Science Is Running Out Of Things To Discover?

[H]aven’t we learned anything from the history of science? The last time someone thought that we knew all there was to know about an area of physics, and all that we could do was simply to make incremental understanding of the area, it was pre-1985 before Mother Nature smacked us right in the face with the discovery of high-Tc superconductors.

I have some serious doubts about the original article as well. When I say the claim the the time was getting longer for nobel awards I thought it was a typo, because in my atomic physics corner of the world, that trend does not seem to be in place at all. AMO physics has reflected a short gap between discovery and Nobel. And looking at that trend makes me doubt the physics graph presented in that paper.

The 1989 Nobel went, in part, to Norman Ramsey for his separated oscillatory fields method used in atomic clocks, developed in 1949. I don’t see a 40-year data point anywhere on the graph.

The 1997 Nobel was awarded for contributions to laser cooling and trapping, with the experimental start in the early/mid-1980’s. I don’t see any ~15-year data point for 1997.

The first Bose-Einstein condensate was observed in 1995. The Nobel was awarded for that in 2001 – a scant six years. No such data point exists.

The optical frequency comb was demonstrated in 1999, and the Nobel was awarded (again) six years later. That data point is missing as well.

I don’t know what’s going on, but this doesn’t smell right.