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Why Is There No Nobel Prize In Technology? (qz.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Quartz: As the world focuses its attention on this year's recipients of the planet's most prestigious prize, the Nobel, it feels like something's missing from the list: technology. Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel established the prizes more than century ago with the instruction that his entire estate be used to endow "prizes to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit to mankind." The categories laid out in his will -- physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, and peace -- have remained the basis of the awards, and a prize for economics was added in 1968. So, what gives? Why only those five original fields? Nobel didn't say, revealing only that he made his choices "after mature deliberation."
One way of looking at it is that when he was designing his categories, he wanted the prizes to only reflect advances in fundamental science. In this view, "lesser" sciences such as biology, geology, or computer science -- or technology-driven fields such as engineering or robotics -- don't qualify. As genome-sequencing pioneer Eric Lander once said, "You don't get a Nobel Prize for turning a crank." But what then of literature and peace, or the newer prize for economics (an applied science at best, and a pseudoscience at worst)? Technology isn't the only field to get the cold shoulder. Mathematics -- the international language, the foundation of so many scientific pursuits, and arguably the most fundamental theoretical discipline of all -- doesn't have a Nobel Prize, either. Mathematicians have complained about this for decades. One story suggests that Nobel disliked the Finnish mathematician Rolf Nevanlinna, and assumed that he would be the first winner of the mathematics prize, if he decided to award one. Alternatively, math undergraduates are often told that Nobel was jealous of a Swedish mathematician who had an affair with his wife (though this story is ruined by the fact that Nobel didn't actually have a wife).
One way of looking at it is that when he was designing his categories, he wanted the prizes to only reflect advances in fundamental science. In this view, "lesser" sciences such as biology, geology, or computer science -- or technology-driven fields such as engineering or robotics -- don't qualify. As genome-sequencing pioneer Eric Lander once said, "You don't get a Nobel Prize for turning a crank." But what then of literature and peace, or the newer prize for economics (an applied science at best, and a pseudoscience at worst)? Technology isn't the only field to get the cold shoulder. Mathematics -- the international language, the foundation of so many scientific pursuits, and arguably the most fundamental theoretical discipline of all -- doesn't have a Nobel Prize, either. Mathematicians have complained about this for decades. One story suggests that Nobel disliked the Finnish mathematician Rolf Nevanlinna, and assumed that he would be the first winner of the mathematics prize, if he decided to award one. Alternatively, math undergraduates are often told that Nobel was jealous of a Swedish mathematician who had an affair with his wife (though this story is ruined by the fact that Nobel didn't actually have a wife).
I can't get one for first posting?
Technology is not a category in the same sense physics, chemistry, and physiology are.
Because they do not want to give an award for something that turns out to be the next iteration of Dynamite.
I don't think there can be a Nobel Prize in technology until they stop claiming they're "disrupting" everything by making an app that does "real world thing X, but online/with an app"
And imagine every goddamn company promoting their product as worthy "technology".
"This year's Noble in Technology goes to Uber for their awesome app and innovative disruptive ride sharing technology!"
"This year's Noble goes to Elon Musk for his innovative disruptive genius idea that he got from a 19th century World's Fair."
Technology is applied science. Its Nobel Prize is a billion dollar company.
Because technology is a vague and nebulous term.
And do you think someone should get a prize for inventing rounded corners or doing something that already existed - but on teh interwebses? Because if there was one, it would be shitcocks like them who win it.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
"The categories laid out in his will -- physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, and peace -- have remained the basis of the awards, and a prize for economics was added in 1968. So, what gives? Why only those five original fields?"
The summary/article forgot about the literature category.
Any advance in tech is from a development in physics or math fundamentally. "Technology" is too vague a term.
Nobel Prize for Computer Technology would be nice but impractical. Almost every week there is a new app/service/tech...
Once the economists started getting awards, they didn't see any need to invest in further categories.
There is. It's called "becoming a billionaire, and probably also a household name".
There's also a Pulitzer in technology. It's called "Selling out to Google".
"Live as if you'll die tomorrow." Ridiculous. You could die later today.
Because 90% of 'great' technology is marketing hype and fashion trends.
The Nobel Prize is about discovery, technology is the act of monetizing existing science, not doing new science. Please.
Just look at some of the Nobel prizes in physics the last twenty years:
* Blue LED, and by extension white LEDs and low-energy LED bulbs. (2014)
* Graphene (2010)
* CCD (2009)
* Fibre-optics for communication (2009)
* Semiconductor-based integrated circuits (2000)
* Laser cooling (1997)
And chemistry:
* Nanotechnology (2016)
* Conductive polymers (2000)
All of those are more or less hugely important technologies ... that I as a non-physicist can have at least a fleeting grasp of what it is all about, so there may be something that I missed.
