Via The Reference Frame, here’s a one-hour video by David Gross (Nobel Prize in Physics, 2004), delivered at the Technion institute, in Haifa, Israel, on a whole lot of subjects revolving around the future of physics. The part about Israel, and Israeli science is in the first ~3 minutes. The rest of it is interesting if you’re into this kind of thing, but otherwise not.

A couple of things to note: this was delivered in June 2008, and the government he was criticizing was Olmert’s. I also noticed (this is a pet peeve of mine) that he was careful to distinguish between science and technology. People in the popular press conflate them all of the time, and they’re not the same thing.

Anyway, it’s interesting to get this kind of inside insight from a Nobel winner with strong ties to Israel. He seems to agree with Thomas Edison that genius is 2% inspiration and 98% perspiration, even for Jews. The problem is that the Israelis have a way of making it look easy. And that creates a number of problems for them.

Discuss. And when you’ve worn that subject out, this is an open thread.