The Nobel Prize in Economics is not technically a Nobel Prize, in the sense that it was not one of the prizes established by Alfred Nobel. Instead, it was started by the Swedish National Bank at some point in the 1960s.
Let’s suppose I become fabulously rich and I want to start handing out Nobel Prizes in Underwater Basket-Weaving or Madden '20 or Explosives Manufacturing. Can I do that and call it a “Nobel Prize” in the same way the “Nobel Prize in Economics” is a Nobel Prize? Or does the Swedish Bank have special blessing to use the name “Nobel” that I would find it hard to obtain?
According to wiki the prize is administered by the Nobel Foundation, so if you get them to go along with your prize it will all work out. Not sure how interested they would be in Underwater Basket-weaving or Madden '20, but isn’t the whole Nobel prize system honoring explosive manufacturing?
I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that the Nobel Foundation has some level of trademark on the name “Nobel Prize,” but that may or may not be applicable to someone in, say, the U.S. as they try to establish their own prize. Even so, I would strongly suspect that they have some lawyers who would attempt to get you to stop from attempting to deceive the public into believing that your “Nobel Prizes” are connected to them.
I expect that if you want to give a ton of money to the Nobel Foundation to establish a prize in some new category and are serious about it, they’d be willing to work with you.
If you want to roll your own thing, then you probably can’t call it a Nobel prize.
However, if you have the tens or hundreds of millions of dollars to establish a foundation to consider and award substantial annual prize money, does it matter?
Not really. Nobel, who of course, made his fortune via his inventions of explosives, established the Nobel Prizes (and left much of his fortune to establishing the prize foundation) in hopes of building a legacy for something other than being a “merchant of death” (as a prematurely-published obituary had described him).
The names, titles, building images, trademarks, service marks and logos that appear on the Site are registered and unregistered marks of the Nobel Foundation, including but not limited to Nobel Prize®, the Nobel Medal® design mark, Nobelprize.org®, Nobel Museum®, Nobelmuseet®, Nobel Media® and Nobel Symposia® (collectively, the “Nobel Foundation trademarks”). The Nobel Foundation is most restrictive in permitting use of these trademarks, and you may not use the Nobel Foundation trademarks without prior written permission from the Nobel Foundation.
No more so than the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s work on improving global health “honors” the computer software industry in which Gates made his fortune.
But, yes, if it had not been for (a) the fortune that Nobel made from explosives, and (b) his desire to not be solely known for explosives, there would be no Nobel Prizes.
You can read how the economics prize was the creation of neo-liberal ideologues looking to cover their political agenda with the gloss of the Nobel prizes and make economics seem “scientific” here https://twitter.com/MGSchmelzer/status/1315612330873552896?s=20, “The Neoliberal Ersatz Nobel Prize” by Philip Mirowski
There’s no Nobel prize for Mathematics. They shoot for the Abel prize or Fields Medal instead. Rumor has it that Mr. Nobel was not fond of Mathematicians, because one had an affair with his wife. However, it seems Nobel never married. Perhaps a lover?
As others have said, you’d probably have to work out a deal with the Nobel Foundation.
A more prosaic explanation is that Alfred Nobel was an inventor and an engineer, and had less interest in purely theoretical fields like math or philosophy. Even today, the science prizes tend to go to experimenters rather than theoreticians.
It is virtually certain that Nobel didn’t like mathematics because it is too theoretical and he wanted to honor practical people. And the will apparently specifies that it should be given for the most important development in the preceding year. Instead it is usually given for one of the most important theoretical development in the past 30 years.
How long have the Nobel Prizes had as much importance as they seem to have today? I mean the announcements are major news all over the world and I think they’re the premier prizes of any sort. There’s really no reason that they should be; I assume there were earlier prizes and there certainly have been others since.
I have started awarding the Noble Prize from the Cecil Adams Foundation. We have made awards for the past 4 years for achievements in various disciplines. The annual awards are held every February 10-11 in Telluride,CO, capped off with naked night skiing.
You could probably start your own prizes in memory of Alfred Nobel, but people are less likely to ignore the full name of your prize if you’re not the Swedish Academy of Sciences.