After a woman was awarded the Nobel prize in physics, chemistry, or medicine (there haven't been any female laureates in economics so far) it takes on average 8 years until the next female laureate is due. The kernel density estimate of the waiting time looks quite ugly. Quick and dirty fitting suggests that the Gamma(1.7,4.6)-Distribution offers the best approximation. 
Links to female laureates are here. Ten women have been Literature laureates (10%). In Physiology & Medicine, there have been seven female laureates (4%), Chemistry three (2%), Physics two (1%). 0 Fields Medals (Math). (The Nobel peace prize is too "soft" to be comparable)
Over the twentieth century the general rate of Nobel prizes (ex-peace) for women has been a rather consistent 2.5%.
Links to female laureates are here. Ten women have been Literature laureates (10%). In Physiology & Medicine, there have been seven female laureates (4%), Chemistry three (2%), Physics two (1%). 0 Fields Medals (Math). (The Nobel peace prize is too "soft" to be comparable)
Over the twentieth century the general rate of Nobel prizes (ex-peace) for women has been a rather consistent 2.5%.
Mahalanobis - am 2006-04-23 22:17
Junk Charts (guest) meinte am 24. Apr, 18:43:
histogram
It'd be nice to have a small histogram at the bottom of the plot so we can see how sparse the data is that you're fitting :) Seriously, I think it'd help us understand the fit.
Mahalanobis antwortete am 24. Apr, 22:00:
Killjoy!!
[Data corrected for the fact that in some years no Nobel prize was awarded]
Junk Charts (guest) antwortete am 25. Apr, 23:00:
Hmmm
The fact that the distribution is discrete makes the fitting a challenge. With these much data, one could imagine many different distributions as appropriate... even a uniform distribution seems to fit well, no?
Patrick R. Sullivan (guest) meinte am 26. Apr, 01:09:
' Over the twentieth century the general rate of Nobel prizes (ex-peace) for women has been a rather consistent 2.5%.'That's even worse than the figure for females who qualify for the Jeopardy Tournament of Champions. Which was about 18% iirc.