Many of the other prizes have gone to more fundamental science -- that may be used for some important technology in the future --
or to astrophysics or with applications mostly in medicine.
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
It is that technology ultimately does not help everyone and really contributes to the wealthy elite more than anything. If we look at the internet as a technology, there is still a large divide in access between those that live in densely populated areas and rural areas. Rural areas are often the last to get broadband and it is still slow when compared to the more urban areas. Often the only reason that rural areas even get internet access at all is because of some tax incentive, otherwise they would still be stuck on dialup. Nobel prizes are ones that are given to work that benefits people no matter what their socioeconomic status is. When you win a Nobel prize, you really have achieved something that benefits all of humanity. Giving out Nobel prizes for technology, in my opinion, degrades the value.
they should get over "the affair" and create that mathematics nobel.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
Math is mostly based around assumed axioms and the possibilities that you can directly derive from them, there is absolute proof as it is almost tautology.
Sciences require the experimental method and you are never sure of anything, just that the data fits the theories and for bonus points the theories make new predictions that when new data is gathered from measuring those predictions it also fits. Typically Nobel prizes in science are given for a few fields when someone comes up with the latter and the new predictions fit theory in some way that significantly advances the field and new work can then be built off of it.
Applied sciences, like technology and engineering don't typically create theory but simply apply the theory in a practical way that allows for the sciences to be turned into applications and products.
You can't offer too many Nobel prize catagories or it would be overwhelming, but at the same time just because a Nobel prize isn't offered for that type of activity it does not mean it is a 'lesser' pursuit nor does it mean its equivalent to 'turning a crank'
Let's just create an Elon Musk Nobel and hand it over to the man every year.
Because the nobel prizes are for new inventions. Technology is the thing that uses that invention. The technology isn't the invention itself.
Trust me, within the IT field, the Turing Award is considered every bit as prestigious as the Nobel Prize.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... ..bruce..
Bruce F. Webster (brucefwebster.com)
Mathematics is NOT a language - it consists of a shared set of further representations/symbols for things that have different words in different languages. For mathematics to be a language by itself, there would have to be only one (unique) set of words for each number/function etc.. (And if we talk about only what the information is of, separately from its labels and representations, then that, by its very nature is something even more fundamental that language itself.)
'Stupidity is an often fatal disease' - R. A. Heinlein
Alfred Nobel invented dynamite. Dynamite, for its time, was extremely advanced technology. It made it easier to open the ground, to excavate, to mine resources. It also made it easier to kill greater numbers of people in military actions.
Nobel realized this when a newspaper errantly printed his obituary, believing he had died. Like anyone else, Nobel was interested in hearing what would be said about him after he died. When he realized the answer was terms like "butcher," or "greatest mass murderer of our time," he was shocked and appalled. But then, that is what TECHNOLOGY gives us as a species: tools that we can use for any and all purposes. Their use is entirely dependent upon our morals and ethics.
It was for this purpose that Nobel created a series of prizes to inspire those who would use their skills, talents, and abilities not to create mere tools for humanity, but to inspire others, to give our species an ethical center. (Something we apparently still lack.)
Simply creating new tech is (like it or not, techies, it's the truth) easy. Finding ways to encourage humanity to only use those tools wisely is increasingly difficult, especially in a world that lionizes Randian selfishness and Trumpian accumulation of wealth above virtually all else.
People studying the sciences and create something of massive value to the society generally get only recognition, and before the nobel, often even little of that. The nobel provides both money and public recognition of great achievements.
Technology already has both of those. Great achievements already get massive recognition and large amounts of money. Edison became far more famous than anyone of his time, and fabulously wealthy for "inventing" the light bulb. (In actuality he made an improvement that made the light bulb more practical). In more modern times Jimmy Whales invented wikipedia, and he's fabulously wealthy and well known. These people don't need a prize. Nobel himself was a technologists of the time. He invented dynamite. He was wealthy and famous (though famous for the negative aspects of his invention). That's part of the reason he came up with the prize, to change his reputation in history. Years before he died word spread of his false death, and obituaries were published that painted him as a purveyor of death and war. The prize was a means to change that perception, and a means to change the perception of other areas that advanced sciences that otherwise wouldn't have been recognized.
Science isn't the same at all. Without the Nobel, most of these people never
Only the appy app of all apps can win Nobel Prizes in technology, not Luddite anonymous cowards.
Apps!
the Nobel Prizes are conducted in accordance with instructions in his will. that's how it is.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
>> Mathematics -- the international language, the foundation of so many scientific pursuits, and arguably the most fundamental theoretical discipline of all -- doesn't have a Nobel Prize, either. Mathematicians have complained about this for decades.
Not really. There's the "Fields Medal" after all.
http://www.mathunion.org/general/prizes/fields/details/
One of those is worth about four Nobel prizes because, well, math, yo.
