First, yesterday, we find that Physics winner Donna Strickland did not have a page. She had one four years ago briefly, but it had been quickly deleted on notability grounds.
And now today we get a Chemistry winner, George P. Smith, who also did not have a page--not even an old deleted page. His first page was created this morning after the Prize was announced.
This also happened last year, also in Chemistry, with Jacques Dubochet.
It does, pretty much by definition of a Nobel prize.
In this case, the Wikipedia article on chirped pulse amplification has cited Donna Strickland as a co-inventor since 2008 (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Chirped_pulse_amp...).
For phage displays, George P. Smith is not mentioned but at least cited as far back as 2008 (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Phage_display&old...). By 2012, George P. Smith is directly mentioned. (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Phage_display&old...)
They become notable to the public when they receive the award because if it’s public recognition, but they are awarded it based on their research contributions being notable.
To me it rather shows what a bad judgement the Wikipedia moderators have on notability.
I agree. That is why they should not make a judgement to delete a Wikipedia page because of irrelevance before people who are knowledgeable on the respective topic have been consulted/given their opinion.
That said, Prof. Arnold definitely deserved a Wikipedia page before winning the Nobel: she had trained multiple students that had Wikipedia pages, won numerous awards, been elected to all three National Academies, did seminal work using DE, and has had many other research accomplishments.
If had to guess, I bet it’s not uncommon to not be in Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not as much of interest to most in the academic research environment and as noted by others, these folks are often not well known outside their specialized disciplines.
Wikipedia is volunteer-edited. You can write articles for scientists too!