THE
U N O B TA I N A B L E
NOBEL PRIZES
PRIZE
NOBE INDEX S
VOLUNTARY REFUSALS JEAN PAUL SARTRE LE DUC THO
INVOLUNTARY REFUSALS ADOLF HITLER RICHARD KUHN ADOLF BUTENANDT LEOPOLD RUZIKA GERHARD DOMAGK SOVIET RUSSIA AND NOBEL PRIZES BORIS PASTERNAK MIKHAIL GORBACHEV WHO IS WORTHY OF THE NOBEL PRIZE DMITRI MENDELEEV THOMAS EDISON MAHATMA GANDHI TIM BERNERS-LEE DARK MATTER CRAIG VENTER CARL WOESE JONAS SALK INDIRA GANDHI DOROTHY DAY POSTHUMOUS
2
THE REFUSAL OF
N O B E L P RI Z ES CHAPTER
1
VOLUNTARY REFUSALS 3
WHAT
“My refusal is not an impulsive gesture, I have always declined official honors. In 1945, after the war, when I was offered the Legion of Honor, I refused it.� He was not aware at the time that the Nobel Prize is awarded without consulting the opinion of the recipient, and I believed there was time to prevent this from happening. But now, he understand that when the Swedish Academy has made a decision it cannot subsequently revoke it. His reasons for refusing the prize concern neither the Swedish Academy nor the Nobel Prize in itself, as he explained in his letter to the Academy. In it, Sartre alluded to two kinds of reasons: personal and objective.
Voluntary Nobel Prize Refusals
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4
THEM
The personal reasons are these: my refusal is not an impulsive gesture, I have always declined official honors. In 1945, after the war, when I was offered the Legion of Honor, I refused it, although I was sympathetic to the government.
This attitude is of course entirely my own, and contains no criticism of those who have already been awarded the prize. I have a great deal of respect and admiration for several of the laureates whom I have the honor to know.
This attitude is based on my conception of the writer’s enterprise. A writer who adopts political, social, or literary positions must act only with the means that are his own—that is, the written word. All the honors he may receive expose his readers to a pressure I do not consider desirable. If I sign myself Jean-Paul Sartre it is not the same thing as if I sign myself Jean-Paul Sartre, Nobel Prizewinner.
My objective reasons are as follows: The only battle possible today on the cultural front is the battle for the peaceful coexistence of the two cultures, that of the East and that of the West. I do not mean that they must embrace each other—I know that the confrontation of these two cultures must necessarily take the form of a conflict— but this confrontation must occur between men and between cultures, without the intervention of institutions.
If I accept it, I offer myself to what I shall call “an objective rehabilitation.”
The writer who accepts an honor of this kind involves as well as himself the association or institution which has honored him. My sympathies for the Venezuelan revolutionists commit only myself, while if Jean-Paul Sartre the Nobel laureate champions the Venezuelan resistance, he also commits the entire Nobel Prize as an institution. The writer must therefore refuse to let himself be transformed into an institution, even if this occurs under the most honorable circumstances, as in the present case.
I myself am deeply affected by the contradiction between the two cultures: I am made up of such contradictions. My sympathies undeniably go to socialism and to what is called the Eastern bloc, but I was born and brought up in a bourgeois family and a bourgeois culture. This permits me to collaborate with all those who seek to bring the two cultures closer together. I nonetheless hope, of course, that “the best man wins.” That is, socialism.
