Greatest scientists who never won a nobel prize

[fourier jr]

At first I thought physicists, but then that would exclude too many for no good reason, but still excludes the scientists who haven't been around since nobel prizes have been given out.

 

[russ_watters]

Could we also do greatest discoveries for which no Nobel was awarded...?

 

[fourier jr]

sure, why not

 

[mynameinc]

Not really a scientist, but Gandhi comes to mind as one of the greatest peacekeepers who never won a Nobel Peace Prize.

 

[Astronuc]

Freeman Dyson has not won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work in quantum field theory.

Three contemporaries - Sin-Itiro Tomonaga, Julian Schwinger, Richard P. Feynman - won the Noble Prize in Physics in 1965 for their work in QFT.

 

[rhody]

Three contemporaries - Sin-Itiro Tomonaga, Julian Schwinger, Richard P. Feynman - won the Noble Prize in Physics in 1965 for their work in QFT.

Errr, did you mean to say, Quantum Electrodynamics ? (QED) http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1965/"

I know James Maxwell died in 1879, so that makes him a 19th century physicist, I don't know the rules of how Nobel Prizes are awarded, but if they were to include 19th century physicists, I would imagine he would have been awarded one.

 

[Astronuc]

Errr, did you mean to say, Quantum Electrodynamics ? (QED) http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1965/"

Well I was thinking more generically, but yes specifically Tomonaga, Schwinger and Feynman were recongized for contributions to QED.

 

[f95toli]

Well, two examples are Lisa Meitner (who first didn't share the prize because she didn't publish her findings, and later was disqualified because she became a member of the Nobel committee herself) and Henrietta Swan Leavitt (who was considered but died before she could be nominated).

However, remember that you don't get the prize for being a great scientist. The prize is awarded to people who make an important discovery, it is not the same thing.

 

[fourier jr]

how about hans selye, who was short-listed for a nobel (medicine?) prize 10 times
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Selye

 

[Cyrus]

The seminal work done by me, myself, and I.

 

[27Thousand]

Well, two examples are Lisa Meitner (who first didn't share the prize because she didn't publish her findings, and later was disqualified because she became a member of the Nobel committee herself) and Henrietta Swan Leavitt (who was considered but died before she could be nominated).

However, remember that you don't get the prize for being a great scientist. The prize is awarded to people who make an important discovery, it is not the same thing.

I like how you put things.

 

[jobyts]

Al Gore, for inventing the internet.

 

[lisab]

Al Gore, for inventing the internet.

No, he wouldn't qualify because the internet isn't made of strings...it's a series of tubes.

Besides, he already won a Nobel prize .

 

[cronxeh]

No, he wouldn't qualify because the internet isn't made of strings...it's a series of tubes.

Besides, he already won a Nobel prize .

On that note.. John McCain, for being aware of the Internet

 

[danielatha4]

Discovery that wasn't awarded by a Nobel Prize...

Special and General Relativity

Ciche for a physics forum, but no one had said it...

 

[Matterwave]

Einstein's award did say something along the lines of "for contributions in Theoretical physics, and for the law of the Photoelectric effect".

So maybe SR and GR were bundled in there with theoretical physics. Otherwise, Brownian motion was discovered by him too.

Before Nobel, there are many, so I guess this is only for after Nobel?

After Nobel...uh I can only think of the one time Born was snubbed for the 1932 prize. Even though Born had worked jointly with Heisenberg (and Jordan) regarding the matrix formulation of QM, only Heisenberg was given the prize (possibly due to Jordan's connection with the Nazi's). No need to panic, though, since Born got one later for his statistical interpretation of QM.

 

[Matterwave]

Oh, I know. David Bohm and Yakir Aharonov never got one for the Aharonov-Bohm effect which is quite important in establishing the vector potential A as a "real" object. Bohm specifically deserved a Nobel prize imo for his contributions to Physics, including developing the De-Broglie-Bohm pilot wave formulation of QM.

 

[ideasrule]

Rosalin Franklin. The structure of DNA couldn't have been discovered without her work on x-ray crystallography, but she died before the year her co-worker was awarded the Nobel prize.

 

[f95toli]

Bohm specifically deserved a Nobel prize imo for his contributions to Physics, including developing the De-Broglie-Bohm pilot wave formulation of QM.

You can't -according to the rules- be awarded the prize for a theory that hasn't been experimentally verified, this means that you can't get it for working on interpretations of QM, string theory(at least at the moment) etc.
There are several sciencits who can more or less be sure to win the prize if their theories are verified. Higgs will almost certainly get it if the LHC finds his boson.

 

[cragar]

Nikola Tesla , Philo Farnsworth inventer of the TV and the fusor .

 

[rolerbe]

My vote was/is with Maxwell for EM. Belongs up there with Newton (gravity) and Einstein (gravity again).

I can't even dredge up without google the names of those who first characterized the weak and strong forces. Add them. Fundamental forces would seem like they should qualify...

 

[Matterwave]

You can't -according to the rules- be awarded the prize for a theory that hasn't been experimentally verified, this means that you can't get it for working on interpretations of QM, string theory(at least at the moment) etc.
There are several sciencits who can more or less be sure to win the prize if their theories are verified. Higgs will almost certainly get it if the LHC finds his boson.

I'll give you that, but I'm sure in Bohm's long repertoire, there's something he should have won the Nobel for (if not the Aharonov-Bohm effect like I mentioned, then something else).

 

[DrClapeyron]

How about Norman Bowen?

