Saturday, April 26, 2008

Checking Stats

music

I'm getting older. Very soon I'll understand my mother, that's what they say.

In her office, my mother has calendars with pictures of the African Nobel Prize winners. Well, today I checked online and here are the Africans awarded Nobel Prizes in the last eight years.

2005: Mohammed ElBaradei of Egypt/ The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
2004: Wangari Maathai of Kenya
2003: John Maxwell Coetzee of South Africa
2001: Kofi Annan of Ghana/ The United Nations

If you go as far back as the 1990s, then you find
Egyptian Ahmed Zewail for Chemistry
South Africans F. W. de Klerk / Nelson Mandela for Peace
South African Nadine Gordimer in Literature
Zewail is a Caltech prof., and there's a street named for him near my work in Cairo.

Before that, there were Naguib Mahfouz, Wole Soyinka, Desmond Tutu, and Anwar El-Sadat. KhalaS. I think that's it.

There have been more USA Nobel prize winners in Economics alone from 2000-2007, or in Physics alone in the same period.

I do understand my father. When I was a kid, he loved being a fan - of Sugar Ray Leonard and black boxers, of his daughters, of Nigerian football. My father believes that, in competition, there should be a hefty ass-whooping, and YOU should be the one giving it - end of story.
(Love you dad, sorry I haven't called. It's been quiet time around here.)

It's birthday season again and I wonder if my busy little friend - the one I was in love with circa January 2005 - will win the physics prize someday. While I can attest that winning a Nobel Prize is far from "the measure of a man" it's still really cool, you know? Me, I'll get a few. Girls would win more if they cared to.

5 comments:

Erik Donald France said...

Good beans, T ;)

t said...

so kind, Erik.

BuJ said...

A very interesting post :-)

Notice that the Egyptians win more than their share compared to other African nations.

I like Africa, and it is the origin of us all.. be it black, white, oriental or jewish... yet it lay in a divided state..

I was reading the latest edition of the National Geographic.. they have a feature on the Sahel.. most interesting as well.

I should visit Africa soon.. as usual there are constraints.. but nothing is constant except change itself.

Good work T :)

t said...

Thanks BuJ. I hope you visit soon.
Sahel - cool word.

BuJ said...

:-)

Sahel is lovely.. and so is the National Geographic.. when I am too broke to travel or when time is scarce I just like to open a copy of the National Geographic because it takes me to places I can only dream about.

Thank you T