I was a collaborator on the SNO project. I worked with Art McDonald, who co-won the 2015 Nobel prize in physics for the project.
There were hundreds of people involved. We couldn't have done it without the hundreds of people. While Art was a fantastic guy and a tireless worker, a good chunk of his contribution was management.
i.e. A competent manager. He not only understood all of the physics involved, but a good chunk of the engineering, along with having decent managerial skills. No one with skills solely in an MBA, or theoretical physicist, or civil engineer could have done it.
Even if he didn't win based on something he mathematically proved, there's no question he's one of the top physicists around.
If you look at the Nobel prizes as the "best of" awards, and not "the guy who invented something all alone", it becomes a bit more palatable.
On top of that, the Nobel committee is limited by the rules of their foundation. Even assigning Nobels for something done 5 years ago is arguably outside of the directions of the trust.
So yeah, the article isn't theoretically wrong, but it's wrong for practical purposes.
It concerns me that we award managers all the credit for collaborative innovations. History remembers Thomas Edison as a great inventor with 2,332 patents. This is a distortion though. He was mostly a manager, who stamped his name on everything his building of inventors produced. I see the same thing happening with the mythologizing of Steve Jobs as an inventor instead of as a CEO.
This "great man" view of history distorts our perceptions. It tricks us into believing any lone person can rise from nothing. The reality is that it takes collaboration, funding, and often privilege. People might be a little happier with their lives if they knew the "great man" concept is just propaganda, and that simply contributing to something great is a worthwhile aspiration. I know I'm happier for discovering this in my mid-life.
> The article address this argument though and says that the Foundation has already stretched the rules.
That bit of the article is arguably misleading. The foundation is not stretching its rules in awarding it to three people. That stretching (from one to three) was done immediately after Nobel's death as part of the settlement of his Will, and enshrined in the statutes of the foundation ("nor shall it be divided into more than three prizes at most")[0].
Whether it's possible to change it now to allow more than three is a question for someone who knows Swedish Trust law.
> The foundation is not stretching its rules in awarding it to three people. That stretching (from one to three) was done immediately after Nobel's death
I'm baffled! I have read the will of Alfred Nobel before, but it never struck me that it doesn't allow for sharing of a prize. Here is the part of the will [0], in English translation, that deals with the prizes, for anyone who wants to read it:
> The whole of my remaining realizable estate shall be dealt with in the following way: the capital, invested in safe securities by my executors, shall constitute a fund, the interest on which shall be annually distributed in the form of prizes to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit to mankind. The said interest shall be divided into five equal parts, which shall be apportioned as follows: one part to the person who shall have made the most important discovery or invention within the field of physics; one part to the person who shall have made the most important chemical discovery or improvement; one part to the person who shall have made the most important discovery within the domain of physiology or medicine; one part to the person who shall have produced in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction; and one part to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses. The prizes for physics and chemistry shall be awarded by the Swedish Academy of Sciences; that for physiological or medical work by the Caroline Institute in Stockholm; that for literature by the Academy in Stockholm, and that for champions of peace by a committee of five persons to be elected by the Norwegian Storting. It is my express wish that in awarding the prizes no consideration whatever shall be given to the nationality of the candidates, but that the most worthy shall receive the prize, whether he be a Scandinavian or not.
(It also says that the peace prize should be given to one person, not an organisation.)
Just to play devils advocate, where should the line be drawn? None of this work could be done if it weren't for the cafeteria staff that provided brain food, or the spouses who shouldered the responsibilities of any parents who worked on the project while providing moral support. It could get messy.
When you do your work, do you share awards and raises with the cafeteria staff? Does the cafeteria staff understand the work you do? Do they contribute materially to it? i.e. technical contributions which are meaningful in the field?
No? Then the analogy is false.
The difference with physics (for example) is that when a paper has 160 co-authors (as in my experience) all of those people contributed materially to the result. They are all experts in the field, and they all understand the contents of the paper.
There were hundreds of people involved. We couldn't have done it without the hundreds of people. While Art was a fantastic guy and a tireless worker, a good chunk of his contribution was management.
i.e. A competent manager. He not only understood all of the physics involved, but a good chunk of the engineering, along with having decent managerial skills. No one with skills solely in an MBA, or theoretical physicist, or civil engineer could have done it.
Even if he didn't win based on something he mathematically proved, there's no question he's one of the top physicists around.
If you look at the Nobel prizes as the "best of" awards, and not "the guy who invented something all alone", it becomes a bit more palatable.
On top of that, the Nobel committee is limited by the rules of their foundation. Even assigning Nobels for something done 5 years ago is arguably outside of the directions of the trust.
So yeah, the article isn't theoretically wrong, but it's wrong for practical purposes.