Nobel Prize

The Nobel Prize is a well-known award for achievements in physics, chemistry, medicine or physiology, literature, peace and economics, though the latter is technically not a "real" Nobel Prize. With the exception of Economics, the Nobel Prizes were first given out in 1901. The award for economics, the "Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel", had been added as a prize in 1969.

Nomination and Selection

To nominate somebody for a Nobel Prize, the nominating party must meet the requirements outlined for the specific category or has to be invited.

The Nobel Prizes are represented externally by the Nobel Foundation, a private institution entrusted with protecting the common interests of the Prize Awarding Institutions. However, the Nobel Foundation is not involved with the selection process itself. The Prize-Awarding Institutes are independent of government agencies and the Nobel Foundation itself.

Omissions

Over the years, there have been cases in which some people felt that a person should have received a Nobel Prize for his or her work.

Mahatma Gandhi

Possibly the most well-known case had been Mahatma Gandhi, who had been nominated 12 times for the Nobel Peace Prize without success. The Nobel Foundation has an information page detailing his nominations and the potential reasons for his lack of success. Among other things, these statements can be found on the page:

The omission has been publicly regretted by later members of the Nobel Committee; when the Dalai Lama was awarded the Peace Prize in 1989, the chairman of the committee said that this was "in part a tribute to the memory of Mahatma Gandhi".

Up to 1960, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded almost exclusively to Europeans and Americans. In retrospect, the horizon of the Norwegian Nobel Committee may seem too narrow. Gandhi was very different from earlier Laureates. He was no real politician or proponent of international law, not primarily a humanitarian relief worker and not an organiser of international peace congresses. He would have belonged to a new breed of Laureates.

Raymond Damadian

A case in which a scientist openly voiced that he should have received a Nobel Prize was Raymond Damadian. In 2003, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine went to Paul Lauterbur and Peter Mansfield "for their discoveries concerning magnetic resonance imaging". Damadian, who had outlined the use of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance to detect tumors in 1971, protested against his omission from the Prize and said that his "life's work has been stricken". He then took out full-page ads in several newspapers, describing his omission as a "shameful wrong". The first wave of ads appeared in The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, Dagens Nyheter (daily newspaper in Stockholm), and The New York Times.

A possible explanation of Damadian's exclusion could be that, even though it was one of the pioneers of using magnetic resonance in medicine, his work did not lead to the magnetic resonance imaging the Nobel Prize was awarded for.

However, there are others who argue that he did not receive a Nobel Prize because of his views. Damadian is a Young Earth Creationist, leading some to conclude that this influenced the selection process.