HAGEN: A Nobel nominee’s guide to the prizes

We are in the midst of the hottest award season of the year – Nobel Prize season. On Monday the first prize was handed out in medicine to Robert Edwards, the “father of the test tube baby,” while on Tuesday the award for physics was given to Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, who have managed to isolate the atoms of the strongest material known to man – graphene. Just how strong is it? Let’s just say it is even stronger than BU’s print quota is ridiculous so it is some pretty tough stuff. On Wednesday the honor in chemistry was bestowed upon Richard Heck, Ei-ichi Negishi and Akira Suzuki for “palladium-catalyzed cross couplings in organic synthesis, which is really as simple as it sounds. Today all that boring science stuff ends and literature will be announced while Friday the granddaddy prize of them all will be declared – the Peace Prize. There seems to be an air of mystery that enshrouds these annual accolades and very few people actually know about the process by which they are awarded. It is a surprisingly simple procedure and you don’t have to be Einstein, winner of the 1921 prize for physics, to understand it.

First, ballots are sent out by the Nobel Committee to experts in the various fields in September and are due back by Jan. 31 of the award year. Basically if you discover something awesome, do it in the last week of January when all the nominators are rushing to scribble down something and turn it in before the deadline. Three hundred candidates are then selected from the entries and none of these names will be announced publicly, nor are the candidates themselves informed of their nomination. In fact, all records of the selections are kept in a sealed envelope for 50 years and so technically anyone can declare they are a Nobel Prize nominee and the claim cannot be refuted for at least the next half century. Therefore, beginning this February, I will introduce myself as a nominee for the Nobel Prize in Literature and will continue to do so until 2061. Unless of course my insightful article last week on death, in which I bravely explored the possibility of drowning in elephant poo, deservedly wins the prize between now and then. In that case I could introduce myself as a winner for the first time in my life.

So, how are the winners chosen? The council gives a vague description of the process, which includes writing a detailed report about the candidates and then taking a majority vote. Given that the awards’ founder, Alfred Nobel, was also the inventor of dynamite I would have liked to think it involved a more exciting, if not more dangerous, method.

Winners receive a metal and a certificate, kind of like when you received the participation metal and “wacky” awards from your coaches at the end of Little League season. Think of President Obama’s 2009 Peace Prize win as equivalent to my “overrated player of the year” award (apparently I had an unusually cruel little league coach. Thanks Dad). Oh, and you also win $1.5 million but I think most people are pretty jazzed by those certificates.

Along with the Nobel Prizes, the lesser-known but just as important, Ig Nobels are also presented. These awards tend to focus on the lighter side of science and this year the winners include researchers who devised a revolutionary method to collect whale snot, observed bats performing fellatio and proved that swearing after stubbing your toe is beneficial to the healing process. How the development of in-vitro fertilization is considered more important than the collection of whale mucus (I hear it is a wonderful facial moisturizer) is beyond me, but it is nice to know these important discoveries are being honored as well. The ceremony is held at Sanders Theatre at Harvard University in front of a packed house. I was surprised to hear it is so well attended given the impossibly copious amounts of homework Harvard students have, at least compared to BU (ahem, Mr. Sorkin).

Now most importantly, how can you win a Nobel Prize? Honestly, the easiest way is to become a brutal dictator, terrorize your region and then sign some sort of peace treaty. Or perhaps try finding the cure for cancer, AIDS or male-pattern baldness. Of course, if these suggestions seem too difficult then just aim lower and try and win an Ig Nobel, which I am planning on. Now if you will excuse me I have a narwhal mating ritual I have to go observe.