In his office at Philadelphia's Franklin Institute, Larry Tise looks ruefully around him at the piles of books and papers dealing with scientific awards: pamphlets, ring binders, and volume after volume of lists and descriptions cover shelves, his desk, and even chairs and boxes throughout the room. After a moment he brings to his desk a massive two-volume, blue-bound set.
"The number of organizations giving international awards is 4,779," he says, hefting one of the volumes of the reference book Awards, Honors, and Prizes (9th ed., Detroit, Gale Research Inc., 1990), "and that's just in the United States and Canada." He sticks his thumb into the volume arbitrarily and looks at the entry on the page. "For example, there's the Society of American Military Engineers. They give 21 awards." More commonly, though, an organization will give only four or five prizes. Says Tise, "That's about 25,000 awards," just in North ...