Voluntary Nobel Prize Refusals
5
REFUSE
WHAT
MADE
6
THEM
I do not thereby mean that the Nobel Prize is a “bourgeois” prize. - Jean Paul Sartre
Voluntary Nobel Prize Refusals
7
REFUSE
WHAT
“WE DO NOT JUDGE THE PEOPLE WE LOVE” -
JEAN
PAUL SARTRE
This is why I cannot accept an honor awardI know that the Nobel Prize In discussing the motives of the ed by cultural authorities, those of the West in itself is not a literary prize Swedish Academy, mention has any more than those of the East, even if I of the Western bloc, but it is been made of freedom, a word am sympathetic to their existence. Although what is made of it, and events that suggests many interpretaall my sympathies are on the socialist side. may occur which are outside tions. I mean a more concrete I should thus be quite as unable to accept, the province of the members freedom which consists of the for example, the Lenin Prize, if someone of the Swedish Academy. This right to have more than one wanted to give it to me, which is not the case. is why, in the present situation, pair of shoes and to eat one’s the Nobel Prize stands objectively as a distinction fill. It seems to me less dangerous to decline the prize reserved for the writers of the West or the rebels than to accept it. If I accept it, I offer myself to what I of the East. It has not been awarded, for example, to shall call “an objective rehabilitation.” According to the Neruda, who is one of the greatest South American poFigaro littéraire article, “a controversial political past ets.There has never been serious question of giving it to would not be held against me.” I know that this artiLouis Aragon, though he certainly deserves it. It is recle does not express the opinion of the Academy, but it grettable that the prize was given to Pasternak and clearly shows how my acceptance would be interpreted not to Sholokhov, and that the only Soviet work thus by certain rightist circles. I consider this “controversial honored should be one published abroad and banned political past” as still valid, even if I am quite prepared to in its own country. A balance might have been estabacknowledge to my comrades certain past errors. Lastly, lished by a similar gesture in the other direction. DurI come to the question of the money: it is a very heavy ing the war in Algeria, when we had signed the “decburden that the Academy imposes upon the laureate by laration of the 121,” I should have gratefully accepted accompanying its homage with an enormous sum, and the prize, because it would have honored not only me, this problem has tortured me. Either one accepts the but also the freedom for which we were fighting. But prize and with the prize money can support organizamatters did not turn out that way, and it is only after tions or movements one considers important—my own the battle is over that the prize has been awarded me. thoughts went to the Apartheid committee in London.
Voluntary Nobel Prize Refusals
MADE
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THEM
The personal reasons are these: my refusal is not an impulsive gesture, I have always declined official honors. In 1945, after the war, when I was offered the Legion of Honor, I refused it, although I was sympathetic to the government. Similarly, I have never sought to enter the Collège de France, as several of my friends suggested. The personal reasons are these: my refusal is not an impulsive gesture, I have always declined official honors. In 1945, after the war, when I was offered the Legion of Honor, I refused it, although I was sympathetic to the government. Similarly, I have never sought to enter the Collège de France, as several of my friends suggested.
__ JEAN
PAUL SARTRE Voluntary Nobel Prize Refusals
9
REFUSE
WHAT
LE DUC
_
Le Duc Tho had long experience of fighting against great powers when he negotiated with Henry Kissinger for an armistice in Vietnam between 1969 and 1973. As a young man he became a Communist, and the French colonial authorities imprisoned him for many years. He gained a place in the Communist Party’s leadership during Japan’s occupation of Vietnam in the Second World War. Ho Chi Minh declared Vietnam independent after the defeat of Japan in 1945, but the French returned, and Le Duc Tho became one of the military leaders of the resistance against the French. After the defeat of the French, Vietnam was divided. The USA supported a government in South Vietnam which the Communists in the north regarded as an American puppet government. When the United States decided to negotiate after 1968, Le Duc Tho was appointed North Vietnam’s chief negotiator, confronting Henry Kissinger.
Above - Le Duc Tho talking on how he did agree that Vietnam was not at peace He declined to accept the prize. He said that he might reconsider if peace were restored to his country eventually, but his decision stood.
When Hanoi was bombed at Christmastime on Kissinger’s orders, Le Duc Tho agreed to an armistice. But when he received the Peace Prize together with Kissinger in the autumn of 1973, he refused to accept it, on the grounds that his opposite number had violated the truce.
FIRST REFUSAL OF THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE
Though Tho would probably not have agreed with the second half of that argument, he did agree that Vietnam was not at peace—and, further, as the Nobel Committee puts it, “his opposite number had violated the truce.” He declined to accept the prize. He said that he might reconsider if peace were restored to his country eventually, but his decision stood. Voluntary Nobel Prize Refusals
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THEM
THO However, since the signing of the Paris agreement, the United States and the Saigon administration continue in grave violation of a number of key clauses of this agreement. The Saigon administration, aided and encouraged by the United States, continues its acts of war. Peace has not yet really been established in South Vietnam.
In these circumstances it is impossible for me to accept the 1973 Nobel Prize for Peace which the committee has bestowed on me. Once the Paris accord on Vietnam is respected, the arms are silenced and a real peace is established in South Vietnam, I will be able to consider accepting this prize.With my thanks to the Nobel Prize Committee.
Vietnamese leader Le Duc Tho was believed to have been born on October 14, 1911, in his country’s Nam Ha province, with some sources giving his date of birth as October 10, 1911. His original birth name was Phan Dinh Khai, and he later took on the Tho alias. With much of his early history unknown to the general public, it has both been reported that Tho grew up poor and that he was raised in a middle class household. Tho eventually worked in postal services and helped form the Indochinese Communist Party in 1929. He rallied against French occupation of Indochina (the regions of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia) and was jailed for many years in two stints, from the early to mid-1930s and the late ‘30s to mid-’40s. By 1945, based in the South, he became a top official in the Viet Minh, which was formed by Ho Chi-Minh and called for independence from colonialism; Tho was a leader of Minh group forces during the subsequent Indochina War.
