The act of writing was also an act of erasing the, at times, contentious processes marked by, let’s name it, bias, arrogance, and even pettiness.ġ920: Fame, reactionary foes, and a surpriseĪt a joint meeting of the Royal Society of London and Royal Astronomical Society held on 6 November 1919, the retired Cambridge physicist, J. The committee’s well-polished texts represent an after-the-fact justification for its recommendations sent to the Academy of Sciences the final reports are not repositories of the processes of trying to arrive at a consensus. But in order to make sense of the committee reports, and the decisions recorded therein, a deeper understanding is needed of the committee members. The Swedish committee members’ own comprehension of scientific accomplishment, their own priorities as to what was important, and their own group dynamics all proved critical for the outcome.
Regardless, the committee seldom selected those candidates who enjoyed a consensual or even majority status from the nominators. Those entitled to nominate rarely provided a clear mandate for any single candidate. No juggling of statistics related to nominations - number, frequency, or origin - explains the awards. The Nobel Prize in physics may well be international in scope, but since its beginnings in 1901, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has determined the outcome.ĭuring the first 50 years of proceedings that have been studied in detail, committee members relied largely on their own judgement. Their version in part draws on physicist Abraham Pais’s account of how Einstein got a Nobel Prize.Ĭlaiming Einstein received a prize for his theory of the photoelectric effect and attributing relativity’s absence simply to an unfortunate error in committee member Allvar Gullstrand’s evaluation, the Academy of Sciences’ narrative represents a misunderstanding and oversimplification of a much more complex and troubling history. The Academy of Sciences and related official Nobel sources have long represented this episode along a line that turns out to be incompatible with the historical record. Yet, as the 100th-anniversary of this prize approaches, some confusion remains as to what actually transpired and what it means. When changes in the statutes (1974) eventually gave researchers access to official archival materials 50 years and older, historical scholarship could begin challenging conjecture and myth. This decision prompted several decades of speculation, especially with respect to the reason for omitting Einstein’s theories of relativity. On 9 November 1922, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences voted to award Albert Einstein the previously reserved 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics for “his services to theoretical physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect.”
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