Meaning not only does the US outperform in Nobel laureates as a massive nation at a per capita level, it’s simultaneously attracting even more.
- as Mark Kastner said "these prizes are a lagging indicator. They show us what we were doing right decades ago"
- Much of the research that lead Joachim Frank, a German born chemist, to win the Nobel prize for chemistry in 2017 took place in Europe and it was based on base research that took place outside of the US. The trio who was appointed was formed by Jacques Dubochet from Switzerland, Richard Henderson from Scotland and Frank from Germany. Frank was affiliated with US institutions when he was nominated, hence the prize has been claimed by US. They are basically buying Nobel prize winners post facto.
Compare that with the resources available and it will look much less extraordinary
It is extraordinary that countries with much less resources, much less competition and orders of magnitude smaller pool of talents to chose from (4 orders of magnitude in the case of Iceland, East Timor and Luxembourg), can rival the richest and most powerful country in the World in modern history
But let's look at the US noble prize winners
for a grand total of 103 Nobel prizes won by foreigners