# Why no Nobel prize for Hawking? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 27, 2016, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-nobel-prize-for-hawking/761061 "2016-07-27T21:09:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2016, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-nobel-prize-for-hawking/761061/1 "2016-07-27T21:09:10Z")
I’m no expert, but I thought he has made a lot of important discoveries. I guess the Nobel people are not impressed by his stuff. ---
**Author:** ![zimaane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a3d4f5/32.png) [@zimaane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zimaane)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2016, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-nobel-prize-for-hawking/761061/2 "2016-07-27T21:15:39Z")
The Nobels tend to go experimental scientists, rather than theorists. Hawking’s best chance is if one of his theoretical results is verified by experiment or observation. Then he could share in the prize. ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2016, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-nobel-prize-for-hawking/761061/3 "2016-07-27T21:20:01Z")
Is that true in all fields or just physics? ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2016, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-nobel-prize-for-hawking/761061/4 "2016-07-27T21:47:53Z")
> [@zimaane](#): > > The Nobels tend to go experimental scientists, rather than theorists. > > Hawking’s best chance is if one of his theoretical results is verified by experiment or observation. Then he could share in the prize. The Nobels tend to go to _both_ the theorists who propose things and the experimentalists who confirm the findings. They tend to be awarded separately, not in tandem, though. Hawking’s most famous work has yet to be confirmed, so he waits. Just like Higgs, who did his theoretical work in the 1960s and had to wait until the experimentalists caught up to get the prize in 2013. ---
**Author:** ![bonzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@bonzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bonzer)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2016, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-nobel-prize-for-hawking/761061/5 "2016-07-27T23:12:53Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > The Nobels tend to go to _both_ the theorists who propose things and the experimentalists who confirm the findings. They tend to be awarded separately, not in tandem, though. Hawking’s most famous work has yet to be confirmed, so he waits. Just like Higgs, who did his theoretical work in the 1960s and had to wait until the experimentalists caught up to get the prize in 2013. Broadly this. Without checking the detailed numbers, the Physics Nobel tends to have been roughly split between theorists and experimentalists over the years. The latter tend to get awarded earlier than the parallel theorists, because the usual notion is that the experimentalists deserve one by discovering something unexpected (or, at least, significant), while the theorists then get one for having then explained that (or having successfully predicted it). The Higgs example is an obvious counterexample. But the two obvious unusual factors there were a) that the length of time between the theoretical idea and it being confirmed was so long that all the candidate laureates for the theory prize were so old that they’d already begun to die off and b) the corresponding experimental prize will probably be the one that finally breaks the rule that it awards only up to three individuals rather than a giant collaboration as a whole. On Hawking, no, none of his predictions have been observationally confirmed. That does not detract from the esteem in which he’s held by physicists. He’s worked in a hard field that has little of the data we’d like as a check. That said, his close theorist colleague and friend, Kip Thorne, is widely expected to share either this year’s Physics Nobel or an imminent one. If so, Thorne would become the first General Relativity theorist to get the ticket to Stockholm on that basis. (Yes, I am excluding Chandrasekhar. A great GR theorist, but not quite what he won the Nobel for.) But I just might punt on Hawking and Penrose getting a Nobel in a couple of years time. The LIGO results on black hole mergers seem sufficiently tangled up with their theorems on such matters that one might just see the Swedes going for it. ---
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2016, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-nobel-prize-for-hawking/761061/6 "2016-07-28T01:04:06Z")
The only time Einstein won the Nobel Prize was: * * * “…for his services to Theoretical Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect.” \*\*\* Note the vague wording ‘for his services to Theoretical Physics’ and the emphasis on the discovery of an actual law. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2016, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-nobel-prize-for-hawking/761061/7 "2016-07-28T01:22:17Z")
According to the original will, the prize is supposed to go for discoveries with the greatest practical application. Now, obviously, that’s stretched sometimes (QED doesn’t have much more practical application than do Maxwell’s equations), but there’s still definitely a bias in that direction. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2016, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-nobel-prize-for-hawking/761061/8 "2016-07-28T02:54:30Z")
To be catty, the Swedes tossed the need for practicality out the window about eleven minutes after Nobel died and gave it to anybody they damn well felt like. ---
**Author:** ![Busy\_Scissors](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/d78d45/32.png) [@Busy\_Scissors](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Busy_Scissors)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2016, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-nobel-prize-for-hawking/761061/9 "2016-07-28T13:55:48Z")
> [@Bijou\_Drains](#): > > I’m no expert, but I thought he has made a lot of important discoveries. I guess the Nobel people are not impressed by his stuff. The Nobel people are knocked out by his stuff. But there are many brilliant scientists out there who have dented the universe of their fields. There’s probably a hundred physicists alive who could got the Nobel tomorrow, and there would be widespread, blanket agreement that it was well-deserved and completely appropriate. ---
**Author:** ![notquitekarpov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/71c47a/32.png) [@notquitekarpov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/notquitekarpov)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2016, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-nobel-prize-for-hawking/761061/10 "2016-07-28T14:44:03Z")
I guess there is no prize for hawking for similar reasons that there is no prize for falconry. 😛 The Swedes weren’t big on these sports of royalty, I would be more surprised there isn’t a prize for moose herding, if it were it were not for the fact that moose don’t form herds. ---
