As a college student at Gustavus Adolphus College more than 50 years ago, Thomas Annesley would attend the Nobel Conference held there each October. During one of these events, Annesley came across agronomist Norman Borlaug, who had won the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize for his work on the green revolution, which transformed agriculture to drastically increase food production and save over a billion people from starvation.
“I heard him talk and I met him and I got to realize that the Norman Borlaug that I got to talk to was probably different than the Norman Borlaug that the general public thought about,” recalled Annesley, now a clinical chemistry emeritus professor at the University of Michigan. “People hear about the Nobel Prize, and they see the ceremonies, tuxedos, and banquets…and they seem to think that’s what the Nobel Prize is: ceremonies, powerful people who get rich off of a discovery, pomp and circumstance.”
Clinical chemist Thomas Annesley highlights unexpected links between daily life and Nobel history in his new book.
Thomas Annesley
Since his meeting with Borlaug, Annesley has met more than 40 Nobel laureates including medical physicist Rosalyn Yalow and chemist Linus Pauling. He would often spend time with them driving to or from the airport or having dinner with them, which offered interesting insights. “I started realizing that there was a whole different side to the story about the Nobel Prizes and the laureates,” said Annesley. “I realized Nobel laureates are everyday people.”
Wanting to convey this human side of Nobel laureates, Annesley penned a book titled Beer and the Nobel Prize, which is on display at the Nobel Prize Museum. Through this book, published a few months ago, Annesley hopes to make Nobel laureates more real for readers, helping them see these prize winners beyond distant people who spend all their time writing or working in a lab.
Beer, Pajamas, and the Nobel Prizes
Despite having thought of the concept of such a book many years ago, the turning point came about six years ago when Annesley was having beer at the Nobel conference with “a well-known person who we agreed we just keep anonymous.”
As their conversation—and beer—flowed, Annesley told this person that he had heard that the secret to purifying insulin actually came from somebody who worked at a brewery. To which, the famous person replied saying, “Did you know that the Nobel committee couldn't find Peter Higgs [to inform him of winning the Prize in Physics in 2013]…because he was out having fish and chips and a beer at lunch?”
This led Annesley and his companion down a rabbit hole talking about the connection between beer and the Nobel Prizes, including that a Danish brewery offered physicist Niels Bohr a lifetime supply of beer after he won the Nobel Prize in 1922. When Annesley wondered whether everybody knew these beer stories, his dinner companion said, “Somebody’s got to tell them.” This individual pointed at Annesley, nudging him to write a book about everyday items like beer and their link to the Nobel Prizes.
Annesley’s book shares quirky behind-the-scenes stories that make the Nobel Prizes feel more personal than ever.
Thomas Annesley
Encouraged by this conversation, Annesley began researching. While burning the midnight oil one night, he realized he was sitting in a chair in his pajamas and had just walked to the refrigerator to get a cup of yogurt. “I said, ‘I’m going to see how many of these things that I did in the last hour have a link to a Nobel Prize,’” recalled Annesley. “And it turns out every one of them did.”
Behind the Scenes: Curious and Quirky Tales of Nobel Laureates
Annesley looked for more relatable connections with the Nobel Prizes and laureates. He reached out to the Nobel Prize Museum, the Nobel Foundation, Nobel laureates, and their institutions and libraries.
Through this research, Annesley found quirky stories about the Nobel Prize medals, including laureates who auctioned off or lost their medals. Digging deeper into the laureates’ lives offered more surprising insights. “It turns out that there's well over a hundred hobbies that Nobel laureates have had,” said Annesley. “They do puzzles. They ride a bike. Some play chess. One was a well-known yodeler. They sing in barbershop quartets.”
Looking back at the journey of writing the book, Annesley said, “The most exciting part was that there was a never-ending opportunity to learn something new and quirky about not only the prizes, but the people themselves.” According to him, the fun stories never ended. In fact, he has run into three more links between beer and the Nobel Prizes since the book was published.
Going forward, Annesley hopes that readers enjoy the book and find some relatable aspects of not just the Nobel Prizes, but also those who won them. “I want them to have a whole new look on the life of the Nobel prizes and the lives of the Nobel laureates,” said Annesley.
