Nobel Prize controversies
| Nobel Prize | |
|---|---|
| Awarded for | Outstanding contributions in physics, chemistry, literature, peace, and physiology or medicine. The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, identified with the Nobel Prize, is awarded for outstanding contributions in Economics. |
| Country | Sweden / Norway |
| Presented by |
Swedish Academy Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Karolinska Institutet Norwegian Nobel Committee |
| First awarded | 1901 |
| Official website | http://www.webcitation.org/5EsureXKk?url=http://nobelprize.org |
After his death in 1896, the will of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel established the Nobel Prizes. Nobel's will specified that annual prizes are to be awarded for service to humanity in the fields of physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature, and peace. Similarly, the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel is awarded along with the Nobel Prizes. Since the first award in 1901, the prizes have occasionally engendered criticism and controversy.
Nobel sought to reward "those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind". One prize, he stated, should be given "to the person who shall have made the most important 'discovery' or 'invention' within the field of physics". Awards committees have historically rewarded discoveries over inventions: 77% of Nobel Prizes in physics have been given to discoveries, compared with only 23% to inventions. In addition, the scientific prizes typically reward contributions over an entire career rather than a single year.
No Nobel Prize was established for mathematics and many other scientific and cultural fields. An early theory that jealousy led Nobel to omit a prize to mathematician Gösta Mittag-Leffler was refuted because of timing inaccuracies. Another possibility is that Nobel did not consider mathematics as a practical discipline. Both the Fields Medal and the Abel Prize have been described as the "Nobel Prize of mathematics".
The most notorious controversies have been over prizes for Literature, Peace and Economics. Beyond disputes over which contributor's work was more worthy, critics most often discerned political bias and Eurocentrism in the result. The interpretation of Nobel's original words concerning the Literature prize has also undergone repeated revisions.
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