The award is about scientific discovery.... Technology rarely is discovery, it's applying other people's discoveries.
No Steve Jobs never deserved one, hah.
Stop referring to the Nobel Prize in Economics. There's no Nobel Prize in Economics. There's the Swedish Central Bank's Prize in Alfred Nobel's Honour. It piggybacks off of the real Nobel prizes' good name. Every time you use the short name you take a piss on Alfred Nobel's grave.
This and calling the "Right Livelihood Award" the "Alternative Nobel Prize" are among my pet peeves.
but there should be an Arthur C Clarke Award for "Significantly Advanced Technology"
He figured out how to get people to hand him money and not have a product to deliver.
Twitter was a company that was born by accident. The technology was a side project that took off on its own. The four founders were more interested in playing musical chair with the CEO spot. The revenue model came years after burning through VC funding. One founder pulled a Steve Jobs by quoting Steve Jobs, listening to the music that Steve Jobs liked, dressing up in a Steve Jobs uniform (same clothes, simple style), and staging a Steve Jobs comeback after starting another company. Mark Zuckerburg called Twitter a clown car that fell into a gold mine.
Source: "Hatching Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship, and Betrayal "
As for "the greatest benefit to mankind" that Nobel wanted to recognize, the list of Turing Award winners includes those who brought us personal computing, the internet, and the world wide web.
because Alfred Nobel did not specify it one in his testament. Why should there be one? Just create your own prize. It does not have to be called
Nobel Prize. The only thing a Nobel Prize means is that the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences decided that the work of the recipients was worthy
of the prize. What makes them special? The fact that most people seem to agree with their choice most of the time? The monetary value of the prize?
Their integrity? All this can be true for some other prize in other fields, so don`t get so hung up on the name.
there is one , it's called the Turing award (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_Award)
Turing is the father of modern information technology much more relevant to our field then a guy who blew up his hand while inventing TNT IMHO
Because, simply, Alfred Nobel didn't think it worth having a category.
"On 27 November 1895, Alfred Nobel signed his last will and testament, giving the largest share of his fortune to a series of prizes in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature and Peace - the Nobel Prizes."
In 1968, the Swedish State Bank added Economics 'in memory of Nobel' and they are announced together, but technically it's not really a Nobel Prize.
It would certainly be within the realm of possibility that some super-rich guy endowed such an award, and then there'd be one. But hey, there aren't any tech guys with $billions lying around, are there?
-Styopa
It needs to be like the Oscars where you have categories like 'best foreign short film by a left-handed director'. Of course, they might have to split up the money a lot more so rather than getting a million dollars for the Nobel Prize for Chemistry you get $35.27 instead.
The arms dealers bad continence should be slated by now.
Aside from "technology" not being a science, it's also such a broad term as to border on useless. "Technology" is just "applied science". Literally everything we make and do that involves using the results of scientific research can be correctly called "technology".
he wanted the prizes to only reflect advances in fundamental science. In this view, "lesser" sciences such as biology, geology, or computer science
Really?
Computer science (at least a significant part of it) is as fundamental as it gets. Logic and formal systems are the bases of mathematics.
But their IT boss already got a Master of Music.
Alternatively, math undergraduates are often told that Nobel was jealous of a Swedish mathematician who had an affair with his wife (though this story is ruined by the fact that Nobel didn't actually have a wife).
Maybe the details of the story are just a tiny bit off... could it be that Nobel's jealousy drove him to seduce and have an affair with the wife of a Swedish mathematician? Hmmmm....
Alfred Nobel picked those fields for reasons that he chose to keep to himself. That's it. One can endlessly speculate about his reasons, but that is all that one can do. Quite frankly, there are far more important things to devote one's mental energies to.
The King of Sweden would have to kiss creimer's ass!
... the honor of being showered with paper airplanes.
Is not there Nobel Prize for the H-Bomb inventors that is thousands powerful than TNT (dynamite)?
But who would award a Nobel prize for scientology and technology, whatever those things mean?
Nevanlinna was born 22 October 1895. Nobel signed his last will 27 November 1895 establishing the funds for the Nobel Price. Nobel died 10 December 1896. So clearly Nobel knew nothing about Nevanlinna's mathematical work. The article is garbage. Bring up some unsubstantiated rumors. Add some click-bait names, Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Satoshi Nakamoto. Instant Slashdot posting.
Some rich old dude left a bunch of money when he died for prizes to be awarded in four categories...and these prizes became pre-eminent in those fields. OK, so what? Why does that mean that we have to have a "Nobel prize for [insert name of pursuit here]"? Why don't we have a Nobel prize for movies (since there is already one for literature...why was film left out)? Who cares, we have the Academy awards, the Cannes film festival, the Golden lion in Venice, etc.
