even if humans aren't responsible at all for climate change, we still live on this planet and, if we can, we should do something to mitigate its effects.

I'm not too familiar at all with climate change. I don't like sensationalized science, so I try to stay clear of it and leave it to someone else to figure out.

well, I didn't do that from these two responses, I've been reading a lot of responses, including yours and one could try to put them in a context (at least I do), from that I know that you're very critical of everything. Meaning that if you were very well-versed in the subject you'd probably reject the idea. But maybe I should make a separate topic about that

@carp

If you have objective, professional whitepapers against man-made climate change, I'd be happy to read them.

Links are fine; I have access to most periodicals and journals.

yeah, yeah, I know, wasn't planning on doing that before next weekend: I should be busy doing other things.

Ditto : )

No rush.