When it comes to the world’s greatest geniuses, people often think of Nobel Prize winners.
When Alfred Nobel created the prize, his desire was to recognize “those who have brought the greatest benefit to humanity”.
As of 2021, the Nobel Prize has been awarded to 943 individuals.
In addition to bringing the theory of relativity, X-rays, integrated circuits, semiconductors, lasers, penicillin and artemisinin, electron microscopy and magnetic resonance imaging, what have these peerless geniuses of less than 1,000 said (can be written in middle school what about the famous quote?
real acceptance speech
After winning the Nobel Prize, people’s reactions vary.
Someone was clearly ecstatic.
❝I accept!❞
— Kelly Mullis (1993 Chemistry Prize, inventor of PCR), hurriedly on the phone to congratulate him on his award.
❝This award is also wonderful for the individual. I joked once that it was like being injected with a lifetime of Prozac (antidepressant).❞
—Alfred Gilman (1994 Prize in Physiology and Medicine)
Alfred Gilman with the dog | Tom Heflin/PA
Some people seem more humble.
❝Oh no, I’m afraid of this! I better hide.❞
– Thorstein Witzel (1981 Prize in Physiology and Medicine)
❝I never thought of winning a Nobel Prize. It’s true. I didn’t expect to get my name in the newspapers without doing bad things as a kid.❞
—Eugene Wigner (1963 Physics Prize)
❝ That job was not done by me, but by the young people in my lab. I just brewed coffee and sharpened pencils for them.❞
– Peter Agre (2003 Chemistry Prize)
❝Anyway, let’s have breakfast.❞
—Isaac Bashevis Singer (1978 Literary Prize), to his wife after learning that he had won the Nobel Prize.
Some people think the Nobel Prize is a trap.
❝Nobel prizes will end your career if you’re not careful. If I let myself slip into a trap, I’ll spend all my time cutting the ribbon.❞
– Daniel McFadden (2000 Economics Prize)
❝The Nobel Prize is a ticket to one’s own funeral. The person who won the Nobel Prize has never done much more.❞
—T.S. Eliot (1948 Literary Prize)
❝It feels like going to your own funeral, except you don’t need to die first.❞
—Emilie Balch (1946 Peace Prize)
(At a funeral, everyone gathers to praise you for your achievements in life.)
Crick, the discoverer of the double helix, even printed a batch of “auto-reply cards” after accepting the award –
❝ Dr. Crick thanks you for your letter, unfortunately he cannot accept your invitation: send an autograph/assist your project/provide a photo/read your manuscript/heal your disease/speak/accept To interview/attend a conference/speak on the radio/chair/go on TV/become an editor/speak after dinner/write a book/provide a testimonial/accept an honorary degree.❞
– Francis Crick (1962 Prize in Physiology and Medicine)
Watson and Crick, and their DNA models | Antony Barrington Brown
Even the trap has at least compliments from the family in it.
❝ This is the first time my little ones come home and say, ‘Dad, my friends think this is cool.’ ❞
– Peter Agre (2003 Chemistry Prize)
❝My wife hesitates for a moment when she asks me to do the dishes.❞
—John Polanyi (Chemistry Prize 1986)
(So after a brief hesitation, will you still be asked to wash the dishes?)
❝When I was a kid, I asked my mom to let me go to Tokyo to study physics, and I said I would win the Nobel Prize in Physics. After 50 years, I went back to my hometown and said to my mom, ‘Look, I kept my promise, I won The Nobel Prize.’ My mom said, ‘No, you promised me the Physics Prize.’❞
– Kenzaburo Oe (1994 Literature Prize)
(As expected of the East Asian mother!)
Kenzaburo Oe’s Nobel Prize speech | @NobelPrize/twitter
Someone told the truth.
❝If I knew what would make a person a Nobel Prize, I wouldn’t tell you, I would go for another prize myself.❞
—Robert Laughlin (1998 Physics Prize)
❝If I could explain (my research) in three minutes, it wouldn’t deserve a Nobel Prize.❞
—Richard Feynman (1965 Physics Prize)
Feynman was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on quantum electrodynamics (QED). Quantum electrodynamics is a theory describing the interaction between light and matter, a relativistic quantum field theory of electrodynamics, and a perturbation theory of electromagnetic quantum vacuum states.
