The Nobel Prize delay

TL;DR

This paper investigates the increasing delay between Nobel discoveries and prize awards across disciplines, questioning whether this trend indicates a slowdown in groundbreaking scientific discoveries.

Contribution

It provides an analysis of the rising time lag in Nobel recognitions and explores its implications for the pace of fundamental scientific breakthroughs.

Findings

Time lag has been increasing across all disciplines.

Physics shows the most significant delay growth.

The trend raises questions about the pace of groundbreaking discoveries.

Abstract

The time lag between the publication of a Nobel discovery and the conferment of the prize has been rapidly increasing for all disciplines, especially for Physics. Does this mean that fundamental science is running out of groundbreaking discoveries?