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In particular, the rule limiting the award to three people needs to change. It was already a problem in Wu's case (she could have received the Nobel if not for

In particular, the rule limiting the award to three people needs to change. It was already a problem in Wu's case (she could have received the Nobel if not for that rule, along with several other experimental physicists who also confirmed the theory), and is now a critical problem because physics research today has a lot of huge team projects with dozens of authors. For example, the paper announcing the first observation of the Higgs boson [1] had hundreds of authors - none of whom received a Nobel for the discovery (the Nobel, like the Nobel for weak parity violation, was awarded to the theorists alone). But I'm not so sure about your proposed solutions. There are already many alternative rewards - Wu herself was awarded the Wolf Prize in Physics in 1978 - and none come close to the public recognition that the Nobel has. And is it really possible for the Swedish legislature to dictate that the foundation grant awards contrary to Nobel's will? 1: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0370269312008581 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S037026931...

hilbert42 6y ago
As I said in my reply to dudul, I'm far from being alone in my criticism of the Nobel system (see links to my references there). I'm not wedded to my alternative proposal, as I'm sure there are many other alternatives that would be suitable. My key point is about the sheer unfairness of the system. Your comment about the Higgs also illustrates the point. Yes, there are other awards and prizes but usually they're only known by those who are in the fields for which the award is given - thus, unfortunately, the general public is unaware of the achievements of these people. The trouble with the Nobel Prizes is their universal notoriety, this is troubling when many of its awards seem unduly unfair. I'll confine myself to the sciences for the moment. There's any number of great scientists that students have never heard of; they study the discovery - the physics etc. - but they haven't a clue who articulated the science or even when the discovery was made - or even the context of the discovery. This lack of context is very troubling for many reasons I've not time to go into here. Not only do the Nobel Prizes exacerbate this problem but also they create stereotypes and cult figures at the expense of others. I firmly believe that it is not in the best interests of any field of endeavor for a prize to be given and cocontributors to not also be acknowledged. For example, just about everyone on the planet knows the name Einstein but how many know of Hermann Minkowski? Sure, if you're a physicist you will have and also you'll be aware of how important his work was to Einstein, same with David Hilbert and Gregorio Ricci-Curbastro but their names are almost completely unknown in the wider world. Even here with Einstein we couldn't have a better example of Nobel Prize committee incompetence - as Einstein wasn't given its gong for either Special or General Relativity. If ever there was an oversight by the Nobel mob then this has to be it! The Nobel Prizes idealize a few at the expense of many and in today's world this is turning out not to be an especially noble endeavor. This is a long and involved matter and thus difficult to précis here, so I'm not a bit surprised I've ruffled feathers by touching on something that in some circles has become 'sacred'. And I'm sure anyone who is a potential recipient of a Nobel wouldn't like to hear what I've had to say. It's worth remembering that in ways Nobel wasn't the most noble of people and that his Prizes were his way of cleansing his name into perpetuity - and to date his efforts have paid off par excellence. BTW, let me assure you beyond doubt that I've never considered myself in line for one, so my comments are not just a case of sour grapes.
webmaven 6y ago
> But I'm not so sure about your proposed solutions. There are already many alternative rewards - Wu herself was awarded the Wolf Prize in Physics in 1978 - and none come close to the public recognition that the Nobel has. The Wolf Prize is only $100k, do any of the alternatives exceed the Nobel's amount of approximately $1 million?

hilbert42 6y ago

As I said in my reply to dudul, I'm far from being alone in my criticism of the Nobel system (see links to my references there). I'm not wedded to my alternative proposal, as I'm sure there are many other alternatives that would be suitable. My key point is about the sheer unfairness of the system. Your comment about the Higgs also illustrates the point. Yes, there are other awards and prizes but usually they're only known by those who are in the fields for which the award is given - thus, unfortunately, the general public is unaware of the achievements of these people. The trouble with the Nobel Prizes is their universal notoriety, this is troubling when many of its awards seem unduly unfair. I'll confine myself to the sciences for the moment. There's any number of great scientists that students have never heard of; they study the discovery - the physics etc. - but they haven't a clue who articulated the science or even when the discovery was made - or even the context of the discovery. This lack of context is very troubling for many reasons I've not time to go into here. Not only do the Nobel Prizes exacerbate this problem but also they create stereotypes and cult figures at the expense of others. I firmly believe that it is not in the best interests of any field of endeavor for a prize to be given and cocontributors to not also be acknowledged. For example, just about everyone on the planet knows the name Einstein but how many know of Hermann Minkowski? Sure, if you're a physicist you will have and also you'll be aware of how important his work was to Einstein, same with David Hilbert and Gregorio Ricci-Curbastro but their names are almost completely unknown in the wider world. Even here with Einstein we couldn't have a better example of Nobel Prize committee incompetence - as Einstein wasn't given its gong for either Special or General Relativity. If ever there was an oversight by the Nobel mob then this has to be it! The Nobel Prizes idealize a few at the expense of many and in today's world this is turning out not to be an especially noble endeavor. This is a long and involved matter and thus difficult to précis here, so I'm not a bit surprised I've ruffled feathers by touching on something that in some circles has become 'sacred'. And I'm sure anyone who is a potential recipient of a Nobel wouldn't like to hear what I've had to say. It's worth remembering that in ways Nobel wasn't the most noble of people and that his Prizes were his way of cleansing his name into perpetuity - and to date his efforts have paid off par excellence. BTW, let me assure you beyond doubt that I've never considered myself in line for one, so my comments are not just a case of sour grapes.

webmaven 6y ago

> But I'm not so sure about your proposed solutions. There are already many alternative rewards - Wu herself was awarded the Wolf Prize in Physics in 1978 - and none come close to the public recognition that the Nobel has. The Wolf Prize is only $100k, do any of the alternatives exceed the Nobel's amount of approximately $1 million?