(It’s really hard to explain in three minutes…)
Someone…needs to split the Nobel Prize equally with his ex-wife.
Economist Robert Lucas divorced his ex-wife on October 31, 1988. The divorce agreement stipulated that if Lucas won the Nobel Prize within 7 years of the divorce, the bonus should be divided equally with his ex-wife.
On October 10, 1995, Lucas won the Nobel Prize in Economics with a prize of $600,000, just 21 days before the agreement expired, so his Harvard colleagues came to ask him how he was feeling.
❝If there is an agreement, follow it. Besides, it is really hard not to be happy to win such an award.❞
—Robert Lucas (1995 Economics Prize)
What is your view on research?
❝If an idea doesn’t look crazy at first glance, it doesn’t have much promise.❞
– Albert Einstein (1921 Physics Prize)
❝The best way to predict the future is to ask a Nobel Prize winner what is impossible.❞
– Paul Lauterberg (2003 Prize in Physiology and Medicine)
❝There is a saying in scientists, how do you know you have a really good idea? When at least three Nobel Prize winners tell you it is wrong.❞
– Paul Lauterberg (2003 Prize in Physiology and Medicine)
Laubert wins Nobel Prize for NMR research | @stonybrooku/twitter
❝If no one has called you ‘irresponsible’ lately, you should consider whether you have suppressed your imagination too much.❞
—Edmund Phelps (2006 Economics Prize)
This speech is really very economist…
❝When an old celebrity speaks to you, listen carefully and respectfully—but don’t trust him. Trust nothing but your own wisdom.❞
– Linus Pauling (Chemistry Prize 1954, Peace Prize 1962)
Maybe this is the reason why Pauling insisted that “large doses of vitamin C can cure all diseases”, and no one could persuade him to do so…
❝I don’t mind if you think slowly, but I do mind if you publish faster than you think.❞
—Wolfgang Pauli (1945 Physics Prize)
❝The scientific equations we seek are poems written by nature.❞
——Yang Zhenning (1957 Physics Prize)
❝Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination surrounds the world.❞
– Albert Einstein (1921 Physics Prize)
❝It is more important for an equation to be aesthetically pleasing than to fit experimental data.❞
—Paul Dirac (1933 Physics Prize)
❝The opposite of one deep truth may well be another deep truth.❞
—Niels Bohr (1922 Physics Prize)
❝Almost all great creators are hermits. A man either has many ideas but few friends, or many friends but few ideas.❞
—Santiago Ramon-Cajal (1906 Prize in Physiology and Medicine, Father of Neuroscience)
It may be a hermit like Cajal who can draw slender and beautiful neurons with a single stroke.
Cajal’s neuron
Others, however, believe that cooperation is important.
❝The popular scientist is a lone genius. In fact, few of us are geniuses, much less lonely ones.❞
—John Bishop (1989 Prize in Physiology or Medicine)
How do you view life?
One of the “sequelae” of winning the award is that he is often asked “how to spend this life”.
❝ People keep emailing me asking, ‘What’s the point of life?’ And hope I get back to them ASAP!❞
—David Baltimore (1975 Prize in Physiology and Medicine)
(Should ask the Nobel laureates below.)
For example, love is very important.
❝Love brings a lot of happiness, far more than the pain caused by missing.❞
– Albert Einstein (1921 Physics Prize)
Friendship is also important.
❝There is pain in the middle, but there are few things that are related and meaningful in life that are pain-free.❞
– Yang Zhenning (1957 Physics Prize) on him and Li Zhengdao.
Yang Zhenning and Li Zhengdao at the Nobel Prize ceremony
Work is important.
❝ When I ask myself ‘Who is the happiest person on earth?’ my answer is, “Those who can’t wait to wake up early so they can do what they were doing yesterday. ❞
—James Cronin (1980 Physics Prize)
Exercise is also important.