Voluntary Nobel Prize Refusals
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REFUSE
WHAT In these circumstances it is impossible for me to accept the 1973 Nobel Prize for Peace
“OPPOSITE NUMBER HAD VIOLATED THE TRUCE.” Voluntary Nobel Prize Refusals
MADE
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THEM
LE DUC THO KISSINGER
E D E ” 13
REFUSE
WHAT
THE ‘ADOLF HITLER’ OF
N O B E L P RI Z ES
CHAPTER
Involuntary Nobel Prize Refusals
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2
INVOLUNTARY REFUSALS
THEM
F
Adolf Hitler was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1939.
REFUSE
L S
Involuntary Nobel Prize Refusals
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WHAT
HITLERS NOBEL RULE
In 1936, Adolf Hitler Peace Prize writer who Involuntary Nobel Prize Refusals
MADE
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the Nobel Foundation offended when it awarded the 1935 Nobel to Carl von Ossietzky, a German publicly opposed Hitler and Nazism.
THEM
HITLERS NOBEL RULE
In 1936, the Nobel Foundation Awarding the peace prize to Ossioffended Adolf Hitler when it awarded etzky was itself considered conthe 1935 Nobel Peace Prize to troversial. While Fascism had few Carl von Ossietzky, a supporters outside Gerhard Domagk (1939 German writer who Italy, Spain, and GerNobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine), Richard publicly opposed Hitler many, those who did Kuhn (1938 Nobel Prize in Chemistry), and Adoand Nazism.(At that not necessarily symlf Butenandt (1939 Nobel time, the prize was pathise felt that it was Prize in Chemistry). The three later received their awarded the following wrong to (deliberatecertificates and medals, year.) Hitler reacted by but not the prize money. ly) offend Germany. issuing a decree on 31 Hitler’s decree January 1937 that forbade German prevented three Germans nationals to accept any Nobel Prize. from accepting their prizes.
Involuntary Nobel Prize Refusals
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WHAT
- RICHARD KUHN. Kuhn
investigat-
ed the structure of compounds related to the carotenoids, prepared them in pure form, and determined their constitution. He made substantial contribution to the medical application of vitamin B2 and vitamin B6. In 1938 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1938 for his work on carotenoids and vitamins.
“For his work in this important field Kuhn was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1938.�
Involuntary Nobel Prize Refusals
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THEM
HITLERS NOBEL RULE
Kuhn
a
period
of
investigated
twenty
years
compounds
containing double bonds which proved to be of great interest in
connection with the study of the
chemical nature of the carotenoids. He discovered eight new types of
these and was able to analyse their
constitution. He also carried out important work on vitamin B2 and the antidermatitis vitamin B6.
Kuhn
received
numerous
other
honours and awards in recognition of
his
work;
he
was
awarded
honorary degrees of the Technische
Hochschule in Munich (1960), the
University of Vienna (1960), the University of St. Maria. An impressive number
of
prizes
have
been
presented to him, as well as orders and the highest possible honours, in
many countries.
REFUSE
For
Involuntary Nobel Prize Refusals
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WHAT
- ADOLF BUTENANDT. Butenandt’s name will always be associated with his work on sex hormones, for which he was awarded, jointly with Leopold Ruzicka, the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for 1939. In 1929 he isolated oestrone in pure, crystalline form, almost at the same time that E.A. Doisy did this in America. In 1931 he isolated androsterone in pure, crystalline form. From androsterone he as well as Ruzicka, independently of each other, obtained testosterone in 1939, a compound which had been obtained from the testes in 1935 by Ernst Laqueur. Progesterone was isolated by Butenandt from the corpus luteum in 1934.
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Involuntary Nobel Prize Refusals
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Hitlers Rule - Adolf Butenandt was caused by the authorities of his country to decline the award but he later received the diploma and the medal.
In addition to these researches, Butenandt carried out much investigation of the interrelationships of the sex hormones and on the possible carcinogenic properties of some of them. His work on the sex hormones was largely responsible for the production of cortisone on a large scale.
THEM
- LEOPOLD RUZIKA.
He became professor of organic chemistry and started the most brilliant period of his professional career. He widened the area of his research, adding to it the chemistry of higher terpenes and steroids. After the successful synthesis of sex hormones (androsterone and testosterone).
