Author Topic: Should the Nobel Prizes be cancelled?  (Read 688 times)

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rangerrebew

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Should the Nobel Prizes be cancelled?
« on: January 30, 2019, 06:15:50 pm »

Should the Nobel Prizes be cancelled?

Have the world's most prestigious awards lost their gloss, and how might they get it back? Physicist Brian Keating explores the issue.


If you ever meet someone who claims to have nearly won the Nobel Prize in mathematics, walk away: You’re dealing with a deeply delusional individual. While there isn’t, and has never been, a Nobel in mathematics, the desire to claim Nobel-worthiness is sensible, for no matter the field, it is the world’s most prestigious accolade.

The annual prizes are Sweden’s most sacred holiday, bringing out royalty in the arts and sciences and a worldwide audience of millions to witness an event featuring the pomp and circumstance typically associated with the naming of a new pope. Indeed, the prizes are so important to Sweden’s national identity that the king of Sweden recently took the unprecedented step of canceling the Nobel Prize in literature for 2018. What would cause King Gustaf to take such an extraordinary step? Simply put, he did so for the same reason that Alfred Nobel founded the awards to begin with: public relations.

Chemist and inventor Alfred Nobel was once called “the merchant of death” for his arms dealership’s role in “killing more people faster than ever before.” To rehabilitate the Nobel name, Alfred created the eponymous prizes with a mission that the awards be “for the benefit of mankind.”

https://cosmosmagazine.com/society/should-the-nobel-prizes-be-cancelled