I have been thinking a lot about the Nobels this week, for obvious reasons. The secretive nature of The Prize leaves a lot of unknowns. How many people are asked to nominate potential recipients each year? Who informs you that you are nominated? Do you get some sort of commemorative plaque for being nominated? I would certainly demand want one, if I were in that position.
I understand that the prizes are awarded for an entire body of work and the effect it had on science, but what about all those grad students and post-docs who actually carried out the research? What happens to the first authors on all those papers? Do they get a commemorative plaque? Or at least the right to add a line to their CV that states something to effect of “Carried out work which directly contributed to the NOBEL PRIZE”? All caps would be nothing short of mandatory here.
Posing a few of these questions to someone who had been nominated for The Prize (don’t ask how I knew this person had been nominated) was entirely fruitless. While nominees for the prize are not asked to sign a specific non-disclosure agreement about the process (the one and only answer I was able to squeeze out, after pestering), they still refuse to discuss anything about it! It’s a bit of a Nobel conspiracy – in the best and most respectful way possible, of course. This only piqued my curiosity.
NobelPrize.org issues a call for questions for the Nobel Prize Selection Committee after the announcement of each Prize. I don’t know if questions about Nobel logistics are permitted, and suspect they are not. If you have any insider information about the Nobels (the disclosure of which will not get either you or me killed) please let me know.
See all Nobel Prize-related posts on NN here. And if you think of a (science-related?) question you would like to ask a committee member, add it here!
I know! It’s so secretive! In that article about people who were snubbed (link somewhere – I can’t remember) there was mention of someone who “had been nominated throughout the 1940s and 1950s” or something to that extent. HOW DO THEY KNOW?
I have no idea. The nominees are kept secret for 50 years (!!). The NobelPrize site just now made available a list of nominees from 1901-1955. It’s not a list-list, just a searchable database, which is slightly less useful. Do you think all the secrecy is really necessary? I go back and forth in my head.
Wrong link in that comment. Sorry. Here are the Medicine nominees for the past 50 years.
Given that the awards contain a lot of subjectivity/politics I think that keeping lists out of sight is a good thing. If they were to announce that someone who is still living was considered one year and not the next or is a perennial on the list this would create a lot of outside influence (good? bad? I don’t know). Anyway, I think out of respect for all of the great scientists who are considered every year it is best to keep the list of nominees off-line for as long as possible.
I agree with Craig. What good is it to the outside world to have one’s name on the “considered” list? These people all have lots and lots of other prizes and acknowledgments of their contributions. They know they have made major contributions. The Nobel is a kind of final apotheosis. I do think it rather unseemly and sour grapes for a scientist themself to complain about not having been chosen – people are talking a lot about Gallo, but here in France, there is a bit of fuss over Jean-Claude Chermann also.
On the nobelprize.org site they do explain an obvious omission from even the SciAm article (given they are only interested in the science Nobels): Mahatma Gandhi.
I can let you in on the (not a) secret: they use a mailing list. I received a mailshot from the Swedish Academy of Sciences this year (It was March I think) inviting me to suggest people suitable for Nobel prize nominations.
Note: I am not a member of a National Academy (no FRS or FREng for me), I have not won any major prize, nor am I a media figure for the sciences – in fact I have never even been to Sweden!. All I can conclude is that the Swedish Academy wants to encourage one and all to suggest suitable scientists to ensure that no-one who deserves it is can claim they were overlooked.
The mailshot was on the sort of card you get for conference fliers so it wasn’t even the sort of thing you frame and hang on the wall. In case you think this was a humorous wind-up by my students, I have heard from other people elsewhere who have also received such a request.
A mailing list! Very cool. It is very good to hear that they don’t limit nominators to members of academies. I think there are a lot of politics surrounding who is admitted to these academies and who isn’t, so it’s good to know that the Nobels try to remain politic-free, and getting a good snap-shot of the science world. I am a little disappointed that the card you received wasn’t more grand! I would hope it to be all gold-bordered and fancy, perhaps a little like a Howler in Harry Potter, announcing to the world that you are taking part in Nobel nominations – howling quietly, of course – don’t need people knowing.
I do see the benefit of keeping the nominees quiet. I still wish there was more transparency in the process though, but only for my own curiosity. I understand that it’s in the Nobel committees best interest to keep everything on the down-low and free from outside influence.
The Nobel site is an interesting read. Stalin was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize! I threw up a little when I read that. Aaah, hindsight.
_in fact I have never even been to Sweden!. _
Brian> You have missed out. Go in the middle of summer and catch the midnight sun… or the middle of winter to the ice hotel up in the north.
/native Swede ;)
Anna> I guess that kind of hind sight is what gives DDT a Nobel prize although it was good for awhile but just not for all purposes…
I think all prizes carry a bit of the politics with them. Even if they intend to be nonpolitical. And I would be agreeing on the “keep the nominations silent” for upto 50 years or so is a good strategy. Gives more background to that politics thing. Like Hahn for example – and the jewish (female) scientist who couldn’t copublish with him since he was still in Germany during WWII.
(it didn’t look bad in the preview – my last post but apparently now it does. sorry about that.)
@Anna – Stalin nominated for the Peace Prize! I hadn’t heard that one before. It reminds me of an interview of Tom Lehrer that I heard in the 1980s (I think it was on Desert Island Discs). On this he was asked why he had stopped writing his trademark satirical songs. The answer was “When I heard that Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, I realized that self-parody now tanscended anything I could compose as mere parody”.