You don't care about their nationality, you care about what country you can associate them with. You then want to use it a measuring stick for that country's university and research system. It is of course not a perfect scale, but you take what you can get.

For instance, this prize tells you that Switzerland, the UK and the US (or more specifically Geneva, Cambridge and Princeton) seem to be doing something right and that it might be a good idea to change your university system a little in their direction.

> You then want to use it a measuring stick for that country's university and research system.

But why?

That is my second paragraph.

Most academics will have studied and worked in many countries by the time they achieve something major. Nobody's the product of a single country like that. These people have been educated and worked in Canada, the US, the UK, Switzerland...

Sure, but then you would want to read about "Canada, the US, the UK, Switzerland..." and would be asking why these countries and not for example Belgium or Japan.

Any way you attribute this has some problems, as does trying to condense it to one country. Still just because something is not perfect does not mean it is not useful.

For example, France and Germany have very different systems and culture and you see that reflected in Nobel prizes and Fields medals. At that point you can then discuss which differences are "good" or "bad" by which metric.

People are often patriotic. You feel a certain connection to someone who comes from your country.

But yeah, I agree. One fun example:

I am Faroese. On a technicality, Faroe Islands _could_ be considered the highest rank, at 1 laureate for a population of 49,489[1].

Niels Finsen was born in the Faroe Islands to Icelandic and Danish parents. His higher education and scientific studies were conducted in Denmark.

So an ethnically Icelandic-Dane, Faroese-born, who studied in Denmark.

Does this count as a Faroese Nobel Laureate?

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Nobel_lau...

Wait. I thought it's wrong to say "Faroe Islands", because the "oe" already means "Island". So how is this?

Wow, yeah that's true! I have never thought about it before.

From Wikipedia:

"In Faroese, the name appears as Føroyar. Oyar represents the plural of oy, older Faroese for "island". Due to sound changes, the modern Faroese word for island is oyggj. The first element, før, may reflect an Old Norse word fær (sheep), although this analysis is sometimes disputed because Faroese now uses the word seyður (from Old Norse sauðr) to mean "sheep". Another possibility is that the Irish monks, who settled the island around 625, had already given the islands a name related to the Gaelic word fearrann, meaning "land" or "estate". This name could then have been passed on to the Norwegian settlers, who then added oyar (islands).[12] The name thus translates as either "Islands of Sheep" or "Islands of Fearrann".

In Danish, the name Færøerne contains the same elements, though øerne is the definite plural of ø (island).

In English, it may be seen as redundant to say the Faroe Islands, since the oe comes from an element meaning "island". Most notably in the BBC Shipping Forecast, where the waters around the islands are called Faeroes. The name is also sometimes spelled "Faeroe"."[1]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faroe_Islands#Etymology

usual human nature?

german won nobel prize -> germans are smart -> im german -> i must be smart

Surely no one's that dumb!

You should meet my father. Hungarian patriot. Our many Nobel prizes make him so proud! With the only minor stain to the story that most of them were Jews.