In 1939, he won the Nobel prize for chemistry with Adolf Butenandt. In 1940, following the award, he was invited by the Croatian Chemical Association, where he delivered a lecture to an over packed hall of dignitaries. The topic of the lecture was From the Dalmatian Insect Powder to Sex Hormones. The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1939 was divided equally between Adolf Friedrich Johann Butenandt “for his work on sex hormones” and Leopold Ruzicka “for his work on polymethylenes and higher terpenes”. Hitlers Rule - Leopold Ruzika was caused by the authorities along with Adolf Butenandt of his country to decline the award but he later received the diploma and the medal.
Involuntary Nobel Prize Refusals
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REFUSE
WHAT
- GERHARD DOMAGK. “The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1939 was awarded to Gerhard Domagk “for the discovery of the antibacterial effects of prontosil.” In 1929 a new research institute for pathological anatomy and bacteriology was built by the I.G. Farbenindustrie and there, in 1932, Domagk made the discovery for which his name is so well known, the discovery that earned him the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for 1939, namely, the fact that a red dye-stuff, to which the name prontosil rubrum was given, protected mice and rabbits against lethal doses of staphylococci and haemolytic streptococci. Prontosil was a derivative of sulphanilamide (p-aminobenzenesulphonamide) which the Viennese chemist, Gelmo, had synthesized in 1908.
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Hitlers Rule - Gerhard Domagk was caused by the authorities of his countr y to decline the award but he later received the diploma and the medal. He later died of star vation at a
THEM
On 9 November 1939, the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences awarded the 1938 Prize for Chemistry to Kuhn and half of the 1939 prize to Butenandt, the prize of physiology or medicine
to Domagk and Chemistry joint
with Leopold. When notified of the decision, the German scientists were
forced to decline by threats of violence. Their refusal letters arrived in Stockholm after Domagk’s refusal letter, helping to confirm suspicions that the German government had forced them to refuse the prize. Hitlers Rule - Ironically, within the next 3 year s of these Nobel laureates being forced to refuse such honours, Hitler was nominated for the Nobel peace prize. By the end of Hitler s r ule, all 4 German science Laurettes received their prizes and diplomas however did not receive any of the prize money, which they most likely needed after the war.
Involuntary Nobel Prize Refusals
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REFUSE
WHAT
THE
RUSSIAN
SOVIET
N O B E L P RI Z ES
Involuntary Nobel Prize Refusals
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THE RUSSIAN SOVIET’S NOBEL RULE
“
The Nobel prize was considered a reward for the dissident political innuendo in his novel, Doctor Zhivago.
REFUSE
L S
THEM
Involuntary Nobel Prize Refusals
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WHAT
- BORIS PASTERNAK. The Nobel Prize in Literature 1958 was awarded to Boris Pasternak “for his important achievement both in contemporary lyrical poetry and in the field of the great Russian epic tradition”. Boris Pasternak at first accepted the 1958 Nobel Prize in Literature, but was forced by Soviet authorities to decline, because the prize was considered a “reward for the dissident political innuendo in his novel, Doctor Zhivago.” Pasternak died without ever receiving the prize.He was eventually honoured by the Nobel Foundation at a banquet in Stockholm on 9 December 1989, when they presented his medal to his son.
Involuntary Nobel Prize Refusals
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THEM
1970 - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn would fear that the Soviet Union would prevent his return.
27
REFUSE
WHAT
MADE
28
THEM
1970 SOVIET RUSSIA Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
1970
prize
was
awarded
government refused to hold a public
the ceremony in Stockholm for fear that the Soviet Union would
refused the award altogether, commenting that the conditions set
to Soviet dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who did not attend
prevent his return. His works there were available only in samizdatpublished, clandestine form. “An insult to the Nobel Prize itself.” Solzhenitsyn later accepted After the Swedish government refused
award ceremony and lecture at its Moscow embassy, Solzhenitsyn
by the Swedes (who preferred a private ceremony) were “an insult to
the Nobel Prize itself.” Solzhenitsyn later accepted the award on 10 December 1974, after the Soviet Union banished him.
REFUSE
The
Involuntary Nobel Prize Refusals
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WHAT
MADE
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THEM
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REFUSE
Mikhail Gorbachev, President of the Soviet Union wins the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990.
