CNN —
Some of the most brilliant minds in science will be catapulted from academic obscurity next week when the Nobel Prizes in physics, chemistry, and medicine or physiology are announced.
The honors, established by Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel more than a century ago, represent the pinnacle of scientific achievement, celebrating transformative breakthroughs that are often decades in the making.
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Rees said one challenge for the Nobel committees is the increasingly collaborative nature of most scientific research. The image of the lone genius having a eureka moment is long gone, if it ever truly existed. Additionally, discoveries can be made simultaneously by different teams.
However, the Nobel selection committees, according to the rules laid down by Alfred Nobel in 1895, can only honor up to three people per prize. This requirement can prove to be a headache, Rees said.
“It may be a project where several people have done work in parallel, and they single out some and not others. It may be that there’s a team, and it’s not obvious that the ones they’ve singled from the team are the dominant figures,” said Rees, who is the UK’s astronomer royal and author of “If Science Is to Save Us.”
For example, the 2017 Nobel in physics recognized the detection of gravitational waves — “ripples” in space generated by colliding black holes 1 billion or more light-years away. The key papers reporting this discovery had almost 1,000 authors, Rees noted. However, only three were rewarded the prize — Rainer Weiss, Barry Barish and Kip Thorne.
Similarly, one often discussed candidate for the medicine or chemistry Nobel Prize is the mapping of the human genome, a transformative project that was only fully completed in 2022 and involved hundreds of people.
David Pendlebury, head of research analysis at Clarivate’s Institute for Scientific Information, who identifies “Nobel worthy” individuals by analyzing how often fellow scientists cite their key scientific papers throughout the years, agrees that the three-person rule is a constraint.
“It really has become a huge transformation in science that it’s more and more team science — huge groups tackling more difficult problems, international collaborative networks,” Pendlebury said. “This rule of three does seem to be an impediment if they wanted to recognize a team.”
Gravitational wave. Gravity waves are something different and I don’t think they were ever the cause of a Nobel prize.marcusl said:That’s pretty much what they did for the gravity wave prize.
The "Rule of Three" refers to the Nobel Prize's practice of limiting the number of recipients for each prize to a maximum of three individuals. This rule is applied across the scientific categories of Physics, Chemistry, and Medicine, and aims to ensure that the contributions being recognized are both significant and clearly attributable to a small group of key individuals.
The "Rule of Three" was established to maintain the prestige and clarity of the Nobel Prize by ensuring that only the most significant contributors to a discovery or advancement are recognized. It helps to avoid diluting the honor by spreading it too thinly among a large group of people, which could potentially diminish the perceived impact of the award.
Critics argue that the "Rule of Three" can be unfair and overly restrictive, as modern scientific research often involves large collaborative teams. This rule can result in deserving contributors being left out, which can be particularly problematic in fields where interdisciplinary and team-based research is the norm. Additionally, it may not accurately reflect the collaborative nature of contemporary scientific work.
While the "Rule of Three" has been a longstanding tradition, there have been calls from the scientific community to revise it to better accommodate the collaborative nature of modern research. However, as of now, the Nobel Prize committees have largely upheld the rule, emphasizing the importance of maintaining the prize's prestige and clear attribution of significant contributions.
Yes, there have been several instances where the "Rule of Three" has led to controversy. One notable example is the 2008 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, awarded for the discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein (GFP). Only three scientists—Osamu Shimomura, Martin Chalfie, and Roger Y. Tsien—were recognized, while other significant contributors, such as Douglas Prasher, were not included despite their crucial roles in the discovery. This led to discussions about the limitations and fairness of the "Rule of Three."