Saturday, October 28, 2006

Nobel Prizes

Nobel prizes are the symbol of achievement for any person in the six fields, physics, chemistry, biology, peace, literature and economics. Nobel Prizes, started by Alfred Nobel who didnt give a dime to his children but bequeathed all his fortune to these prizes (well except Economics which is given by Bank of Sweden in the memory of Alfred Nobel) have had lots of eminent winners down the years.

Still I feel the Nobel Prizes missed out on lots of people who deserved it notably Mahatma Gandhi and also gave prizes for wrong reasons like the one given to Einstein for Photoelectric Effect not for relativity saying(unofficially of course) that relativity was way out whereas gave the prize to Bohr, whose theory was way out and proved wrong eventually.

The Prizes are hyped due to their heritage, the money and the past winners. I strongly feel its the winners who have made Nobel Prizes the most coveted medal for scientists and other people.

Also I feel science is moving away from the common man especially the science prizes. Earlier science was much closer to the common man especially Physics where a common man could comprehend what was going on. After seeing the citation for this year's winners one will say "What the HELL is going on!!".

In this way IG Nobel prizes are much better. Cool inventions, cooler ideas and much much closer to the common man!!

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