in general Nobel prise winners in physics are men.
While I can't argue with that I would be careful about saying why. In general the people who have done physics for the last hundred years have been men - because it wasn't acceptable for women to do physics. (When you have a society which discourage intellectualism in women, it is a bit of an uphill battle!) A lot of the Nobel Prizes awarded are for groundbreaking work done 20-30 years ago, when there were almost no women at all in physics. I think that the numbers will begin to even out as more girls are encouraged to study science. This number is still small, though.
Since you enjoy statistics, the small sample of physics departments I've been a member of won't impress you, but have a look at the numbers anyways, as a small sampling of the state of physics education in Canada.
University of Manitoba - year 2000: 21 professors, out of those, a single woman. (Interestingly, two more have been hired since I left, bringing the numbers up a bit. There are young women out there who have yet to make their mark!)
A friend's graduating class, year 1994, B Sc in physics, a class of 4: 1 woman.
My graduating class, year 1998, Bachelor of Science in Phyiscs, a class of 8: 2 women
Memorial University of Newfoundland - year 2002 - 21 professors, out of those, 3 women.
Our grad students right now: about 20, of which about 5 are women (these numbers are harder to pin down since I don't know all the people in the department)
So you see, about 25% of new physics graduates are women, with these rough statistics. The "old guard" was closer to 10%. So in 20-30 years, when these women have had a chance to make groundbreaking discoveries, whose full impact on their fields will be well-known, then you will see about 25% of Nobel Prize winners will be women!