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- MIKHAIL GORBACHEV. The Nobel Peace Prize 1990 was awarded to Mikhail Gorbachev “for his leading role in the peace process which today characterizes important parts of the international community” During the last few years, dramatic changes have taken place in the relationship between East and West. Confrontation has been replaced by negotiations. Old European nation states have regained their freedom. The arms race is slowing down and we see a definite and active process in the direction of arms control and disarmament. Several regional conflicts have been solved or have at least come closer to a solution. The UN is beginning to play the role which was originally planned for it in an international community governed by law. These historic changes spring from several factors, but in 1990 the Nobel Committee wants to honor Mikhail Gorbachev for his many and decisive contributions. The greater openness he has brought about in Soviet society has also helped promote international trust. HISTORICAL CHANGE - The award brought congratulations
from Western leaders. President Bush praised Mr Gorbachev for having brought “historically significant change, both political and economic, to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe”. President Mitterrand said his actions had been the “decisive factor in reducing tensions in the world, and especially in Europe”. Mrs Thatcher called the award “terrific”.
In the opinion of the Committee, this peace process, which Gorbachev has contributed so significantly to, opens up new possibilities for the world community to solve its pressing problems across ideological, religious, historical and cultural dividing lines.
Involuntary Nobel Prize Refusals
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SHOULD
WHO IS WORTHY OF A
N O B E L P R I Z E CHAPTER
THEY
34
2
INVOLUNTARY REFUSALS
HAVE
“
A WORTHY LAUREATE TO BE
”
Over the years, many Nobel prizes were not awarded due to the Nobel committee not thinking there was a worthy laureate to award it too. There has been other factors and reasons for this, however in a world where there have been some who deserved the recognition for their work.
WHO SHOULD OF WON A NOBEL PRIZE
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WON
SHOULD
DMITRI
_
The periodic table is no mere org chart; it reveals the underlying order of protons, neutrons, and electrons that lie at the heart of all matter. Its neat columns and rows have predicted elements before they were found, and even their properties. (Related: “Element Hunters.”) It seems unthinkable that such a breakthrough wouldn’t win science’s top honor, but that’s exactly what happened at the first Nobel presentations in 1901. The chemistry prize went to Jacobus H. van ‘t Hoff for pioneering work in physical chemistry. Compared with Hoff’s work showing how elements linked and moved about, the periodic table published by Dmitri Mendeleev in 1869 must have looked a bit staid. Mendeleev still had hope: He was nominated for a Nobel in 1905 and in 1906 but lost because a committee member thought his work was too old and well-known. The periodic table, it seemed, was a victim of its own success. Instead the 1906 prize went to Henri Moisson for finding the element fluorine, right where the periodic table had said it would be.
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The next year Mendeleev died, and with him the table’s shot at a Nobel. Instead it became the most useful poster in science, hanging on laboratory walls for generations, and that will have to do.
WHO SHOULD OF WON A NOBEL PRIZE
THEY
Nobelium - Nobelium was named after Alfred Nobel, creator of the Nobel Prize. ‘Nobelium’ had actually been proposed as the element 102’s name in 1957, by scientists from the Nobel Institute of Physics in Sweden who believed they had produced it.
HAVE
MENDELEEV Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleyev was born on February 8, 1834, in the Siberian town of Tobolsk in Russia. His father, Ivan Pavlovich Mendeleyev, went blind around the time his final son was born, and died in 1847.While he was researching and writing that book in the 1860s, Mendeleyev made the discovery that led to his most famous achievement. He noticed certain recurring patterns between different groups of
elements and, using existing knowledge of the elements’ chemical and physical properties, he was able to make further connections. He systematically arranged the dozens of known elements by atomic weight in a grid-like diagram; following this system, he could even predict the qualities of still-unknown elements. In 1869, Mendeleyev formally presented his discovery of the periodic law to the Russian Chemical Society. At first, Mendeleyev’s system had very few supporters in the international scientific community. It gradually gained acceptance over the following two decades with the discoveries of three new elements that possessed the qualities of his earlier predictions. In London in 1889, Mendeleyev presented a summary of his collected research in a lecture titled “The Periodic Law of the Chemical Elements.” His diagram, known as the periodic table of elements, is still used today.
WHO SHOULD OF WON A NOBEL PRIZE
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WON
SHOULD
- THOMAS EDISON. Inventor Thomas Edison created such great innovations as the electric light bulb and the phonograph. A savvy businessman, he held more than a 1,000 patents for his inventions. Born on February 11, 1847, in Milan, Ohio,Thomas Edison rose from humble beginnings to work as an inventor of major technology. Setting up a lab in Menlo Park, some of the products he developed included the telegraph, phonograph, electric light bulb, alkaline storage batteries and Kinetograph (a camera for motion pictures). Edison built the modern economy (and sleep deficits), creating tremendous demand for the electricity that so shapes our existence today. Edison died in 1931 with no Nobel, not even for the lightbulb—the very symbol of scientific inspiration. It was a historic injustice.Alfred Nobel included inventions and inventors in references to the award in his will.
