Yuri Milner's Fundamental Physics Prize | Hacker News Reader

Yuri Milner's Fundamental Physics Prize

economist.com

103 pointstlb31 comments

The NYTimes coverage mentioned that the entire $3 million prize was immediately wired to the bank account of a surprised winner (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/31/science/9-scientists-win-y...). Just imagine the email leading up to that:

I represent Russian billionaire holding $3 million in unclaimed physics prizes for you. Please provide your bank and identity details to receive funds.

On one hand - Yay!

150k for struggling startups - Horay!

On the other hand he is a close business associate of Alisher Usmanov, who's commonly considered to be, basically, the mafia boss of modern Russia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alisher_Usmanov

Usmanov owns 32% of Digital Sky Technologies which in turn has investments in Zynga, Groupon, Facebook, Airbnb and has strong ties to Goldman Sachs. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Sky_Technologies, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alisher_Usmanov)

If your allegations are true... I'm sorry, I can't finish this sentence.

Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they are not out to get you...

And the Borgias helped the Renaissance flourish.

The similarity is striking: Nobel donated his prizes to combat his bad conscious about the horrible "side effects" of his invention, the dynamite. I would not be surprised if Millner has a similar motivation. If so, he should be open about it up front (like Nobel was).

There is not support in the referenced Wikipedia article (or its talk page) for the strong allegation which directly precedes it.

You don't say.

It'd be really nice if articles like this actually linked to the website for what they're talking about.

It's http://www.fundamentalphysicsprize.org for the record.

For context, this is the same Yuri Milner that invests $150k in every start-up who completes the YC program.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_Milner

And the same Yuri Milner that owns significant stakes in Facebook, Twitter, Zynga, Spotify, and Groupon...

I felt that the article glossed over his accomplishments in the tech community. It reads like theoretical physics PhD somehow got rich, and is now awarding a fundamental physics prize.

You can criticize this guy, but what he does with his money is actually moving us forward. I have a huge respect for him and his innovative ideas.

I like the unofficial contest to see which internet billionaire can invest the most in basic research.

This is quite interesting. Since it's more money than the Nobel, it seems like it has a shot at becoming more prestigious.

Prizes like that are prestigious because of history and because everybody knows about them. I don't think the money attached to the prize has as big of an effect as the history.

For a concrete example, the Fields Medal is better known than the Abel Prize despite the fact that it only comes with $15,000 to the Abel Prize's ~$1m.

The Nobel prizes have been awarded for over a century now, and the main purpose of the Nobel Foundation is to ensure that they can keep giving out the prizes forever.

I'm confident that the Nobel prizes will still be around a hundred years from now. Will this Fundamental Physics Prize also be?

I've always wondered why someone didn't do this. It can be cheaper to endow a gift that trumps the Nobel than to endow a top business school.

University of Chicago sold the name Booth for a $300 million stake in a fund company. The Nobel pays $1.2 million per year. Milner just gave $27 million, which discounted to perpetuity at 5% is $540 million, but he could have had a similar impact for half the cost.

I love this guy. First he shakes up Silicon Valley investing, now he is moving to high-quality research.

The most beautiful thing about his approaches to both, is that they are high-impact, high-leverage. In the investing case, he outsources all the filtering work to YC.

In this case, he will outsource the selection work to past laureates.

Brilliant!

Juan Martín Maldacena, an Argentinian between the winners http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Mart%C3%ADn_Maldacena

Pardon me for my bad English, why are they call him a dullard? Isn't it synonym for the “moron”?

The quote is, "On July 31 Mr Milner, by no means a dullard, announced..."

That is, they're saying he's not a dullard. I can understand how the phrase "by no means a" could be confusing for someone new to English.

Thank you

It is, but they say hes not a dullard. They're trying to emphasize the fact that even though he did not end up becoming a physicist, he's pretty smart.

It's a bit like the worlds best lottery. To enter you devise a method that can generate lots of numbers. And then whoever has the numbers that match reality the best, wins $3 million dollars, a big desk and a really comfy chair.

It's like the lottery, only you win using skill instead of luck! Oh, wait...

Except the numbers got to be useful in making predictions about how the world will behave in the future. So, only a little bit like a lottery... a very small, tiny little bit.

But, if you figure out how to predict random numbers, you can win the actual lottery! Who needs this prize, when there's real money to be made?

Like these MIT students: http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/computer-scientists-g...

Awesome!

Bravo! cracks open physics text

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