❝My writing is worthless, my boxing is everything.❞
– Ernest Hemingway (1954 Literary Prize)
One arm… just fine.
Nobel laureate Eric Cornell, who lost his left arm and shoulder in 2004 to necrotizing fasciitis, said,
❝Losing an arm is more of an inconvenience than a disaster.❞
Speaking of which, although many scientists have happy love and marriages, the skill points of some Nobel Prize winners may be mainly focused on scientific research rather than interpersonal relationships.
❝Why does the human body only carry half of the organs needed for reproduction, so that everyone has to spend a lot of time and energy to find the other half?❞
—François Jacob (1965 Prize in Physiology and Medicine)
(Breeding by budding! Autocloning! It’s a waste of time to find a partner, time that could have been spent on scientific research!)
George Hitchens (1988 Prize in Physiology and Medicine) proposed to his fiancée (also an MD) while she was driving him to an event, literally,
❝By the way, you are now my fiancee❞.
John Bardeen (1956, 1972 Physics Prize), who won the Nobel Prize in Physics twice for the BCS theory of transistor effects and superconductivity, said when discussing where to marry with his fiancée,
❝You can get married in church if you want, but not with me❞.
Wolfgang Pauli (1945 Physics Prize) heard that his ex-wife had a new partner,
❝I would understand if she chose a matador. But she went with an ordinary chemist!❞
(The only other subject that physicists look up to, probably mathematics…)
Turn on rant mode
Sometimes, Nobel Prize winners are also very vicious.
Tucao human beings——
❝Fear, or stupidity, has always been the basis of most human behavior.❞
– Albert Einstein (1921 Physics Prize)
❝We are alone, absolutely alone on this contingent planet. And, of all forms of life around us, none aligns with us except dogs.❞
—Maurice Maeterlinck (1911 Literary Prize)
Tucao colleagues –
❝ Just like Cambridge and Oxford, Yale and Harvard are also very competitive and presented in a more unconventional way. I have seen a dog in a professor’s house (at Yale) and it was trained to take as long as Hears the word ‘Harvard’ and pretends to throw up.❞
—Joseph Thomson (1906 Physics Prize)
(The professor at Yale University has such superb dog training skills…)
Joseph Thomson | owlcation.com
Tucao under the superstition-
❝It is too easy for humans to draw conclusions from one instance. Interestingly, the technical term for this phenomenon is ‘superstition’.❞
– Francis Crick (1962 Prize in Physiology and Medicine, one of the discoverers of the DNA double helix)
But some people have developed superstitions themselves.
❝I certainly don’t believe in this superstition. But people say it brings good luck even if you don’t believe it!❞
– (with a horseshoe on the door of his country house) Niels Bohr (1922 Physics Prize)
Tucao raising a baby——
❝ It is an experimental fact that time passes more slowly around infants, especially at night. Who did not learn the true measure of eternity on the first night alone with an alert infant? Who can deny the Heisenberg test What about the steely certainty of the Uncertainty Law? The principle states that it is impossible for two first-time parents to get a good night’s sleep at the same time.❞
—Robert Laughlin (1998 Physics Prize)
and delayed retirement—
❝A person loses an average of 2 years of life for every 1 year of work after age 55… If you have to work very hard until you are 65 or older to retire, you may die within 18 months of retirement. ❞
——Esaki Reyuna (1973 Physics Prize)
(According to information, Ezaki Ling was still working at the age of 80. He was born in 1925 and is 97 years old this year. He won the award for his discovery of the quantum tunneling effect of electrons.)