WHO SHOULD OF WON A NOBEL PRIZE
THEY
38
HAVE
“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work”. -THOMAS A . EDISON
39
WON
SHOULD
THEY
40
HAVE
- Mahatma Gandhi was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize several times in 1937, 1938, 1939, 1947 and 1948 — but he was never awarded the honor.
41
WON
SHOULD
M A H AT M A
42
WHO SHOULD OF WON A NOBEL PRIZE
According to the statutes of the Nobel Foundation at the time, the award could, under certain circumstances, be awarded posthumously. “Thus it was possible to give Gandhi the prize. However, Gandhi did not belong to an organization, he left no property behind and no will; who should receive the Prize money?” the committee said according to the Nobel Foundation. Finally, the committee decided not to award the prize at all that year, saying that “there was no suitable living candidate.”
THEY
Mahatma Gandhi was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1937, 1938, 1939, 1947 and 1948 — but he was never awarded the honor. Many see Gandhi as the epitome of a Nobel Laureate for his use of non-violence to lead India to independence in 1947. The Nobel Committee has never publicly commented on why Gandhi did not receive the award. Mr. Gandhi was short-listed the third time in January 1948, just days before his assassination, which prompted whether the award could be given posthumously.
GANDHI
HAVE
43
WON
SHOULD
- TIM BERNERS-LEE. “Web users ultimately want to get at data quickly and easily. They don’t care as much about attractive sites and pretty design.” -Tim Berners-Lee Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1989. He founded and Directs the World Wide Consortium (W3C) the forum for technical development of the Web. He founded the Web Foundation whose mission is that the WWW serves Humanity, and co-founded the Open Data Institute in London. His research group at MIT’s Computer Science and AI Lab (“CSAIL”) plans to re-decentralize the Web. Tim spends a lot of time fighting for rights such as privacy, freedom and openness of the Web. A graduate of Oxford University, Tim Berners-Lee invented the Web while at CERN, the European Particle Physics Laboratory, in 1989. He wrote the first web client and server in 1990. His specifications of URIs, HTTP and HTML were refined as Web technology spread.
WHO SHOULD OF WON A NOBEL PRIZE
THEY
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HAVE
WORLD is created
WIDE
What could be more deserving of the Nobel Prize than the invention I had so relied on to learn about inventions? Beginning in the 1960s, researchers in the U.S. federal government created computer communication networks that would evolve into the Internet. Majority would give the Nobel to
WEB
British computer scientist Tim BernersLee, who in 1989 proposed the idea for the World Wide Web and in 1990 created the first website (a page describing the Web). The Web democratizes information, whether dumb videos of dancing cats or brave tweets from the Arab Spring. Information is power.
“Anyone who has lost track of time when using a computer knows the propensity to dream, the urge to make dreams come true and the tendency to miss lunch.� -Tim Berners-Lee
WHO SHOULD OF WON A NOBEL PRIZE
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WON
SHOULD
THEY
46
HAVE
1 9 7 0 ’ S : D A R K M AT T E R Discovered by Vera Rubin and Kent Ford
dark matter; mysterious substance comprising as much as 90 percent of the mass in the universe. It doesn’t emit or reflect light or interact with ordinary matter in any way. Because of its stealthy, slippery nature, the dark matter particle itself has remained elusive. In other words, scientists aren’t sure what this stuff is, exactly. And that uncertainty may be why the discovery hasn’t been recognized by the Nobel committee, even though the 2011 physics prize went to a similarly enigmatic cosmological discovery.
