Why There's No Nobel Prize In Computing

alphadogg writes "When Nobel Prizes are dished out each fall, the most accomplished professionals in computing, telecom and IT have usually been left out in the cold. That's because there is no Nobel Prize for these fields, and it's unlikely there will be one any time soon. According to the Nobel Foundation: 'The Nobel Prizes, as designated in the Will of Alfred Nobel, are in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and peace. Only once has a prize been added — a Memorial Prize — The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, donated by Sweden's central bank to celebrate its tercentenary in 1968. The Nobel Foundation's Board of Directors later decided to keep the original five prizes intact and not to permit new additions.' So, if IBM, Google, Apple or some other deep-pocketed tech company wanted to make a big donation along the lines of what Sweden's central bank did in 1968, maybe it could sway the Nobel Foundation to add a prize. But it most likely wouldn't be officially called a Nobel Prize."

Comments

Well,

[Flyerman]

At least I have a reason for never winning a Nobel Prize, unlike all those writers.

here's how it would go down

[Anonymous Coward]

They'd just end up giving it to somebody like Zuckerberg rather than somebody like Knuth.

Re:here's how it would go down

[Anonymous Coward]

They'd just end up giving it to somebody like Zuckerberg rather than somebody like Knuth.

Why would a dead german polar bear receive a prize in computing?
Thanks to Zuckerberg we can now exchange cute lolcats with our thousands of friends! We had no way to do this before Facebook existed.
He deserves this prize more than anyone else (and especially a bear, you fool).

Re:here's how it would go down

[Hognoxious]

And cunt is someone who explains the joke, i.e. you.

The ACM Turing award is the equivalent CS 'Nobel'

[jmcbain]

At the author of the article mentions, the ACM Alan M. Turing Award is the definitive award given out in the computer science community and is considered on par with the Nobel Prize. All the winners of the Turing Award have won the award based on work that has stood the test of time, typically on merit that was introduced 20+ years prior and still stands today as a fundamental and invaluable core contribution to the field. You will find contributions on computational theory, TCP/IP, programming language theory, HCI, cryptography, software engineer, and others.

Note, however, that the Turing Award does not cover IT or telecom.

Should be the Captain-Obvious-Dept.

[WegianWarrior]

The Nobel prizes were created by the Will of Alfred Nobel, who died quite a long time before modern computers were even a remote possibility. Obviously there was no Nobel prize for computers - nor economics, since economics were not considered a science back then (note that the so called Nobel Prize in economics isn't a Nobel Prize - it's a prize in memory of Alfred Nobel). Maybe there is a need for an internationally recognized prize for outstanding achievements in the field of computer science... but it won't be and can never be a "Nobel Prize".

Complaining about the fact that Nobel didn't make a provision in his will to institute a prize for a field of science that didn't exists in his time makes even less sense than the creationist argument that evolution isn't a science since Darwin wasn't awarded a Nobel Prize (hint: Darwin died before Nobel).