Birthplaces of All Winners of the Nobel Prize in Physics [OC]

5 comments

1. I got the birthplaces from wikipedia, using the wikidata query from this blogpost (but for the nobel prize in physics instead of the Field’s Medal): https://efosong.net/blog/nobel-birthplace/

   That blog post also has the same thing for other awards, and you can hover over each dot and see the details. But I didn’t like that the dots didn’t combine and get bigger if they overlap (you can’t really see that so many are from the NYC area, for example), so I made my own version for just the physics laureates.

   I made the map using a spaghetti code C++ program that I wrote yesterday morning. I could put that on github if someone’s interested.

   Sorry the dots are so small, if I made them any bigger western Europe basically becomes one big dot representing 80+ people.

   The map projection is Eckert IV (equal area).

   Here is the Chemistry version: https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/1lrglb1/birthplaces_of_all_winners_of_the_nobel_prize_in/

2. Crazy that not a single one is from a Spanish or Portuguese speaking country.

   Just random statistical chance or is there any reason for that?

3. Color coding by year might be interesting. Wonder if we’d see some kind of shift post-45.

   Ah, sorry, this is *birth places*. Might be interesting to juxtapose with the place they did the work that netted them the prize.

4. man, physics is really racist, huh?

5. The process of awarding Nobel Prizes in Physics should be more equitable and diverse, that’s for sure! 😄

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