WON
The discovery of dark matter is the modern achievement that has perhaps been most grossly overlooked by the Nobel Prize committee. In the 1970s Vera Rubin and Kent Ford saw that stars at the edges of galaxies moved as quickly as the stars near the middle—in other words, these galaxies were rotating so fast that they should be flying apart ... unless something invisible was contributing to the gravity holding them together. That something invisible has come to be known as
WHO SHOULD OF WON A NOBEL PRIZE
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SHOULD
“You dont get a Nobel Prize for turning a crank”. - ERIC LANDER Human Genome Project Scientist
WHO SHOULD OF WON A NOBEL PRIZE
THEY
48
HAVE
- CRAIG VENTER. A lot of people wonder why there has been no Nobel Prize for one of science’s most humongous achievements: the completion of the human genome in 2001. Perhaps it’s the sheer humongousness. For all its importance, the human genome wasn’t a discovery or an invention—it was an engineering project, requiring the scaling up of automated DNA sequencing to industrial proportions. One might get a Prize, however, for inventing the crank in the first place. Six years before the human genome, Craig Venter and his colleagues had shown that automated DNA sequencing and an assembly technique called whole genome shotgun could be combined to read out the entire code of a free-living organism, the bacterium Haemophilus influenzae. The methods employed are essentially the same as the ones Venter’s private company later scaled up to sequence the fruit fly and human genomes, and the same as what other labs have subsequently employed to crank out the codes of hundreds of other species.
GENOME - The Nobel committee would be hard pressed to select the three scientists most responsible for this first triumph of genomics. But Venter should be among them.
WHO SHOULD OF WON A NOBEL PRIZE
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WON
SHOULD
- CARL WOESE. At a time when scientists were classifying microbes based on their shapes, Carl Woese pioneered a way to divine the relationships between them by comparing their genes. In 1977, Carl Woese overturned one of the major dogmas of biology. Until that time, biologists had taken for granted that all life on Earth belonged to one of two primary lineages, the eukaryotes (which include animals, plants, fungi and certain unicellular organisms such as paramecium) and the prokaryotes (all remaining microscopic organisms). Woese discovered that there were actually three primary lineages. Within what had previously been called prokaryotes, there exist two distinct groups of organisms no more related to one another than they were to eukaryotes. Because of Woese’s work, it is now widely agreed that there are three primary divisions of living systems. Scientists have used his techniques to catalog the smorgasbord of microbes that live in our bodies and influence our health and to chart the evolutionary relationships of organisms both large and small.
WHO SHOULD OF WON A NOBEL PRIZE
THEY
50
TREE OF LIFE - Woese died in 2012,and Nobels cannot be awarded posthumously,but it’s absurd that someone who unveiled the full extent of life should be denied by something as trivial as death.
HAVE
51
WON
SHOULD
- JONAS SALK. Jonas Edward Salk was an American medical researcher and virologist. He discovered and developed the first successful polio vaccine. In 1947, Salk took a position at University of Pittsburgh, where he began conducting research on polio, also known as infantile paralysis. By 1951, Salk had determined that there were three distinct types of polio viruses and was able to develop a “killed virus” vaccine for the disease. The vaccine used polio viruses that had been grown in a laboratory and then destroyed.
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WHO SHOULD OF WON A NOBEL PRIZE
THEY
POLIO - There is hope in dreams, imagination, and in the courage of those who wish to make those dreams a reality.
Preliminary testing of the polio vaccine began in 1952. The testing expanded over the next two years, making it one of the largest clinical trials in medical history. Roughly 2 million children were given the vaccine during the test phase. Salk’s efforts were supported and promoted by the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis and its president Basil O’Connor. When the vaccine was approved for general use in 1955, Salk became a national hero. Although Salk never received a Nobel Prize for his work, the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, Calif. has trained five Nobel Laureates.
HAVE
“I have had dreams and I have had nightmares, but I have conquered my nightmares because of my dreams.” - JONAS SALK
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- INDIRA GANDHI. Indira Gandhi was India’s third prime minister, serving from 1966 - 1984, when her life ended in assassination. She was the daughter of India’s first prime minister. Gandhi was elected president of the Indian National Congress in 1960. After her father’s death, Gandhi was appointed minister of information and broadcasting. When her father’s successor, Lal Bahadur Shastri, died abruptly in 1966, India’s congress appointed her to the post of prime minister. She surprised her father’s old colleagues when she led with a strong hand, sacking some of highest-ranking officials. Gandhi subsequently brought about great change in agricultural programs that improved the lot of her country’s poor. For a time, she was hailed as a hero. In 1971, the Pakistan army conducted violent acts against the people of East Pakistan. Nearly 10 million people fled to India. Gandhi invited the Pakistani president to Shimla for a weeklong summit. The two leaders eventually signed the Shimla Agreement, agreeing to resolve the dispute of Kashmir by peaceful means. Her work eventually led to the creation of the new and independent nation of Bangladesh.
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DIPLOMATIC SOLUTION - During the 1980s, a Sikh separatist movement developed in India, which Gandhi attempted to repress. Sikh extremists held a campaign inside the Golden Temple, and Gandhi ordered some 70,000 soldiers to purge the sacred space. More than 450 people died.