 

[qedprigmosyno]

psh, can we consider really old scientists?
Gauss, Newton, Euclid :)

 

[mheslep]

Freeman Dyson has not won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work in quantum field theory...

Beat me to it. He's also still an active scientist. Dyson, Dyson, Dyson.

 

[cragar]

Fred Hoyle , George Gamow, Daniel Bernoulli , Michael Faraday , Joseph Louis Lagrange

 

[jtbell]

Note that one of the rules for Nobel Prizes is that they're awarded only to living people. So anyone who died before 1901 should be excluded from this discussion.

There are surely cases of people who would probably have won a Nobel Prize if only they had lived long enough.

 

[CRGreathouse]

Not really a scientist, but Gandhi comes to mind as one of the greatest peacekeepers who never won a Nobel Peace Prize.

I'm glad Ghandi never got the Nobel peace prize. It would have given the prize an honor it doesn't deserve.

 

[noblegas]

I'm glad Ghandi never got the Nobel peace prize. It would have given the prize an honor it doesn't deserve.

HAs anyone mentioned Newton or Corpenicus yet.The creator of the scientific method definitely. And any person who already made the scientific discoveries made by well known Scientists many years earlier but their work was undocumented and therefore not preserved. I totally agreed that gandhi should not received a nobel prize.He was basically the indian equivalent of the segregationist George wallace

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

Otherwise, Brownian motion was discovered by him too.

Actually, that was Brown.

Jan Ingenhousz had described the irregular motion of coal dust particles on the surface of alcohol in 1785. Nevertheless Brownian motion is traditionally regarded as discovered by the botanist Robert Brown in 1827.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brownian_motion"

 

[hamster143]

Did you know that there weren't any Nobel Prizes EVER awarded for advances in theoretical General Relativity? Even Einstein himself got the prize ostensibly for the discovery of the photoelectric effect. Since then, the field was decidedly starved for prizes. In a related field of cosmology, there was one half the prize awarded for stellar evolution, one half for stellar nucleosynthesis, and a couple for CMB, but that only covers a tiny portion of the field.

I'd expect to have seen prizes awarded to:

- Hawking and Penrose

- Friedmann/Lemaitre/Robertson/Walker/Hubble or some subset thereof

- Gamow, the father of the Big Bang (and, incidentally, a student of Friedmann)

- Arnowitt, Deser & Misner

 

[MotoH]

OBAMA!)*@#&$*(@#@$ WORLD PEACE ALREADY! YAH YAH YAH

"Just like Obama, the LHC has gotten the nobel prize in physics for intending to find the higgs-boson"

 

[czelaya]

Did you know that there weren't any Nobel Prizes EVER awarded for advances in theoretical General Relativity? Even Einstein himself got the prize ostensibly for the discovery of the photoelectric effect. Since then, the field was decidedly starved for prizes. In a related field of cosmology, there was one half the prize awarded for stellar evolution, one half for stellar nucleosynthesis, and a couple for CMB, but that only covers a tiny portion of the field.

I'd expect to have seen prizes awarded to:

- Hawking and Penrose

- Friedmann/Lemaitre/Robertson/Walker/Hubble or some subset thereof

- Gamow, the father of the Big Bang (and, incidentally, a student of Friedmann)

- Arnowitt, Deser & Misner

I'm assuming you're stating Hawking do to his contributions in theoretical physics with Hawking radiation? Like many have already stated it has to be experimentally discovered or experimentally verified.

I don't think Penrose directly contributed to the Big Bang. However, after reading very limited books on the subject matter, I believe he put forth the mathematical machinery (differential topology) in defining the big bang.

 

[hamster143]

I'm assuming you're stating Hawking do to his contributions in theoretical physics with Hawking radiation? Like many have already stated it has to be experimentally discovered or experimentally verified.

I don't think Penrose directly contributed to the Big Bang. However, after reading very limited books on the subject matter, I believe he put forth the mathematical machinery (differential topology) in defining the big bang.

No, Hawking and Penrose are in the list because of their contributions to understanding of large scale structure of spacetime. For example, because of this

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penrose–Hawking_singularity_theorems

Hawking radiation concept, while neat, is purely conjectural and can't be taken seriously unless you make strong assumptions about quantum gravity. I certainly wouldn't want to give any Nobel prizes for that (not unless it's somehow proven experimentally to exist in just the form Hawking predicted, which I consider unlikely). On the other hand, Hawking-Penrose theorems are rigorous and universally valid.

 

[rewebster]

I'll go with Newton, Faraday, Maxwell, and Tesla---


I still think Einstein got his for the right thing----I think relativity isn't a sure thing

 

[cragar]

The only reason Einstein didn't get a Nobel for relativity is because it was way over the head of the committee and they gave him one for the photoelectric effect because he had a nice experiment to show how it worked and a nice data table . And someone told the committee you better give him a prize for the photoelectric effect or your look like fools .

 

[Matterwave]

Actually, that was Brown.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brownian_motion"

I'm sorry, I meant describe mathematically, or model mathematically, or made known or w/e he did, not discover. lol

 

[DrClapeyron]

Benoît Paul Émile Clapeyron, need I say more?

 

[whitay]

After Nobel...uh I can only think of the one time Born was snubbed for the 1932 prize. Even though Born had worked jointly with Heisenberg (and Jordan) regarding the matrix formulation of QM, only Heisenberg was given the prize (possibly due to Jordan's connection with the Nazi's). No need to panic, though, since Born got one later for his statistical interpretation of QM.

Wasn't Heisenberg working for the Nazi's too? Wasn't this the reason the relationship between Heisenberg and Bohr broke down?