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The
Nobel Prize—The first 100 years
by Renan Uflacker, M.D.
Radiology
The year 2001 marks the 100th anniversary of the Nobel prizes.
More than 700 laureates have received this prize for their outstanding
contributions to human kind. The prize goes to persons recognized for achievements
in physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, peace and economics.
The Nobel Prize is the most coveted intellectual prize of all, and
perhaps the most controversial, as well. To the intellectual world, a Nobel
Prize is as desirable as an Oscar to an actor or Olympic gold to an athlete.
However, the dignity, etiquette and formality that are the hallmark of
Nobel prize-giving are a world away from the self-congratulatory exercise
of the Oscars. Yet the prizes are undisputed arbiters of greatness. They
have come to represent a universal view of the world, not a Scandinavian
one.
It might be difficult for us, as common people, to understand what
an individual laureate has done that is so admirable, particularly in some
cryptic areas of sciences. But it is easier to understand the Nobel stamp
of approval. The Nobel brand name has survived for 100 years and thrived,
rather than lose its impact in the midst of the controversies that frequently
surrounded it.
The prize's prestige has a lot to do with Alfred Nobel himself. Best
known as the inventor of dynamite, he was a very creative man, with dozens
of patented inventions to his credit. He also was an entrepreneur who built
a 19th century business empire throughout Europe and the United States
that was a precursor of the multinational enterprises of today.
Born in Sweden, Alfred Nobel grew up in Saint Petersburg, Russia, where
his father worked for the Russian Imperial Army as an engineer specializing
in explosives. Alfred Nobel became very wealthy, producing and selling
dynamite, in a time of construction boom at the end of the 19th century.
Roads, railroads built throughout the world and the Panama canal were some
of the projects that depended on his dynamite supplies. Nobel traveled
worldwide, on ship, train, horse and carriage to oversee and manage the
company and the ongoing projects. With time he established five residencies
in different parts of the world, all with a private laboratory for the
pursuit of his personal projects.
Despite being a “globalist” long before the term was invented, Nobel
was a lonely, melancholic man with a passion for poems of Shelley, and,
in his own words, “digested philosophy more efficiently than food.” He
was constantly haunted by the premature death of his brother, and business
partner, in an accident with explosives, which led him to invent the dynamite,
solving the problem of the instability of nitroglycerin. He never settled
in one country and never married. Although he did have several female partners
throughout his life he did not have any children.
By the time he died in 1896, in Italy, Nobel had built a considerable
fortune. His will dictated that a fund should be constituted by his will
executors and the whole capital of his realizable estate should be invested
in safe securities, and the interest on which should be distributed in
the form of prizes to those who, during the preceding year, conferred the
greatest benefit on mankind.
Nobel changed his will countless times but the final version can be
excerpted as follows: “The interest of the investment shall be divided
in five equal parts. One part to the person who shall have made the most
important discovery or invention in the field of physics; one part to the
person who shall have made the most important chemical discovery
or improvement; one part to the person who shall have made the most important
discovery within the domain of physiology or medicine; one part to the
person who shall have produced in the field of literature the most outstanding
work of an idealistic tendency; and one part to the person who shall have
done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the
abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion
of peace congresses.
The prizes for physics and chemistry shall be awarded by the Swedish
Academy of sciences; that for physiology or medical works by the Karolinska
Institute in Stockholm; that for literature by the Academy in Stockholm
and for champions of peace by a committee of five persons to be elected
by the Norwegian Storting” (Norwegian Parliament).
In congruence with his globalist view of the world, and in defiance
of the nationalistic spirit of the times he further stated: “In awarding
of the prizes no consideration be given to the nationality of the candidates,
but that the most worthy shall receive the prize, whether he be Scandinavian
or not.”
The Nobel Foundation was incorporated to administer the prizes and
run the finances, and the first Nobel Prizes were awarded in 1901. A sixth
prize, for economics, was added in 1969 to celebrate the 300th anniversary
of the Swedish central bank The first individual prize in 1901 was SKr150,000,
this year each prize is worth SKr10,000,000, or about US$1,000,000.
Controversy started on day one of the Nobel Prize history. The Scandinavians
were outraged that others than Scandinavians would be considered to receive
the award. When the first literature prize went to a little-known French
author, Sully Prudhomme, in 1901, rather than Tolstoy, already one
of the most prominent authors in the world, there was uproar on the streets
of Europe.
The most likely prizes to provoke controversy are the ones in the fields
of literature and peace. Henry Kissinger was awarded one for peace, but
Gandhi wasn't. Churchill, in 1953, got one for literature but Tolstoy didn't.
Few peace awards have been more controversial than that awarded to Henry
Kissinger in 1973, a brilliant man but associated more with the fighting
in Vietnam than any peace that followed. More recently, in 1994, Yassir
Arafat, Simon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin shared the Peace Prize, awarded by
the Norwegian Peace Prize committee in recognition of the importance of
the Oslo accord as a milestone for peace in the Middle East. We now know
how important that milestone was, or wasn’t.
The award of the Nobel to Martin Luther King Jr., in 1964, however,
is an unanimity. This year the Norwegian Nobel Committee will have to think
long and careful about the peace prize. Following the unfortunate events
here in US the committee should feel inappropriate to award a peace prize
for 2001.
