…the United States of America, of course. Hamish Johnston, editor of physicsworld.com, has put together a neat little piece looking at where Nobel physics laureates start and end their days. There's no surprise on the net migration front – a huge flow from everywhere to the US. You can read Hamish's piece here. What the graphic doesn't indicate is when the award winner migrated (e.g. was it before or after their prize?) and multiple migrations – he just shows where they were born, and where they died or are currently living.
The biggest 'loser' is Germany – in fact a whopping 13 German-born laureates left Germany (11 of them for the US, including Albert Einstein, and 2 to Switzerland) although World War II accounted for many of the migrations here.
While 30 laureates have immigrated to the US, only 2 have emigrated including the 2011 'Australian' laureate Brian Schmidt.
There's been some shuffling about within Europe too, the biggest winner of this being France, but that is insignificant compared to the large, thick arrow that heads westward across the Atlantic.