Of course, the happiest thing is to complain about my work-
❝All science, either physics or just stamp collecting.❞
—Ernest Rutherford (1908 Chemistry Prize)
What he won, however, was the Chemistry Prize (aka the Philatelic Prize)…
❝One, three and five we use wave theory, and two, four and six we use particle theory.❞
– William Henry Bragg (1915 Physics Prize)
(No work on Sunday, no theory whatsoever…)
❝ Physics has become incredibly complex… In fact, it takes a long time to develop a physicist to the point where he can understand the nature of physical problems, when he is too old to solve them ❞
—Eugene Wigner (1963 Physics Prize)
❝A colleague of mine saw me wandering aimlessly in the streets of Copenhagen and he kindly said to me: ‘You don’t look happy.’ I replied angrily: ‘When one is thinking How can he be happy when he has the Mann effect?”❞
—Wolfgang Pauli (1945 Physics Prize)
The Zeeman effect refers to the splitting of the spectral lines of atoms in an external magnetic field, discovered by Dutch physicist Peter Zeeman in 1896.
❝The happiest email in the world is spam because I know what to do with it right away.❞
—Roald Hoffman (1981 Chemistry Prize)
❝Every time I read the pre-published proofs, I am reminded of a horrific scene in a POW camp: a man slowly and deliberately eating his own vomit.❞
—Conrad Lorenz (1973 Prize in Physiology and Medicine)
After reading my own article, I feel like vomiting, but it’s alright…
Konrad Lorenz is an Austrian zoologist who mainly studies grey geese and burrowing birds.
The funniest is the writers—
❝Never borrow books from others, no one will pay them back. My own study is full of books borrowed from me.❞
– Anatole France (1921 Literary Prize)
❝Horse racing looks like a steady job compared to writing a book.❞
—John Steinbeck (1962 Literary Prize, wrote The Grapes of Wrath, East of Eden, Among Mice and Men, etc.)
But there are also people who have made writing a relatively stable job, like Isaac Bashevis Singer (1978 Literary Prize) whose work is basically published in newspapers first and earn a round of newspapers first. Manuscript fees, and then compiled into a book, he (happily) said
❝If Moses had written the Ten Commandments for newspaper fees, he might have written two thousand commandments❞.
Inspirational is also very burning
The inspirational chicken soup mentioned by Nobel Prize winners is not ordinary chicken soup, because they really did-
❝History will treat me well because I intend to write history.❞
– Winston Churchill (1953 Literary Prize for “Memoirs of the Second World War”)
Churchill at 21
❝What distinguishes youth from aging is the interest in learning. As long as you are learning, you will not be old.❞
– Rosalyn Yarrow (1977 Prize in Physiology and Medicine)
❝ I’m still struggling with problems I started working on ten years ago. I’ve had success with small problems, but the real goal is still out of reach, even though it sometimes seems very close. It’s tough, but it’s also Worth it: Difficult because the goal is beyond my ability, and worthwhile because it makes one forget the distractions of everyday life.❞
– Albert Einstein (1921 Physics Prize)
❝ Don’t be afraid of hard work. Anything of value is hard earned. Don’t believe people when they throw cold water on you and say you can’t do it. In my day, people told me women didn’t study chemistry. I see no reason No.❞
– Gertrude Elion (1988 Prize in Physiology or Medicine)
Elion never received a formal Ph.D. After she won the Nobel Prize, Harvard University awarded her an honorary degree of Doctor of Science.
Photo of Elion while studying at Hunter College｜nobelprize.org
❝When you pluck a flower from the earth, you also move the most distant star.❞
—Paul Dirac (1933 Physics Prize)
The exact meaning of this sentence is still debated, such as whether this ultra-long-distance action is through gravity, through quantum entanglement, or some other mechanism.
In any case, may the “little flowers” in the remarks of these Nobel Prize winners gently touch the stars in your heart.
The 2022 Nobel Prizes will be announced one after another from October 3 . This year, Nutshell will still wait for the results of the Nobel Prize with you, and we will release the most reliable interpretation of the Nobel Prize as soon as possible.
Come and pay attention, don’t miss it!
Click on the picture to enter the collection of Nobel Prize interpretations over the years
references
[1] Pratt, D. (2009). The Impossible Takes Longer. Walker Books.
[2] Einstein, A. (2013). The ultimate quotable Einstein (A. Calaprice, Ed.). Princeton University Press.
Author: You Shiyou
Edit: small towel
Source of cover image: Made by myself
an AI
I’ve already thought about my speech, so I’m missing a Nobel Prize!
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