Changes

First, the recipient must be living at the time of the selection.  (This is true for all Nobel Prizes.)  Tragically, Rosalind Franklin, who worked with [[James Watson]] and [[Francis Crick]] on the discovery of the DNA code, died before she could receive the award.  Peter Higgs lived to see the discovery of the Higgs Boson confirmed, receiving the award at the age of 84, after a wait of more than 50 years.  Many people were concerned that he might not make it.

First, the recipient must be living at the time of the selection.  (This is true for all Nobel Prizes.)  Tragically, Rosalind Franklin, who worked with [[James Watson]] and [[Francis Crick]] on the discovery of the DNA code, died before she could receive the award.  Peter Higgs lived to see the discovery of the Higgs Boson confirmed, receiving the award at the age of 84, after a wait of more than 50 years.  Many people were concerned that he might not make it.

Second, and perhaps most importantly, the discovery, if it is a theoretical one, must have withstood the test of time.  This means that extremely important achievements sometimes go unrecognized for decades (as in Peter Higgs' case), as the scientific community decides whether it really had the necessary far-reaching qualities.  The Nobel committee does not like to find that something they awarded a prize for turned out to be wrong.  Some theoretical advances that seemed very profound and revolutionary turned out to be wrong.  Some examples are [[Fred Hoyle]]'s "steady state creation" theory, which essentially created the field of cosmology, at a time when it was not yet a respectable field of study.  He made other groundbreaking contributions to cosmology (for example, explaining where the chemical elements came from), but never received a Nobel.  Another example was the Brans-Dicke gravitation theory.  Robert Dicke never received a Nobel, even though he had other groundbreaking insights into the Big Bang theory and the cosmic background radiation, devised very sensitive tests of General Relativity, and invented equipment used in a lot of astronomical observations.

Second, and perhaps most importantly, the discovery, if it is a theoretical one, must have withstood the test of time.  This means that extremely important achievements sometimes go unrecognized for decades (as in Peter Higgs' case), as the scientific community decides whether it really had the necessary far-reaching qualities.  The Nobel committee does not like to find that something they awarded a prize for turned out to be wrong.  Some theoretical advances that seemed very profound and revolutionary turned out to be wrong.  An example is [[Fred Hoyle]]'s "steady state creation" theory, which essentially created the field of cosmology, at a time when it was not yet a respectable field of study.  He made other groundbreaking contributions to cosmology (for example, explaining where the chemical elements came from), but never received a Nobel.  Another example was the Brans-Dicke gravitation theory.  Robert Dicke never received a Nobel, even though he had other groundbreaking insights into the Big Bang theory and the cosmic background radiation, devised very sensitive tests of General Relativity, and invented equipment used in a lot of astronomical observations.

So it's really hard to say.

So it's really hard to say.