Similarly, in technology, we have the Turing Prize, the IEEE Medal of Honour, in mathematics we have the Fields Medal and so on. Why do we have to have a "nobel" something for it to be worthy? That's just hype.
I especially don't get that they gave one to Bob Dylan. A man who's bean is so dark roasted he can only speak in gibberish.
Sig. Sig. Sputnik
BFD if someone created a cool consumer electronic. It is all based on actual sciences anyway. Technology is just the application of science.
The real reason there is no Nobel for technology is because technology for technology's sake has no value to humanity.
Nobel prizes are for accomplishment that positively affects humanity in a clearly visible way. Simply developing some new technology doesn't cut the mustard. It must be applied in some way that makes a difference to humanity, preferably disadvantaged or vulnerable humanity.
I really have to ask the question. When the Peace Prize is awarded to the most warmongering President of the US in modern history, being selected nearly a full year before he was ever elected, for his efforts AS PRESIDENT to achieve peace.. you know the prize has no real value, morally, ethically, or otherwise.
What Nobels need is a culling. Peace and economics need to go. Completely subjective criteria; they're just there to fete the Davos Jetset with another bauble that enables their collective ego to place the likes of Yassir Arafat or Paul Krugman on intellectual pedestal comparable to the likes of Niels Bohr - which is a joke by itself.
during the first week of whatever his new job might be, like he did with his previous nobel
What if UN gave the awards and in many more fields than the Nobels?
It's called an IPO...
Nothing to see here but us trolls...move along...
No new category has been added since the prizes were established. The "Nobel Prize for Economics" is a sham that was created by bankers. The memorial prize for economics goes against everything Nobel stood for.
Technology isn't the only field to get the cold shoulder.
Technology isn't a field - it's a buzzword.
Being pedantic, there really isn't a Nobel Prize in Economics, at least I don't believe the prize money comes from the same fund.
The "Nobel Prize in Economics" comes from a seed money donation from the Swedish Central Bank, not from the Trust fund set up by Alfred Nobel.
To create a Nobel Prize in Technology (or maybe Engineering), would require that there be a seed money donation from an organization that would be accepted by the Swedish Academy of Sciences (or maybe one of the other 4 groups that select Nobel Prize winners).
Currently, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Swedish Academy, the Karolinska Institutet, and the Norwegian Nobel Committee all have a hand in selecting the core Nobel Prize winners, but only the Swedish Academy of Sciences is involved in selecting the Economics prize.
Yes, I know Pedantic
There will be once technology grows up.
When the prize fund was established at the end of the 19th century, the word "technology" described the study of practical applications of the "useful arts." So it was not really considered as a category of knowledge. It was just a descriptor to identify a place where you could go to study them, as in " École Polytechnique" or "Massachusetts Institute of Technology." The former was founded at the end of the 18th century and the latter in the middle of the 19th, and reflect the accepted definition of the word when the prize fund was established.
It didn't acquire its modern definition until decades later, when Thorstein Veblen started throwing it around (incorrectly) to translate the German idea of Technik which included not only the concept of education about, but also the end result of, those "useful arts." Every other language on the planet except English maintains a distinction between these two concepts.
There are five Nobel Prizes: physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and peace. They are there because Nobel named them in his testament. He did not consider robotics, as there was no robotics at his time, and engineering in general was just craftsmanship. He also did not consider theology, philosophy, mathematics, social sciences, and psychology. This is most likely rooted in his time and his focus on the natural sciences. In his time, new findings in the natural sciences propelled mankind forward. Literature and peace prize are relevant, as Nobel wanted peace and enlightenment in the world.
And there is no Nobel Prize for economics. Economics is often just a believe system not a real science, they are way back compared to sociology and psychology. They are like political sciences which are often not able to predict anything (key component of a science). The economics prize is called Swedish National Bank's Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel and is not financed by the Nobel foundation, but the nation bank of Sweden. If you want such prize in engineering or computer science, please found a foundation which hands out prizes in CS in honor to Nobel.
However, the great prizes in CS and mathematics are Touring award and Fields Medal. While the latter awards prizes to young scientists and is therefore not shaped like the Nobel prizes which award long lasting achievements.
The Nobel Prices are about categories that _don't_ provide immediate payback to the investor but are for the general good of mankind without immediate financial gain.
There you are. He chose to not-say, for his own reasons. Unless someone uncovers a previously misplaced codicil to his will, or invents a time machine so he can be snatched from his death bed and tortured to get an answer (which may or may not be true), we don't know and will never know.
In the time-machine-torture scenario, it is entirely possible that by the time of snatching, he'd forgotten, so will just make something up to stop the pain. Like that DPRK nuke in a storage unit in New York.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"