So...What Is It With The Nobel Prize?

I've come to the conclusion that the guys who run the Nobel Prize committee are a bunch of elitist snobs. I mean it's one thing not to take my suggestions for making the prize more egalitarian. But it's a whole other matter when they ignore the suggestions completely.

I've sent them e-mail after e-mail carefully explaining why they had this whole prize thing all wrong. And how did they reply? They didn't. Not so much as a terse don't bug us. I mean what have they got to do all day that keeps them so busy, they can't take a moment to consider a logical and carefully laid out re-structuring of their entire organization. But you can judge for yourselves. Here's MY plan for the Nobel Prize.

First of all, give out the prize in smaller amounts to a whole lot more people. Make it like the Emmy's. If a team was involved, don't just award the medallion to the leader, give everyone a medal! How much trouble would that be?

And let them each have some of the money. I haven't seen an accounting of the kind of bucks in it, but if Nobel's trust is large enough, and I suspect it is, then they can keep the awards nearly as big and make a whole lot more people happy.

Next, broaden the categories to include things that real people actually accomplish. Sure, keep the prize for medicine. But make the prize for something that will actually help people and not for identifying some gene in a fruit fly that gives it the ability to know an apples from a tomato. (Hell, is a tomato even a fruit? And does a fruit fly even care?) The award ought to be for something like fingertip bandages. Now THAT deserves a prize something fierce.

And get rid of that physics prize. For God's sake, who cares if there are strings in the universe that finally, grandly unify theories that no one can follow. I mean, if it will take more energy than the universe has, to prove one of them, then the whole thing is useless anyway. What point is there to proving that light travels faster to Philadelphia or by skateboard? Might as well dump all the multi dimensional theories into a black hole.

And do the same with the math prize. We don't need to spend huge sums of money on super-computers that calculate pi out to its last digit. It doesn't have a last digit! And who cares anyway? You have to take stuff like that on faith...like God! It's never going to be of any real world value. And that's the point. These prizes are given for achievements that no one understands. They're decided upon by people that no one understands.

I mean, does anyone really understand Stephen Hawking? My pet marmoset speaks English more clearly than a physicist! A more obvious case of the fox guarding the Nobel hen-house does not exist. And neither do those inter-galactic silly string thingies.

They ought to be giving out an award to the guy who invented, like ,... asymmetrical headlamp design! I mean, that was practical! He took headlight bulbs, faced them away from the road, bent reflectors in all sorts of counter-intuitive ways , accounting for the refractive index of clear lexan and came up with headlight beams that defy logic...but work. Now that's Nobel-worthy!! (I don't even understand how he did that, but it's so much more real-worldly.)

Or what about the guy that invented magnetic clip-on sunglasses?

I think that the Nobels should be awarded for actual accomplishments...not attempts. Why give out a peace prize for only trying. If someone actually accomplishes peace, cut him a check. If he makes a worthy effort...he's an also-ran. Give him the hook, not a million dollars.

By committee standards, I should get the Nobel for "Scientific and Mathematical Skepticism."

So there you have it Nobel elite. A simpler plan. A plan for the 21st century! A plan for the common man (or to be completely fair, woman) I'll bet the Nobel TVQ would be a lot higher if you awarded it for things people actually care about. You maybe even could get a sponsor for the awards.

Or, you can keep things the way they are and remain a bunch of anal-retentive weenies.