Quirky Nobel
Didn't know that the Nobel prize when shared could actually be shared unevenly. Was looking at this year's Nobel prize winners for physics.
http://nobelprize.org/physics/laureates/2005/index.html
The man from the bluest of the educational blue chips, Harvard, has been awarded 1/2 of the prize while the other 2 laureates have been awarded 1/4 prize each!!
I then decided to check out a few other shared winners to see if they got the lion's share.
1965 - Physics, Feynman won (shared by 3, equally),
1983 - Physics, Chandrashekar won (shared by 2, equally again).
1994 - Economics, Nash won (again, shared equally by 3)
Ok, finally, got another unequal sharing. 1903, Physics. Henri Becquerel was awarded 1/2 of the prize. The other 2 were awarded 1/4 each. But, in this case, unlike 2005, the other 2 were awarded for delta (additional) contribution on the same phenomenon that Henri Bequerel discovered. So it's a bit more understandable.
I wonder if the other 2 laureates this year actually feel bad about this.. :-)
posted by Dinesh @ 9:39 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
I guess its based on their contribution to that "particular subject". For example, in 1903, Becquerel was awarded for radioactivity and most of Marie & Pierre curie's work was based on Becquerel's invention. That explains why he got the lion's half !
For me the interesting Nobel Prize (when it comes to sharing) is in Economics. In 1974 , Fredreick Hayek (a true blood Adam-smithian free markets guy) and Gunnar Myrdal ( A popular keynesian) were jointly awarded the prize. They represent exactly the opposite sides of Economics and are bitter critics of each other's views !(The rumor was that Myrdal even refused to shake hands or photograph together with Hayek !).
@cogito,
Interesting anecdote on Hayek..
I did mention that 1903 case was understandable. Think you didn't read the last paragraph :)
But this year's seemed to be in different realms. Ofcourse, physicists will know why the Harvard professor got the lion's share.
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