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From: [email protected] (Alex Lopez-Ortiz)
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Subject: sci.math FAQ: No Nobel in Mathematics
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Date: 17 Feb 2000 22:52:01 GMT
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Archive-name: sci-math-faq/nobel
Last-modified: February 20, 1998
Version: 7.5


              Why is there no Nobel in mathematics?



  Nobel prizes were created by the will of Alfred Nobel, a notable
  Swedish chemist.

  One of the most common --and unfounded-- reasons as to why Nobel
  decided against a Nobel prize in math is that [a woman he proposed
  to/his wife/his mistress] [rejected him because of/cheated him with] a
  famous mathematician. Gosta Mittag-Leffler is often claimed to be the
  guilty party.

  There is no historical evidence to support the story.

  For one, Mr. Nobel was never married.

  There are more credible reasons as to why there is no Nobel prize in
  math. Chiefly among them is simply the fact he didn't care much for
  mathematics, and that it was not considered a practical science from
  which humanity could benefit (a chief purpose for creating the Nobel
  Foundation).

  Further, at the time there existed already a well known Scandinavian
  prize for mathematicians. If Nobel knew about this prize he may have
  felt less compelled to add a competing prize for mathematicians in his
  will.

    [...] As professor ordinarius in Stockholm, Mittag-Leffler began a
    30-year career of vigorous mathematical activity. In 1882 he
    founded the Acta Mathematica, which a century later is still one of
    the world's leading mathematical journals. Through his influence in
    Stockholm he persuaded King Oscar II to endow prize competitions
    and honor various distinguished mathematicians all over Europe.
    Hermite, Bertrand, Weierstrass, and Poincare were among those
    honored by the King. [...]

  Source: "The Mathematics of Sonya Kovalevskaya" by Roger Cooke
  (Springer-Verlag, New York etc., 1984, II.5.2, p. 90-91:

  Here are some relevant facts:

    * Nobel never married, hence no ``wife''. (He did have a mistress, a
      Viennese woman named Sophie Hess.)
    * Gosta Mittag-Leffler was an important mathematician in Sweden in
      the late 19th-early 20th century. He was the founder of the
      journal Acta Mathematica, played an important role in helping the
      career of Sonya Kovalevskaya, and was eventually head of the
      Stockholm Hogskola, the precursor to Stockholms Universitet.
      However, it seems highly unlikely that he would have been a
      leading candidate for an early Nobel Prize in mathematics, had
      there been one -- there were guys like Poincare and Hilbert
      around, after all.
    * There is no evidence that Mittag-Leffler had much contact with
      Alfred Nobel (who resided in Paris during the latter part of his
      life), still less that there was animosity between them for
      whatever reason. To the contrary, towards the end of Nobel's life
      Mittag-Leffler was engaged in ``diplomatic'' negotiations to try
      to persuade Nobel to designate a substantial part of his fortune
      to the Hogskola. It seems hardly likely that he would have
      undertaken this if there was prior bad blood between them.
      Although initially Nobel seems to have intended to do this,
      eventually he came up with the Nobel Prize idea -- much to the
      disappointment of the Hogskola, not to mention Nobel's relatives
      and Fraulein Hess.
    * According to the very interesting study by Elisabeth Crawford,
      ``The Beginnings of the Nobel Institution'', Cambridge Univ.
      Press, 1984, pages 52-53:

    Although it is not known how those in responsible positions at the
    Hogskola came to believe that a large bequest was forthcoming, this
    indeed was the expectation, and the disappointment was keen when it
    was announced early in 1897 that the Hogskola had been left out of
    Nobel's final will in 1895. Recriminations followed, with both
    Pettersson and Arrhenius [academic rivals of Mittag-Leffler in the
    administration of the Hogskola] letting it be known that Nobel's
    dislike for Mittag-Leffler had brought about what Pettersson termed
    the `Nobel Flop'. This is only of interest because it may have
    contributed to the myth that Nobel had planned to institute a prize
    in mathematics but had refrained because of his antipathy to
    Mittag-Leffler or --in another version of the same story-- because
    of their rivalry for the affections of a woman....
      However, Sister Mary Thomas a Kempis discovered a letter by R. C.
      Archibald in the archives of Brown University and discussed its
      contents in "The Mathematics Teacher" (1966, pp.667-668).
      Archibald had visited Mittag-Leffler and, on his report, it would
      seem that M-L *believed* that the absence of a Nobel Prize in
      mathematics was due to an estrangement between the two men. (This
      at least is the natural reading, but not the only possible one.)
    * A final speculation concerning the psychological element. Would
      Nobel, sitting down to draw up his testament, presumably in a mood
      of great benevolence to mankind, have allowed a mere personal
      grudge to distort his idealistic plans for the monument he would
      leave behind?

  Nobel, an inventor and industrialist, did not create a prize in
  mathematics simply because he was not particularly interested in
  mathematics or theoretical science. His will speaks of prizes for
  those ``inventions or discoveries'' of greatest practical benefit to
  mankind. (Probably as a result of this language, the physics prize has
  been awarded for experimental work much more often than for advances
  in theory.)

  However, the story of some rivalry over a woman is obviously much more
  amusing, and that's why it will probably continue to be repeated.

     References

  Mathematical Intelligencer, vol. 7 (3), 1985, p. 74.

  The Beginnings of the Nobel Institution. Elisabeth Crawford. Cambridge
  Univ. Press, 1984.
--
Alex Lopez-Ortiz                                         [email protected]
http://www.cs.unb.ca/~alopez-o                       Assistant Professor
Faculty of Computer Science                  University of New Brunswick