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INDIRA
GANDHI’S
PRIZE
Indira Gandhi
The Indira Gandhi Prize or the
Now, what makes Indira Gandhi
Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development is
widely debated, and in truth, the award setup in her name does follow
the prestigious award accorded
annually by India to individuals or organizations in recognition of creative efforts toward promoting international peace, development and a new international economic order; ensuring that scientific discoveries are used for the larger good of humanity, and enlarging the scope of freedom. The prize carries
a cash award of 2.5 million Indian rupees and a citation.
worthy of a nobel prize? It has been
very similar qualities of a nobel laurette would have. It is also debateable that
she would deserve a Nobel prize,
because many organisations such
as the Sikh seperatists. Despite this, prime ministers are never celebrated by every person for their efforts to achieve what ever they set out to do. So in contrast, Indira’s accompishments are enough proof to prove that she succeeded in her fathers name to a
great extent.
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Indira Gandhi Peace Prize or the
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- Indira Gandhi was assassinated in the Golden Temple by her bodyguards who were Sikh seperatists
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“Don’t call me a saint. I don’t want to be dismissed so easily.” - DOROTHY DAY
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- DOROTHY DAY. Dorothy’s mission was to help families rebuild their lives and promote peace by means of communal living and distributed wealth. Dorothy Day dedicated much of her life in service to her socialist beliefs and her adopted faith. She died on November 29, 1980, in New York City, at Maryhouse one of the Catholic settlement houses she had helped establish.The movement she created continues to thrive to this day, with more than 200 communities across the United States and another 28 communities abroad. In 2015, Pope Francis called her out as one of “four great Americans,” along with Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr. and Thomas Merton. She was never nominated for any formal prize notifcations what so ever of which many people have found to be quite a controversial choice by the committee of the nobel prize. Dorothy day is notable worthy of the Nobel Peace prize for her efforts. DOROTHY DAY - Her movements eventually spread to both Canada and Europe and are still active today.
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- DR. SIMA SAMAR. “It’s very likely the committee would like to use the opportunity to mark the situation of women in war, the whole gender issue related to conflict” A female physician who founded the Shuhada Organization and Shuhada Clinic, Dr. Sima Samar was a human rights and democracy advocate in her native country of Afghanistan. She founded the Shuhada organization when she recognized and was disturbed by the lack of health facilities for women and children. Ever since then she has been actively opposing the extremism and injustice that is commonly accepted as the status quo. She won the alternative Nobel Peace prize which acts as a political signal not to forget Afghanistan in the wake of Western troop withdrawals,” Ruttig said. Many of the country’s problems have yet to be solved, he added. She didnt recieve the actual award however unfortunately.
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Humble, straight forward and intractable - In Afghanistan, Samar is known as the “doctor of the poor,” as a woman who has dedicated her life to educating those on the fringes of society and to pur suing equality for women and univer sal human rights.
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When the Afghan physician Sima Samar learned that she was the recipient of this year’s Alternative Nobel Prize, the 55-year-old reacted with the utmost humility in a statement sent to the Swedish award committee: “I must say that in my own view I have done nothing exceptional; however, the circumstances under which I work are indeed extraordinarily difficult.” It was precisely these circumstances that prompted the Stockholmbased committee to award the prize to Samar for her decades-long efforts “under constant danger to her life” and her “courage and commitment in one of the world’s most unstable regions.” Alternative Prize - With their selection of Samar, the Alternative Nobel committee pre-empted their “regular” Nobel Prize colleagues in Oslo, where the Afghan doctor is also on the short list of favorites for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, which is scheduled to be announced in two week’s time.
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P O S T H From 1974, the Statutes of the Nobel Foundation stipulate that a Prize cannot be awarded posthumously, unless death has occurred after the announcement of the Nobel Prize. Before 1974, the Nobel Prize has only been awarded posthumously twice: to Dag HammarskjÜld (Nobel Peace Prize 1961) and Erik Axel Karlfeldt (Nobel Prize in Literature 1931). In my opinion, great people who missed the Nobel Prize like Mahatma Ghandi and Thomas Edison because they had died should be completely outruled. Life’s work of people should always be commemerated with the highest award.
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U M O U S The prize may only go to a deceased person if the recipient dies between the time the award is announced and the date the prize is awarded (December 10). This restriction probably stems from the interpretation of the original will, which speculated that the award should be given to the person who the previous year made the greatest contribution. (The Will). Even though the Nobel committee awards the prizes for contributions made much earlier than the last year, they probably thought that in the spirit of the will, the laureates should be alive when the prizes are announced.
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