Nobel Errors

Every year, the awarding of the Nobel Prizes and the subsequent announcement of the winners gives ample opportunity to make snide remarks and scope for a good gripe. Did the right person get it or was the wrong person overlooked and went away empty-handed? Was the award given from political motivation or was it handed out on the basis of a great discovery? The Nobel Prize has many stories that range from strange to touching and outright tragic.

The most fought over and most often prone to lead to discussions is the Nobel Peace Prize. The European Union or Barack Obama - just to name two winners of recent times - do not appear to have been a particularly happy choice. In retrospect, this also holds true for the award of 1994. That year, PLO leader Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin were honoured; it is always difficult when a terrorist receives recognition. Reason for the committee's decision was the Gaza-Jericho Agreement and the hope for peace in the Middle East. The course of history shows that this was a major mistake.
 
The award to Menachem Begin in 1978 was a similar mistake. Later, members of the Nobel Committee apologized for the decision. Menachem Begin was the leader of an underground organization that perpetrated lethal attacks against British Mandate authorities in 1948. In 1978, The committee didn't know of these atrocities, or maybe just didn't want to know about them.

Sometimes, the Nobel Peace Price is awarded as a lifeline to political prisoners. German publisher and author Carl von Ossietzky was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1935 when Adolf Hitler was consolidating his grip on power in Germany. He had made the secret rearmament of the German Reichswehr public to the world and as a consequence was interned in a concentration camp (today, the US government calls such people terrorist helpers and traitors, too; doesn't that make you think?). He was released after the announcement of the award, but at the order of the Nazis was not allowed to accept the award.

The Nobel Peace Prize in 2010 should also have served in a saving mission. It went to the Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo. Following the announcement of this award, he was released from prison but is still under house arrest. Like Carl von Ossietzky, he could not accept the price personally.

Albert Einstein was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921. It was not awarded for his work on the general theory of relativity as you would expect. He received it for the little known publication of his explanation of the photoelectric effect. Critics claim that the committee was just too stupid to understand his theory of relativity.
 
Lise Meitner's contribution to the understanding of nuclear fission was overlooked by the committee, too. According to the laudatory speech, she had "only" found out how much energy is being released in the process and explained the result relatively simple formulas.

Occasionally, there were genuine mistakes. Danish pathologist John Grib Fibiger was awarded the 1926 Nobel Prize for Medicine for his discovery that a small nematode did trigger stomach cancer. This assumption later proved to be completely wrong.
 
Canadian John Macleod was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1923. While his employees discovered insulin, he himself had actually been on holiday and in no way involved in the process.

Similarly, the relevant facts in the case of Selman Waksman point in an other direction. The American was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1952 for his discovery of streptomycin. In fact, the antibiotic was the discovery of his student Albert Schatz.

And at least once, the committee was completely wrong. Anthony Hewish was cited in 1974 for his "decisive role in the discovery of pulsars". Actually, all the work was done by his doctoral student Jocelyn Bell Burnell.

By content of the original deed, dead people can't receive an award. Sadly, the history of Canadian immune researcher Ralph Steinman partly overturned that inflexible rule. He died three days before the announcement of his win in 2011. The jurors were told of his death only after the prize had been awarded to him. Although the price may actually be awarded only to living people, the jury awarded a Nobel Prize posthumously.

Winston Churchill also graces the list of winners. But Mr. "No Sports" did not receive the Nobel Peace Prize, but the Nobel Prize in Literature. This was justified by his oratory and his biographical writing. The literary world reacted surprised and slightly annoyed. Only the winner was not surprised. When Winston Churchill received the news of having won the Nobel Prize, he just asked, "In which discipline?"

There is a group of multiple winners. A Nobel Prize was awarded twice to only four people ever. In addition to Marie Curie (1903 for Physics and 1911 for Chemistry), Linus Pauling (for Chemistry in 1954 and in 1962 for Peace) and John Bardeen (in 1956 and 1972 respectively for Physics) there was also Frederick Sanger (1958 and 1980 respectively for Chemistry). Of this illustrious list, only Linus Pauling didn't have to share his prizes with someone else.

When Albert Einstein received the Nobel Prize in 1921, he could not enjoy the prize money: He had promised the money to his wife Mileva to get her to consent to a divorce.

Something similar happened to Robert Lucas. His wife had consented to the divorce only if she gets half the prize money should he be an award winner. Nearly seven years later and a few weeks before the deadline of the agreement, her ex-husband received the news of the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1995.

The list of "unlucky" losers is long. Some incomprehensible jury decisions will always remain uncorrected. Mahatma Gandhi failed three times to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. During the fourth attempt, the signs were better. Before the committee meeting took place, he was murdered.

Vilhelm Bjerknes was no terrorist, yet the committee begrudged him the prize. The Norwegian meteorologist was nominated more than 50 times for a Nobel Prize. He never got it. The same happened to German physicist Friedrich Paschen who was nominated 45 times.

It's hard to imagine, but Adolf Hitler was once on the list of nominees for the Nobel Peace Prize. Swedish member of parliament Erik Brandt had nominated him. The nomination was made in protest in 1939. Erik Brandt was outraged that shortly before, British Prime Minister Chamberlain was proposed because of his policy of appeasement. Brandt removed the nomination later. However, it is still shown on the official website of the Nobel Committee.

Further reading
Prophet of The Great War
Robert Koch: With System Against Disease
First Family of Science