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Comment by j7ake | Hacker News Reader

I am surprised that one of them got a nobel prize for work that was done during PhD. Often times the boss would take all the credit, including the prizes.

For example, Jules Hoffmann in 2011 won the prize but not Lemaitre, the postdoc in the lab who did the work.

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Physics has some history of PhD work being recognized. Abrikosov won for his very first paper, if I recall correctly. Wilczek also won for a paper he published as a grad student (albeit with his advisor). And de Broglie essentially won for his thesis, which was only a few pages long.

On the other hand, one need only think of Jocelyn Bell-Burnell to find an instance where a grad student got totally screwed.

The Mössbauer Effect is named for the graduate student who discovered it. He, and not his advisor, won the associated Nobel Prize.

Thanks for the pointer, the Lemaitre case looks pretty bad. There seem to be several similar cases that were brought to light in recent years, maybe the committee has learned from such mistakes.

Especially for PhD scientists it is inspiring and motivating that you can make nobel prize-worthy discoveries at this level. This should not be hidden for keeping up power hierarchies.

I guess the Nobel committee are acutely aware of the injustice they served to Jocelyn Bell Burnell in the prize awarded for the discovery of pulsars. She did most of the work and analysis as the student, and her supervisors got the credit.

He supervisor said something that sticks with me: “The person in the crows nest shouting “land ho!” Doesn’t get the credit, it’s the captain of the ship”.

While there’s some truth to that, it’s certainly the case that many people who work hard do not get their deserved recognition.

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