New Science Prize Setup by Yuri Milner

Abstract

Yuri Milner is a Russian hi-tech investor and has just given away $27,000,000 in prizes to nine physicists in $3,000,000 chunks. He plans to do the same every year making his the biggest recurring science prize of them all. I think the prize is good but with so much money to give away I think he could have afforded to try some other ways to encourage research as well. If I had that kind of money to give away I would limit to one prize each year and use the rest in other ways, e.g. for research grants. I would also love to see the effect of an open essay contest with a $1,000,000 top prize.