Slashdot Mirror
Nobel Prize in Medicine Contested
GeoGreg writes "The AP is reporting that Dr. Raymond Damadian is asking the Nobel committee to add him to the list of recipients of this year's prize in medicine. His company claims that he made the key discovery leading to MRI, and that the two recipients (Paul Laterbur and Peter Mansfield) made technological improvements. This link indicates that Damadian showed that magnetic resonance could distinguish between types of tissue, while Laterbur and Mansfield showed that images could be formed using magnetic resonance."
.... sad.
History is full of examples of people who were overlooked for the Nobel Prize. (Rosalind Franklin, anyone? Heck, Einstein was never recognized with that award for his really major works: special and general relativity.) The prize isn't something people "earn" and it's not something that you're entitled to. It's something that one particular group of people decide to bestow upon you because you've done significant work in their view.
I personally know at least one person fairly well who was overlooked for a Nobel. (This in the view of most of his collegues. Having read the work in question, I tend to agree.) He's very mellow about it, rather praising his friends who did win the prize. To take out ads to bitch makes me suspect that this guy is stuck in the 4-year-old emotional stage. (Or he's greedy and he wants a cut of the $1 million. Either way, pathetic.)
They gave one to a guy who's best friend was a figment of his imagination, didn't they?
If Watson & Crick had believed the world sat on the back of a giant turtle, they still discovered DNA, and that's still a Nobel-worthy achievement.
For pete's sake, Alfred Nobel himself believed that if he created a destructive enough weapon, it would end mankind's penchant for war!
Ergo, the Nobel Prize signifies ACHIEVEMENT, not BELIEF.