While winning a Nobel prize has catapulted into the spotlight some
people that would be otherwise in perennial obscurity, there is no guarantee
of lasting celebrity. Nowadays, being recommended in Oprah's book club
generates more sales of books worldwide than winning the Nobel Prize of
literature.
Some argue that winning the prize is the kiss of death for future
creativity; others that the prizes only go to people already past their
prime, already in retirement or close to death due to old age.
However, in regards to science, the appreciation for a breakthrough
achievement and the realization of the importance of a discovery may take
several years. The development of the research in some areas take time
and the original author of the idea or discovery may not be the one that
finds the application or put together the final facts and confirmation
for the achievement.
In literature there is no less controversy than in other areas. Any
list of the 10 most famous writers who did not get the Nobel would match
a list of the 10 most famous who did. In literature, it seems that the
recognition of the body of work of the author is more important than the
individual work or exceptional book published in the preceding years. The
tendency is to award mature authors, instead of younger generation, creative
writers.
Some say that the Swedish Academy should create an equivalent to the
“Salon de Refuses” (in analogy to the, now overwhelmingly famous,
impressionist painters to whom were refused access to the official exhibition
of the French Academy of Arts in 1863, and promoted a separate exhibition),
listing the many great writers of the 20th century who did not win the
prize and giving the reasons.
Even in their own back yard, the Nobel committee ignored Ibsen. But
Ibsen was Norwegian, not Swedish. The French writer Jean-Paul Sartre, is
one of only two people to refuse a Nobel Prize. He held that such honor
could interfere with a writer’s responsibilities to his readers (the other
was Le Duc Tho, co-winner with Kissinger of the peace prize in 1973).
Only a handful of females have won the prize(15), although the exceptional
Marie Curie received the Nobel Prize in physics in 1903 and chemistry in
1911, joining a very exclusive club, of two time winners, with Linus Pauling
(1954 chemistry and 1962 peace).
This happened at a time when women were not supposed to get an education,
much less be a scientist. Other women also won the prize, in literature,
peace and sciences (including Irene Joliot-Curie, chemistry in 1935, Marie
Curie’s daughter) and it seems that to the Nobel Committee there is an
increased awareness of the role of women in sciences, literature and world
events, as demonstrated by the current Nobel Foundation’s Centennial Exhibition
in Stockholm.
The competence of the judges has also been forever questioned because
it consists of Swedes and Norwegians only, theoretically lacking the universality
necessary to judge the heights of human intellectual and scientific achievements.
Every time the annual list of prize recipients is published, dozens of
writers, scientists and pacifists throughout the world are pointed out
by the media and critics as deserving the recognition of the Nobel Prize,
but had been forgotten.
In physiology and medicine there are many examples of overlooked scientists,
even from Sweden. Sven Seldinger from the Karolinska Institute, home of
the Nobel committee for physiology and medicine, developed in 1953, what
is called now the “percutaneous technique,” consisting of the needle replacement
with a guidewire, for catheter insertion in the vascular system. This simple
contribution allowed a complete revolution in medicine with the performance,
throughout the world, of literally millions of lifesaving catheterization
procedures every year, for the past 50 years.
Seldinger was never considered for the Nobel prize and died anonymously
in 1998. On the other hand the Nobel Committee was too fast in awarding
the Nobel of medicine in 1949 to the Portuguese scientist Dos Santos for
the development of the now infamous frontal cerebral lobotomy, using a
needle inserted through the eye socket. Paradoxically, the same scientist
had developed the technique of cerebral angiography with the intravascular
injection of iodinated contrast material, in 1920, which was the major
breakthrough for the study of the brain for most of the 20th century, and
went unrecognized by the Nobel committee.
Even Albert Einstein was a victim of this oversight. He received the
Nobel prize in physics for an important but minor contribution, related
to the explanation of the so called Brownian movement of the molecules,
which palled in comparison with his major achievement related to the development
of the theory of the relativity. Maybe the committee settled for
the less controversial achievement.
For all the controversy, however, the reputation of the Nobel is secure.
The prizes would not have retained their prestige if the judges had not
made the right decisions often enough. The system, however, may have to
change, to allow more than three winners to share each prize. Currently,
only the peace prize can be won by an organization or institution. In sciences,
it is necessary to allow a team, a group, or a department to win. The way
science is nowadays, there is almost no single scientist that is truly
responsible for one achievement. Science is a team effort.
Courage to think in entirely new directions, daring to question established
theories, innovative combinations of insights from different fields— these
are some of the characteristics of creative ability that are considered
for the Nobel award, and that, has been the reality of the Nobel Prize
for the last 100 years. The commemorations of the anniversary of the Noble
Prize include a Centennial Exhibition at the Nobel Museum in Gamla Stan,
in the heart of Stockholm. The main theme of the exhibition is creativity:
“What is creativity and how can creativity best be encouraged?” “Which
is more important to the creative process: the individual or the environment?”
The centennial exhibition illustrates these questions by presenting the
laureates and respective milieus from the 100-year history of the Nobel
Prize.
The exhibition, however, does not provide any answers, but gives the
visitor the chance to ponder over these questions.
Visiting this museum we think. We think about access to education,
quality of education, freedom of choice, professional choice, academic
freedom, needs of support to create the milieu, development of scientific
endeavors, inspiration, hard work, challenge, curiosity.
We think creativity.
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