Should Stephen Hawking Have Won the Nobel Prize? | Hacker News Reader

Should Stephen Hawking Have Won the Nobel Prize?

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14 pointsmellosouls20 comments

I know being an "elitist" is not in fashion these days, but very few of us (and certainly not me) are qualified to answer this.

Looking at his body of work, there is no question that Stephen Hawking was a genius, so this is not a slight against him in any way.

However, the most famous people in a given field arre not necessarily those who are advancing the field the most. While a Google search will turn up lists of his contributions, most people who are not practicing physicists would even know the names of all the other people who should be considered let alone their contributions.

So how can we realistically compare?

The Nobel is very political and not very meritocratic. Being honest, it doesn't matter and it's moot.

This is true. It is because it is from an older era when it was possible and also common for individual scholars to work independently and (as a result?) the topics where mostly doable by one person. Most of research today is done by a large pool of groups of 2-3 people (I am mostly familiar with physics), who are constantly interacting with each other, so it is not very easy to attribute breakthroughs to just one single person. And the topics seem to be more complex. The Nobel prize has not adapted to this. Still it is entertaining to read about the awards they come up with.

Sabine is a great writer and speaker. Many people in academia could learn from her.

Of course he should. I totally lack the chops to assess him in his field, however, the Nobel committee has an intellectually thorough process whereby they draw on experts in his field and write reports to assess people in the various fields where Nobel prizes are awarded. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/themes/the-norwegian-nobel... and some more here... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Committee

I was going to say hopefully it's not the same committee that picks the Nobel Peace Prize winners, and it turns out it's not!

"By the terms of Alfred Nobel’s will the Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded by the Norwegian Nobel Committee since 1901. Alfred Nobel left no explanation as to why the prize for peace was to be awarded by a Norwegian committee while the other four prizes were to be handled by Swedish committees."

I'm suspicious of these Norwegians, and their peace prize process.

> I'm suspicious of these Norwegians, and their peace prize process.

Any particular reason, or just a general suspicion of people from Norway?

Because in 2009 they awarded the nobel peace prize to the president of the united states, a man who was literally ordering drone strikes at that moment on a country the united states had invaded on the evidence of Collin Powell holding up a vile of urine and a CGI rendering of mythical nuclear trucks.

But who among us haven't accidentally confused that for peace.

Wasn’t Obama’s reaction to waking up to the announcement “for what?” - don’t know if this is true.

I doubt even Obama felt he deserved it.

His initial public reaction [0]:

> This is not how I expected to wake up this morning.

> I do not view it as a recognition of my own accomplishment. But rather as an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people in all nations. To be honest, I do not feel like I deserve to be in the company of so many of the trans formative figures that have been honored by this prize.

Looking at his eventual speach[1], it is pretty clear his view didn't change:

> And yet I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the considerable controversy that your generous decision has generated. [humble boilerplate about other people being more deserving]

> But perhaps the most profound issue surrounding my receipt of this prize is the fact that I am the Commander-in-Chief of the military of a nation in the midst of two wars. One of these wars is winding down. The other is a conflict that America did not seek; one in which we are joined by 42 other countries -- including Norway -- in an effort to defend ourselves and all nations from further attacks.

> Still, we are at war, and I'm responsible for the deployment of thousands of young Americans to battle in a distant land. Some will kill, and some will be killed. And so I come here with an acute sense of the costs of armed conflict -- filled with difficult questions about the relationship between war and peace, and our effort to replace one with the other.

He goes on to talk about how war is paradoxically necessary for peace. But even then, he talks about historic examples, not anything in particular he has done.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbOWxc7Wwrg

[1] https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/remark...

I did not know this. Should he have accepted the prize then?

What would he have accomplished by not accepting it? Created a public statement on behalf of America of “nope, we don’t like peace, we’ll keep waging war!”

There is absolutely nothing to gain by not accepting it. It seems like the desire by many Americans to have him decline is just because of personal opinions about him. Would you really respect the man more for tarnishing the name and brand of the entire United nation simply to not accept a symbolic price that you and he both think he did not deserve to receive? He did the right think by making clear his own understanding that he was perhaps not most deserving but accepting none the less.

Yeah, I've never met a person even casually informed about american politics who thought Obama deserved that, especially after his time in office (but why was it given in his first year?!). But this anti-Norway sentiment is confusing.

Do you know what would really made a difference? having a Nobel prize for WAR. We really need an equivalent to this.

Thus, we all could know the faces of the people that tried harder or did more for creating or fueling wars in the current year.

Not a Nobel, just as there's no mathematics Nobel prize.

But some kind of Darwin award, it can be called the Mars award (for the god of war), or Bellus or Ares or similar.

mmmh ... I'm thinking that a posthumous award would reinforce the anti-nobel idea and would be easier to grant in fact. Lords of war tend to be nasty and people should celebrate its death.

Satirical Journals or humanitarian NGOs... if you read this, feel free to implement it. The 'We all are Alfred' Prize would be a great name.

I hope you're joking.

Can you elaborate? I have no idea how to interpret your intention with this, and I imagine many people also are similarly confused. Your confidence in this terse prose reveals your authority while simultaneously denying the layman your insight, so please, elaborate for us.

I read an article recently arguing that his reputation is overblown:

The mind of God? The problem with deifying Stephen Hawking - Prospect Magazine - https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/stephen-hawking-...

Oh, apparently this was also on Hacker News: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26466435

Reply on news.ycombinator.com