For gravitational waves discovery, Nobel prize went to the designers of the LIGO which was done long before we actually built it. The example that will fit more

For gravitational waves discovery, Nobel prize went to the designers of the LIGO which was done long before we actually built it. The example that will fit more your idea would be Carlo Rubbia who got the award in 1984 for leading the CERN team who discovered the W and Z bosons. He did not have any contributions than leading the experiment that did it [1]. It is not like he designed or proposed the way we used to detect them. And the Nobel prize for higgs discovery went to theorists who proposed and predict it not the experimental physicists (thousands) who discovered it in 2012. [1] https://home.cern/science/experiments/ua1 https://home.cern/science/experiments/ua1