The Convertible Nobel
Nobel Prizes have been awarded for over a century now. A century ago, citizens of the Russian Empire were among its first laureates. Fifty years later, the Nobel Committee began to take notice of citizens of the USSR. Today, Russians have once again received this most prestigious international award. Winners of the prize in physics in 2003 were Russians Aleksei Abrikosov and Vitaly Ginzburg. Unique for both its prestige and for its monetary value (more than $1 million in recent years), the prize is not only a mark of honor, but at times is also a bone of contention.
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| Photo: Ilya Pitalev |
| Vitaly Ginzburg, head of the theory group at the Lebedev Physical Institute, won the Nobel Prize in physics in 2003. The Nobel Committee’s announcement emphasizes that “the prize is awarded to three scientists who have made a vital contribution to explaining two phenomena of quantum physics: superconductivity and superfluidity.” |
Arguments over how to determine the winners have been going on for a long time. Members of the Nobel Committee are often criticized for one thing or another, for example, for distributing prizes on the basis of citizenship or nationality. The list of winners of the prize in literature sometimes contains some very exotic names, and the absence of many great writers and poets of the 20th century is obvious. Many think it unfair that an overwhelming number of winners have been citizens of the United States.
The Nobel Committee has also been criticized for occasionally awarding the prize to people who do not deserve it and of not awarding it to people who do deserve it. A constant, but quite valid criticism is that the prize sometimes takes too long to find its winner (this is especially true for the physics prize), and as a result recipients are honored in old age for work they did in their youth. In addition, in this day and age, the boundaries between various scientific disciplines are becoming increasingly blurred, so that sometimes a physicist receives the prize in medicine and a chemist receives the prize in physics.
It is impossible to please everyone when awarding Nobel Prizes. Not only talent, but also a certain amount of luck is needed to become a winner. The large number of international science and literary prizes may reflect someone’s desire to make sure that not only the Nobel Committee decides who is the most talented physicist, chemist, physiologist, writer, or peacemaker.
All the Article in Russian as of Jan. 12, 2004
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