Gallery: The Nobel Committee Hasn't Always Picked the Right Winners
Roger Haworth | CC-BY-SA-2.001Susan-Jocelyn-Bell-(Burnell),-1967
In 1974, two scientists won the physics Nobel for discovering pulsars. Problem is, one of them originally believed the pulsar's transmissions were actually alien beacons. The real hero was a graduate student named Jocelyn Bell, who had earlier correctly deduced that that it had to be a spinning star.
Max-Planck-Gesellschaft02Haber.Geniuscxd
Synthetic fertilizers are a big part of why modern agriculture can feed so many people. Which is why Fritz Haber won the chemistry prize in 1918. But not everyone was happy. That's because Haber was also renowned for his expertise with turning chlorine and other gases into weapons.
AT&T | <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bardeen_Shockley_Brattain_1948.JPG" target="_blank">PD-OLD</a>03Bardeen-Shockley-Brattain-1948
Transistors are the reason we have computers. William Shockley (middle) was one of three scientists awarded the physics prize their invention in 1959. Problem is, he probably didn't deserve it. He did invent a faulty transistor, but it was two labmates who (John Bardeen, left; and Walter Brattain, right) finished the job.
Nina Dmitrievna | <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:DIMendeleevCab.jpg" target="_blank">PD-OLD</a>04DIMendeleevCab
Perhaps most egregious of all is the fact that Dmitri Mendeleyev, inventor of the Periodic Table of Elements, never received a Nobel. According to unsealed Nobel records, the committee almost awarded him in 1906, but one member with an axe to grind shut Mendeleyev out. The great chemist died the following year.
Swiss Patent Office | <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Einstein_patentoffice.jpg" target="_blank">PD-OLD</a>05Einstein-patentoffice
You won't be surprised to learn that Einstein won a Nobel. But you probably wouldn't have guessed that his 1921 prize was for figuring out that light was both a wave and a particle. Which is definitely cool (it led to the quantum revolution, after all), but what about special relativity? What about general relativity? What about his work on Brownian motion, which is how we know for certain that molecules exist?
Nobel Foundation06Nils-Gustaf-Dalén
Speaking of light, the committee loves the stuff. So much so, that in 1912 they gave the physics prize to the Swede Nils Dalén for inventing better lighthouse technology.
National Institute of Standards and Technology07Nick-Holonyak-Jr
Sometimes it seems like the physics prize always goes to extremely esoteric discoveries. This isn't always true. The 2014 the prize went to the trio who discovered light emitting diodes. Which is cool, and their use is easy to understand. But why not just award to Nick Holonyak, who straight up invented LEDs in 1962?
US DOE08Portrai
Enrico Fermi won the physics prize in 1938 for creating periodic elements normally too massive to be found naturally. But Fermi (and the committee) incorrectly analyzed his results. Only later did they figure out that he’d in fact come up with something completely different: nuclear fission.
National Cancer Institute/NIH09Gallo,-Robert-C.-and-Sabin,-Albert-B
In 2008, the prize for medicine went to two co-discoverers of HIV, and to the researcher who discovered that HPV caused cancer. Important, but investigators later alleged that the drug company AstraZeneca had influenced the latter decision (the company had two HPV vaccines in the works). Many scientists believed the award should have gone to Robert Gallo (above, left), who discovered the link between HIV and AIDS. 100 of them co-signed a letter of dissent, published in the journal *Science*. ^1^
Rockefeller University10steinman-SCAN-003-1983.1317847551
The Nobel Committee has another rule: No dead winners. But even the rigid Nobel's rules can break under the wrong circumstances. In 2011 Ralph Steinman won half of the the award for figuring out the body's adaptive immune system. However, Steinman had the poor timing to die from pancreatic cancer three days before the committee announced his name to the world.
Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images11Rosalind Elsie Franklin.
Dead was the Nobel's excuse for leaving Rosalind Franklin (1920-1958) out of the Nobel for DNA in 1962. Her x-rays were critical in proving the molecule's double helix structure. Sure, Franklin died in 1958, but Crick and Watson published in 1953. Did they really need to let the most fundamental biology discovery of all time simmer for so long?
Nobel Institute12Walter-Hess
No discussion of Nobel mishaps is complete without mentioning lobotomies. That's right, scientists (like Walter Hess, pictured above) who decided that the best way to treat a range of (poorly-defined) personality disorders was sticking scalpels into people's eye sockets and cutting out brain material won the prize in 1949.