**Author:** ![Nelson\_Pike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Nelson\_Pike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nelson_Pike)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2016, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-nobel-prize-for-hawking/761061/11 "2016-07-28T15:45:43Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > According to the original will, the prize is supposed to go for discoveries with the greatest practical application. Now, obviously, that’s stretched sometimes (QED doesn’t have much more practical application than do Maxwell’s equations), but there’s still definitely a bias in that direction. Excuse me? Maxwell’s Equations? (with a well-deserved capital “E”!). Questionable practical application? ME certainly _does_ have practical application, revolutionary at that, beginning with the tip-of-the-iceberg discovery of radio waves (predicted by ME), and continuing to this day. ME provided the entire theoretical basis for a real colossus of a scientific and commercial revolution. See link: [Cambridge University Press: A Student’s Guide to Maxwell’s Equations](https://www.princeton.edu/ssp/joseph-henry-project/eddy-currents/A-students-guide-to-maxwells-equations-D.-FleischLEISC.pdf) (from link, emphasis added): > [@](#): > > This book has one purpose: to help you understand four of the most > influential equations in all of science. **If you need a testament to the > power of Maxwell’s Equations, look around you – radio, television, > radar, wireless Internet access, and Bluetooth technology are a few > examples of contemporary technology rooted in electromagnetic field > theory.** Little wonder that the readers of Physics World selected Maxwell’s > Equations as “the most important equations of all time.” As for Hawking, he will not be in Maxwell’s class even if his theoretical work is confirmed. And while we are at it, someone needs to spell out exactly what is so stirring, and important, about such Hawkingesque developments as “Black Holes ain’t so Black”, anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Nelson\_Pike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Nelson\_Pike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nelson_Pike)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2016, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-nobel-prize-for-hawking/761061/12 "2016-07-28T15:50:37Z")
> [@Busy\_Scissors](#): > > The Nobel people are knocked out by his stuff. But there are many brilliant scientists out there who have dented the universe of their fields. There’s probably a hundred physicists alive who could got the Nobel tomorrow, and there would be widespread, blanket agreement that it was well-deserved and completely appropriate. A hundred? Really? Names, please, and String theory does not count until there is at least a glimpse of conformation. My impression is that the physics selection committee has been doing a fine job from the start. Not perfect, mind you, but damn good. ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2016, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-nobel-prize-for-hawking/761061/13 "2016-07-28T17:43:39Z")
for those that don’t know, you cannot win a Nobel if you are dead. Based on that I thought he would have already won given his medical condition. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2016, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-nobel-prize-for-hawking/761061/14 "2016-07-29T00:30:32Z")
Um, **Nelson Pike** , I think you might want to re-read what I wrote. ---
**Author:** ![Nelson\_Pike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Nelson\_Pike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nelson_Pike)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2016, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-nobel-prize-for-hawking/761061/15 "2016-07-29T01:18:48Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Um, **Nelson Pike** , I think you might want to re-read what I wrote. I re-read it several times before I posted my reply, and I interpreted it correctly. You might want to review your Lit 101 composition primer. ---
**Author:** ![TommySeven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@TommySeven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TommySeven)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2016, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-nobel-prize-for-hawking/761061/16 "2016-07-29T05:17:53Z")
> [@Nelson\_Pike](#): > > I re-read it several times before I posted my reply, and I interpreted it correctly. You might want to review your Lit 101 composition primer. I think **Chronos** means “QED doesn’t let you do much practically that you couldn’t already do with Maxwell’s equations”. The original statement seems true to me, if needlessly subtly phrased. ---
**Author:** ![glowacks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/glowacks/32/5548_2.png) [@glowacks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glowacks)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2016, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-nobel-prize-for-hawking/761061/17 "2016-07-29T19:56:46Z")
> [@TommySeven](#): > > I think **Chronos** means “QED doesn’t let you do much practically that you couldn’t already do with Maxwell’s equations”. The original statement seems true to me, if needlessly subtly phrased. The problem is in the exactly delivery, using a phrasing that is generally reserved for times when the amount is negligible. I’m not surprised that someone would completely misconstrue it, but I knew exactly what he meant without being distracted by the weird phrasing of it. ---
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2016, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-nobel-prize-for-hawking/761061/18 "2016-07-29T22:51:55Z")
I saw a Discovery Channel show about him a few years back and was surprised to hear that in a recent peer review poll asking to name the 20 most important people working today in theoretical physics, Hawking’s name did not make the list _at all._ His fellow physicists said they felt that he had spend the last twenty years or so enjoying his fame and not doing much work in the way of proposing or proving anything new. He published a couple bestsellers that made quantum physics a little more accessible to the public (though I confess that even I never finished _A Brief History of Time_). Then he started making the rounds on TV (and not only on documentaries but shows like ST:TNG and _The Simpsons_) and doing speaking engagements at colleges etc. And, not to diminish all that he has achieved, but he is in an incredibly unique position in that because of his intellect and profession, it adds a weird positive/negative feeling to his severe physical disability. He’s in about the only discipline that can be completely 100% dependent on merely having a brilliant mind. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2016, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-nobel-prize-for-hawking/761061/19 "2016-07-29T23:52:23Z")
Yeah, Hawking’s best work is behind him, and pretty far behind him at this point. But then, it’s still a heck of a lot more brilliant than the vast majority of physicists will ever do. And QED can do everything that Maxwell’s Equations can and then some, since Maxwell’s Equations are just the classical limit of QED. But practically speaking, the “and then some” doesn’t amount to much (unless you count furthering our understanding of the workings of the Universe as practical). Hence, my statement that QED doesn’t have much more practical application than ME. I could have just said that QED doesn’t have much practical application at all, but that’s not true, because it encompasses ME, which have (as **Nelson Pike** pointed out) vast application. ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2016, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-nobel-prize-for-hawking/761061/20 "2016-07-30T13:44:36Z")
a lot of people win based on stuff they did early in their career. Einstein is an example of that. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-nobel-prize-for-hawking/761061.md?page=2)