Nobel Impact

Right to left (standing): Arnold Thackray, president of the Chemical Heritage Foundation; historian of science Tore Frängsmyer of Uppsala University; Alan MacDiarmid (2000 Nobel laureate in chemistry); Joseph Miller of DuPont; historian of science Everett Mendelsohn of Harvard University; Max Perutz (1962); Dudley Herschbach (1986); Rudolph Marcus (1992); and Harold Kroto (1996). Seated: Jerome Karle (1985) and Roald Hoffman (1981). Alfred Nobel, the reclusive inventor of dynamite, probably had little idea of the explosive impact his posthumous wishes would have on society. Nobel, who died in 1896, willed most of his considerable wealth--garnered from his groundbreaking 1866 invention--to the founding of several international prizes. The prizes were intended to honor those who confer benefit to mankind by promoting peace or by contributing to the fields of physics, chemistry, or physiology or medicine (the economics award was founded later, in 1968). After some legal wrangling by Nobel's family, the first prizes were awarded in 1901. They attracted considerable interest from their inception; in those days, such a large donation to scientific or philanthropic causes was quite rare. The prizes are by no means perfect. Some suggest that the process of modern -day science demands that the Nobel be awarded to research teams rather than to the maximum of three scientists, as is now the case. Some question why several decades should routinely separate landmark discoveries and Nobel recognition. Some wonder why the prizes continue to be so male-dominated. Nevertheless, nearly one hundred years later, the Nobel prizes have become the world's highest civic honor. But what exactly does the modern-day Nobel Prize signify? What role, personal and professional, do the prizes play for the winners? What role do they have in society, and in their given fields? An early November one-day meeting titled "Nobel Centennial Symposium: Motivations for research: contexts, impact, and change," sought to address these and other questions. The symposium, sponsored by the Philadelphia-based Chemical Heritage Foundation (CHF), focused on the implications of the science Nobels, chemistry in particular. Harvard University historian of science Everett I. Mendelsohn moderated a discussion among distinguished audience members and Nobel laureates including 1986 chemistry laureate Dudley Herschbach, 1981 chemistry laureate Roald Hoffman, and 1962 chemistry laureate Max F. Perutz. Winners spoke of the variety of ways in which the Nobels have had an impact on their lives, including greater freedom in the lab and prestige from their peers. Perutz, who won the Nobel for his studies of the structures of globular proteins, said that his Nobel first and foremost helped to greatly boost his confidence in his young career. However, Hoffman, who won the Nobel for his theory on chemical reactions, warned that the bright public spotlight that accompanies the prize can have a downside. The increased attention, said Hoffman, has opened up some laureates to unfavorable public scrutiny. William Shockley, the 1956 winner in physics for co-inventing the transistor, for example, was known for publicly espousing what many believed to be racist theories. Just recently, the always outspoken double-helix codiscoverer James Watson reportedly stunned an audience of students and faculty at the University of California, Berkeley, with racially oriented comments about a biochemical link between exposure to sunlight and sexual urges. 1 Hoffman also suggested that there's much more potentially undesirable public attention given to laureates from Nobel-poor countries. He cited 2000 chemistry co-winner Hideki Shirakawa, one of the few Japanese laureates. Said Hoffman, "Thank God nobody knows who we are in the United States and doesn't care." Nobel Inspiration Research motivations of the group ranged widely from the seemingly trivial to the profound. "My motivations have been driven by curiosity and color and controlled by money," said Alan G. MacDiarmid, one of this year's chemistry Nobel prize winners. MacDiarmid won for his helping to discover and develop conductive polymers. A simple love of colors, said MacDiarmid, played a major role in his love of chemistry and even in the initial study of the first conducting polymer, polyacetylene. "There were no scientific reasons whatsoever," he remarked, provoking chuckles from the audience. As for his work's societal impact, MacDiarmid borrowed a quote from the 1967 movie The Graduate. Disillusioned recent college graduate Benjamin Braddock, played by Dustin Hoffman, is told by a family friend, "Young man, plastics. Plastics is the future." "A general characteristic of the Nobel laureates that I have met ... [is that] you really have to become completely captivated by something, like falling in love with a certain young lady," commented Herschbach, who won for his contribution to the elucidation of the dynamics of chemical elementary processes. "You can't imagine why everyone else isn't chasing after this wonderful person." Several of the laureates emphasized the role that teachers had in nurturing their interest in science. Herschbach noted the pride he takes in being the "great-great grandfather" of many academic generations. Hoffman, who's also a published poet, 2 expressed in prose and verse the importance of not only teachers but teaching--an essential element, said Hoffman, in the process of discovery. "I think research and teaching are absolutely inseparable," he remarked. "I hadn't really understood the empirical beauty of thermodynamics until I had to explain it to first-year students without crutch of mathematics." He went further to say that the writing of a research paper is inexorably linked to the process of discovery and to the teaching of oneself. "How could the mind that faces up to the problem of teaching others something new and difficult," Hoffman asked rhetorically, "avoid using the same strategies of explaining to itself something still [newer] and still more difficult?" Science Education Crisis Even while the Nobel laureates at the symposium praised their teachers and emphasized the importance of teaching, several symposium participants expressed concern over the state of science teaching and education in America. Invited speaker Joseph A. Miller, senior vice president of research and development at DuPont, suggested that the nation's science education system is in a state of crisis--no running water in scientific laboratories, overloaded teachers, and a bureaucracy consuming administrators with meaningless work. "For goodness sakes," proclaimed Miller, "Roald Hoffman could not go out here to a high school class and have certification to teach chemistry with the bureaucracy standing in our way." With National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation budgets at record levels, Miller wondered whether society has the science savvy to absorb the technological advances that result. "Will scientific literacy keep pace with scientific discovery in society?" he asked rhetorically. "It's essential for us to find ways to deal with that very important problem if we are to continue to enjoy the benefits of discovery from our great scientists." Eugene Russo can be contacted at erusso@the-scientist.com. References 1. T. Abate, "Nobel winner's theories raise uproar in Berkeley," San Francisco Chronicle, Monday, Nov. 13, 2000. 2. R. Hoffmann, Gaps and verges, Orlando, Fla., University of Central Florida Press, 1990.

Nobel Impact

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Eugene Russo

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December 2000

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