# Can an amateur win a Nobel Prize? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 6, 2012, 8:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-an-amateur-win-a-nobel-prize/627405 "2012-07-06T08:14:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![bldysabba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@bldysabba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bldysabba)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2012, 7:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-an-amateur-win-a-nobel-prize/627405/21 "2012-07-07T07:36:06Z")
> [@ultrafilter](#): > > Yeah, the romantic aspects of Ramanujan’s story are pretty badly overblown. He was definitely a smart dude, but not the troubled solitary genius that he’s often made out to be. Do elaborate. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2012, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-an-amateur-win-a-nobel-prize/627405/22 "2012-07-07T13:09:07Z")
The romanticized version of Ramanujan’s life is that he grew up in a poor Indian family and got no formal training in mathematics. No one knew about his mathematical ability. Out of nowhere he wrote to G. H. Hardy at Cambridge University, sending him a list of theorms that he had proved. Hardy was so impressed that he arrange for Ramanujan to come work with him at Cambridge. The truth is that he grew up in a Brahmin family and his father was a clerk. If you could read, you were in a reasonably well-off family at that point in India. His mathematical ability was recognized by all his teachers from an early age and he always got encouragement from others. He went to university, but he neglected the non-mathematical subjects there, so he was tossed out. Other mathematicians there knew how good he was, so they arranged a job for him as a clerk where he could work during the day and do mathematical research during the evening. He published one mathematical paper in a journal during this time. Other mathematicians thought his research seemed similar to that of Hardy, so they suggested that he write to Hardy. What he sent to Hardy was a list of theorems without proofs. Hardy could see that some of them had already been proved. Of the rest, some turned out to be wrong. Most of the theorems were unproven at that point and turned out eventually to be correct. He and others arranged for Ramanujan to come to Cambridge. There Hardy worked with Ramanujan to understand how to prove the theorems that he stated. ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Knig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/cdc98d/32.png) [@Typo\_Knig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Knig)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2012, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-an-amateur-win-a-nobel-prize/627405/23 "2012-07-08T19:36:09Z")
A lot of good astronomical work is still done by avocational scientists. If one of those people publishes a great new idea or great new observation, it could be big. For example, a new type of galaxy, [Hanny’s Voorwerp](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voorwerp) was discovered by amateurs who participated in a crowdsourcing project for astronomy. If prizes were to be awarded for such work, I suspect they would go to the professional astronomers who set up the crowdsourcing project, and not to the amateurs. Unless said amateurs get co-author credit on the papers. ---
**Author:** ![Jim\_s\_Son](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19adc/32.png) [@Jim\_s\_Son](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_s_Son)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2012, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-an-amateur-win-a-nobel-prize/627405/24 "2012-07-08T21:17:31Z")
> [@lisiate](#): > > Amen, it sets my teeth on edge hearing someone described as a “Nobel-winning economist”. I’m extremely skeptical whether economics can be described as a ‘science’ in the first place. > > The OP excluded the Peace and Literature prizes. Otherwise I’d have nominated Winston Churchill. Churchill? The man had been writing for a half century before he won the Nobel prize. Some 40 books, thousands of newspaper and magazine articles and an estimated 8-10 million words. He had to,he had to support his luxurious life style. > **[Winston Churchill as a writer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winston_Churchill_as_writer)** > > Winston Churchill, in addition to his careers as a soldier and politician, was a prolific writer under the variant of his full name "Winston S. Churchill". After being commissioned into the 4th Queen's Own Hussars in 1895 Churchill gained permission to observe the Cuban War of Independence, and sent war reports to The Daily Graphic. He continued his war journalism in British India, at the Siege of Malakand, then in the Sudan during the Mahdist War and in southern Africa during the Second Boe... ---
**Author:** ![lisiate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f05b48/32.png) [@lisiate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lisiate)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2012, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-an-amateur-win-a-nobel-prize/627405/25 "2012-07-08T21:22:10Z")
Good point, perhaps we should classify him as an amateur politician. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2012, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-an-amateur-win-a-nobel-prize/627405/26 "2012-07-08T21:23:46Z")
> [@Typo\_Knig](#): > > A lot of good astronomical work is still done by avocational scientists. If one of those people publishes a great new idea or great new observation, it could be big. For example, a new type of galaxy, [Hanny’s Voorwerp](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voorwerp) was discovered by amateurs who participated in a crowdsourcing project for astronomy. If prizes were to be awarded for such work, I suspect they would go to the professional astronomers who set up the crowdsourcing project, and not to the amateurs. Unless said amateurs get co-author credit on the papers. To repeat - Jocelyn Bell as an example ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Knig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/cdc98d/32.png) [@Typo\_Knig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Knig)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2012, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-an-amateur-win-a-nobel-prize/627405/27 "2012-07-08T22:49:13Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > To repeat - Jocelyn Bell as an example She was a grad student at the time she discovered pulsars - on her way to being a professional. She has a well-respected on-going career as an astronomer. And she is calmer and more accepting about being robbed of the Nobel than I could ever be. ---
**Author:** ![Bisected8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a4c791/32.png) [@Bisected8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bisected8)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2012, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-an-amateur-win-a-nobel-prize/627405/28 "2012-07-08T23:22:33Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > Just to mention one more thing. Nobel believed that the invention of dynamite (presumably, in his mind, the prototype of discoveries that ought to be recognized) would lead to the end of war, because henceforth war would be so destructive that no one would dare start one. HA!!! You’re thinking of Richard Gatling, inventer of the Gatling Gun. Nobel didn’t even invent dynamite as a weapon, he invented it as a mining tool. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-an-amateur-win-a-nobel-prize/627405.md?page=1)