The Rate-Limiting Nature of the Nobel

Alfred B. Nobel’s 1895 will reads, in part:

“All of my remaining realisable assets are to be disbursed as follows: the capital, converted to safe securities by my executors, is to constitute a fund, the interest on which is to be distributed annually as prizes to those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind,” including “one part to the person who made the most important chemical discovery or improvement.”

Though Nobel’s family was dismayed at this prospect, after five years of debate, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the first Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1901. Since then the Academy has continued to do so annually, save for eight years throughout the 20th century when no winners were awarded. Honorees of this prestigious award receive a gold medal, a diploma, and a sum of Swedish crowns equivalent to approximately $1 million.

Chemistry undergraduates will immediately recognize the first three laureates’ names. We encounter Henry van ‘t Hoff, winner of the 1901 prize, through the van ‘t Hoff equation in thermodynamics. Organic chemistry students become familiar with Emil Fischer, the 1902 laureate, via the Fischer esterification reaction and learning to draw Fischer projections. And every student of kinetics has analyzed at least a few Arrhenius plots, named for 1903 laureate Svante Arrhenius, at some point in their career.

What chemist wouldn’t want to join this pantheon of great scientists? Of course all scientists want their work to “confer the greatest benefit to humankind.” At what point, however, does pursuit of the Nobel lose its nobility?

The truth is that “Nobel fever” has infected many chemists and scientists, seeping into undergraduate educations and institutions everywhere. From the very first semester of organic chemistry, a graduate student half-jokingly suggests that for solving a great question in chemistry, you’ll win a Nobel prize. The importance of the Nobel becomes increasingly clear as professors tell us which concepts in our curriculum had won a Nobel prize in this or that year, as if its importance were validated by only the prize and not its effect on the greater world. We talk about great chemists in class as dying controversially without a Nobel, (like cross-coupling pioneer John K. Stille) as if the prize were divine judgment, with Saint Peter at the gates of heaven asking to see your gold medal before granting entry.

Frequent talk about the Nobel is not particularly motivating to undergraduates, though. More relevant to us is the content of the science — not the industry’s plaudits. The abstruse rules of the prize, such as only three individuals maximum being allowed to share one award, are inconsistent with the collaborative nature of science that we are taught to embrace and value. The system perpetuates itself: Students impressed with the Nobel’s importance will go on to view scientific achievement through this golden lens that overlooks the crucial contributions of every team member. Harvard flaunts its faculty Nobel laureates, posting extensive interviews and reaction videos with them, as if to set the expectation that professors here should be attracting Sweden’s attention. Former Harvard Chemistry chair Charles M. Lieber’s recent conviction, in which he cited Nobel aspirations, is just another consequence of working with an eye towards the Nobel.

Chemistry is widely called “the central science” for its middle position between the physical and life sciences. Lieber himself straddled the two, his research focusing on developing nanomaterials and electronics to help treat brain diseases and injuries. Chemists worldwide come to work every day to advance not just chemistry, but physics, materials science, biology, and medicine as well. Our field’s interdisciplinary work is one of its most valuable and irreplaceable strengths. We hope that this spirit of collaboration will continue to animate chemistry research everywhere.

Chemistry’s centrality has never been more apparent: The solutions to many of the world’s most pressing issues, from Covid-19 to climate change and global hunger, all depend, in one way or another, on the work of chemists and the entire scientific community. As students who make up the next generation of scientists, we affirm the power that chemical institutions have to fight diseases, preserve the natural world, and improve humanity’s quality of life. We are grateful to have role models who believe the same.

It’s time for science to free itself from Stockholm’s yoke. After all, those who stay up late waiting for a certain midnight call will sleep through saving the world in the morning.

Lauren Kim ’23 is a joint concentrator in Chemistry and Bioengineering in Eliot House. She is the Publicity Chair of the Harvard Chemistry Club.