Attention Potential Nobel Prize Winners:
Invent Early, Live a Long Time
Alfred Nobel was a Swedish arms manufacturer, who made a
substantial sum of money off his 355 inventions, the most prominent being
dynamite. As providence would have it, in
1888 Alfred experienced his own “Ghost of Christmas Future” moment. One morning he was greeted with his own
obituary titled The Merchant of Death is
Dead mistakenly written by a French newspaper on the death of his brother. He changed his will.1 The overarching motivation for the posthumous
establishment of the Nobel Prizes in Chemistry, Physics, Physiology or
Medicine, Literature and Peace via his will was that he would be remembered after
his death for something other than the grisly industry by which he made his fortune.
The Nobel Prize has become the preeminent recognition of
achievement in many of the not-so-well-rewarded, but often more crucial areas
of the arts and sciences. It has evolved
from a simple award to living recipients for recent contributions, into the
most prestigious recognition of an important world achievement, frequently occurring
over the course of a person’s entire career. The organizers have a higher level of
responsibility now.
The Catch is that the achiever must be alive
at the time the award is announced.
·
Maybe this was to make for a better presentation
ceremony, especially in the initial years of this new award (that, ironically,
indirectly honors the dead-and-gone Alfred Nobel).
·
Maybe, at some point in the past, the Nobel
Prize purse (now ~$1,200,000) was intended to provide significant funding to
the awardee for further research and discovery/writing/peace-seeking. That’s why it was important that the
recipient was ALIVE.
·
Maybe recognition of a worthy and responsible living
recipient early would allow his or her increased influence (due to the Nobel) to
benefit the world for years to come. (This
can backfire: witness the haughty visage of Paul Krugman pontificating on all
subjects each weekend on TV.)
·
Likely it was originally due to the short
timeframe envisioned by Alfred Nobel.
There’s an inherent unfairness in this and a diminishment
of the Nobel Prize’s purpose.
Outstanding contributions toward the betterment of mankind, when
recognized as such, deserve the recognition of the world’s most important
award, whether the discoverer is there to receive it in front of family and
colleagues, or they receive for him in celebration of his life.
Take the familiar figure of Albert Einstein, for instance, who some say knew a
little about physics. His Special Theory
of Relativity was published in 1905 but it wasn’t until 1939 that the time
aspect could be directly observed by experiment.2 Similarly with the General Theory of
Relativity – proposed in 1915, it wasn’t until 1959 that “conclusive” testing
could be performed.3 His
revolutionary ideas were way ahead of his time.
If he happened to pass away in 1918 due to the Spanish Flu, would that
have made his recognition by the Nobel Committee undeserving? (As it was, he was awarded the Nobel in 1922
for his explanation of the photoelectric effect which was instrumental in
establishing quantum theory and “for his services to Theoretical Physics.”4 The rest of his work must have been no big
deal.) Dimitri "Periodic Table" Mendeleev was a worthy scientist who died before true credit could be bestowed. Nikola Tesla was found in 1940 to have patents pre-dating the inventions for which Marconi received the Nobel Prize in 1909, but hey, he wasn't around so....
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| When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour. That's relativity. – Albert Einstein |
A corollary to this injustice is when achievements by two to three
people are recognized with the Nobel Prize, but one of them has passed on, who
may even have contributed more to the accomplishment than those that survived
him. Is this right?
It’s a good bet, too, that the modern Nobel Committee is now significantly
swayed by the “who’s about to die” factor in choosing their
Chemistry/Physics/Medicine winners. And
if another potentially more worthy winner should die unexpectedly in the
meantime, should actuarial tables really be the deciding factor?
Originally, Alfred Nobel laid out that the prizes were for discoveries in the preceding year. This was lengthened to “recent discoveries,” but
unproven works proved to be a source of embarrassment for the Committee,
particularly the Nobel Prize for the discoverer of the parasite that caused
cancer. This modernization of the Nobel statutes
was extended out to “scientific discoveries that had withstood the test of
time.”1 Not being able to see
the profound significance of an invention or discovery for decades is just a
fact – the truly revolutionary ideas are just that; great foresight that isn’t
seen or verified until sometimes long after the progenitor has passed on.
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| Wilfred Owen, poet in World War I; Killed in action November 1918, age 25 |
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| Sylvia Plath, poet and novelist; Depression led to suicide at age 30 |
In literature, the timeframe is extended also. Generally the prize for literature is in
recognition of a body of work.
Additionally, many of these scientists, writers and poets tend to be the
bright lights that flame out too quickly (oh, especially the poets…). Peace Prize contestants often have their
flame blown out for them. (On the other
hand, economists seem to live forever.)
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| Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever. – Mahatma Gandhi |
A prime example of this:
“The Norwegian Nobel Committee
confirmed that Mahatma Gandhi was nominated for the Peace Prize in 1937–39,
1947 and a few days before he was assassinated in January 1948. Geir Lundestad, Secretary of Norwegian Nobel
Committee in 2006 said, ‘The greatest omission in our 106 year history is
undoubtedly that Mahatma Gandhi never received the Nobel Peace prize. Gandhi
could do without the Nobel Peace prize. Whether [the] Nobel committee can do
without Gandhi is the question.’” The
Committee did not award a Peace Prize for 1948 because “there was no suitable
living candidate.”1
By and large, however, discoveries and significant figures take time for their impact to be realized. Discoverers
invent and eventually die, possibly by accident, before the full purport is known. The Committee itself may have a bit of a queue,
a temporary bias, or a World War, for example, intervening.
Nobel Prize presentations on these accomplishments, posthumous or not, are highly in order.
Nobel Prize presentations on these accomplishments, posthumous or not, are highly in order.
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| Exactly what qualifies as "living" at the time of the award? |
P.S. Oh, and by the way Mr. Smugly Paul
Krugman, the recent (1968) add-on of the Prize in Economic Sciences is “not a Nobel
Prize”1 like the true fab five.
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| Paul Krugman, Talking Head, Secret Director of SPECTRE |
