Nobel

Prize 2016
KNAPPILY

Nobel Prize 2016

1. Yoshinori Ohsumi wins Nobel Prize in Medicine
2. Nobel Prize in Physics to three topologists
3. Molecular machine developers win chemistry
Nobel
4. Juan Manuel Santos wins Nobel Peace Prize
5. Age and gender bias in Nobel Prizes
6. Nobel Prize in Economics for Contract Theory
7. Bob Dylan wins Nobel Prize in Literature
8. A beautiful medal
9. But where is Bob Dylan?

Yoshinori Ohsumi wins Nobel Prize in

Medicine

Japans Yoshinori Ohsumi has won the 2016 Nobel

Prize in Medicine for his ground-breaking experiments
with yeast which exposed a key mechanism in the
bodys defences where cells degrade and recycle their
components. Ohsumis discoveries have led to a new
paradigm in the understanding of how the cell recycles
its contents. His uncovering of the mechanisms for
autophagy has the potential to tackle diseases such as
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cancer and dementia.

What is the announcement?

For illuminating the weird cellular phenomenon of
self-eating, Yoshinori Ohsumi has won the Nobel
Prize in Physiology or Medicine, the Nobel Foundation
announced on 3rd October.
Called autophagy from the Greek words auto
and phagein, meaning self and to eat the
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process allows cells to destroy their own guts and

essentially recycle them.
Ohsumi has been a professor at the Tokyo Institute
of Technology since 2009. He told he was
extremely honored to get the prize.
The prize comes with eight million Swedish Krona
(around $936,000 or 834,000 euros).
Ohsumi is the 25th Japanese (including Japanese
born) winner of the Nobel Prize. Of Japanese
winners, eleven have been physicists, seven
chemists, two for literature, four for physiology or
medicine and one for efforts towards peace Note:
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is
awarded annually by the Swedish Karolinska
Institute to scientists and doctors in the various
fields of physiology or medicine. As dictated by
Alfred Nobels will, the award is administered by
the Nobel Foundation and awarded by a committee
that consists of five members and an executive
secretary elected by the Karolinska Institute. What

is the total number of Nobel Prizes awarded so

far? The Nobel Prizes and the Prize in Economic
Sciences (which was added to the Nobel Prizes in
1968, but was not in the will of Alfred Nobel) have
been awarded 567 times to 889 recipients, of
which 25 awards (all Peace Prizes) were to
organizations. Due to some recipients receiving
multiple awards, the total number of recipients is
860 individuals and 22 organizations.
The top five countries with the most Nobel
laureates are all western nations - with the United
States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France
and Sweden topping the rankings.
The United States has had the most Nobel Prize
winners, with 336 winners overall. It has been
most successful in the area of Physiology or
Medicine, with 94 laureates since 1901. It tops the
rankings for all prizes except Literature.
The United Kingdom has majority of its 117 Nobel
laureates winning in Chemistry and Physiology or
Medicine. The dominance of Western countries is
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to be expected, due to the huge sociopolitical

power these nations have held over the last
century. The divide among gender is worse - with
just five per cent Nobel Prizes being awarded to
women.

Why does he deserve the Nobel?

Ohsumis discoveries heralded a new paradigm in our
understanding of how the cell recycles its content.

Until Ohsumi came on the scene in the 1990s,

scientists thought that cells had a dumping ground
for waste, but not the sophisticated recycling centre
that Ohsumi discovered.
His discoveries opened the path to understanding
the fundamental importance of autophagy in many
physiological processes, such as in the adaptation
to starvation or response to infection.
His pioneering work gave the rest of the scientific
community the tools they needed to explore
autophagy, transforming it from a niche area to one
of the most popular in biology.
Ohsumi has provided scientists around the world
with critical tools to help them understand how
disrupted autophagy can contribute to illnesses
including infectious diseases, cancers and
neurodegenerative diseases such as Huntingtons
and Parkinsons.
Dysfunctional autophagy has been linked to
Parkinsons disease, type 2 diabetes, cancer and a
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host of age-related disorders. Intense research is

underway to develop drugs that can target
autophagy to treat various diseases.

From when are scientists working on decoding the

process of autophagy?
The term autophagy, derived from the Greek meaning
eating of self, was first coined by Christian de Duve
over 45 years ago, and was largely based on the
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observed degradation of mitochondria and other intracellular structures within lysosomes of rat liver perfused
with the pancreatic hormone, glucagon.
The mechanism of glucagon-induced autophagy
in the liver is still not fully understood at the
molecular level. In recent years the scientific
world has rediscovered autophagy, with major
contributions to our molecular understanding and
appreciation of the physiological significance of
this process coming from numerous laboratories.
Although the importance of autophagy is well
recognized in mammalian systems, many of the
mechanistic breakthroughs in delineating how
autophagy is regulated and executed at the
molecular level have been made in yeast.
It wasnt easy to study yeast, primarily because their
cells were so small that a systematic study seemed
difficult. One mystery that remained was how the cell
ditched and recycled larger protein complexes and

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wearied organelles. Thats where Ohsumis experiments

come into play.

Where did Ohsumis experiment lead to a

breakthrough?
Yoshinori Ohsumi had been active in various
research areas, but upon starting his own lab in
1988, he focused his efforts on protein degradation
in the vacuole, an organelle that corresponds to the
lysosome in human cells.
Yeast cells are relatively easy to study and
consequently they are often used as a model for
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human cells. They are particularly useful for the

identification of genes that are important in
complex cellular pathways. But Ohsumi faced a
major challenge; yeast cells are small and their
inner structures are not easily distinguished
under the microscope and thus he was
uncertain whether autophagy even existed in
this organism.
Ohsumi reasoned that if he could disrupt the
degradation process in the vacuole while the
process of autophagy was active, then
autophagosomes should accumulate within the
vacuole and become visible under the microscope.
He therefore cultured mutated yeast lacking
vacuolar
degradation
enzymes
and
simultaneously stimulated autophagy by
starving the cells.
The results were striking. Within hours, the
vacuoles were filled with small vesicles that had
not been degraded. The vesicles were
autophagosomes and Ohsumis experiment proved
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that authophagy exists in yeast cells.

But even more importantly, he now had a method
to identify and characterize key genes involved this
process. This was a major break-through, and
Ohsumi published the results in 1992.

Who is Yoshinori Ohsumi?

Yoshinori Ohsumi is a Japanese cell biologist
specializing in autophagy, is a professor in Tokyo
Institute of Technologys Frontier Research
Center.
Ohsumi was born on February 9, 1945 in Fukuoka,

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Japan.
He received a B.Sci. in 1967 and a D.Sci. in 1974,
both from the University of Tokyo.
As has been the case with many Nobel laureates,
even Ohsumi floundered at first, trying to find his
way.
He started out in chemistry but decided it was
too established a field with few opportunities.
So he switched to molecular biology. But his
Ph.D. thesis was unimpressive, and he could not
find a job.
His adviser suggested a postdoctoral position at
Rockefeller University in New York, where he was
to study in vitro fertilization in mice.
I grew very frustrated, he told the Journal of
Cell Biology in 2012. He switched to studying the
duplication of DNA in yeast.
That work led him to a junior professor position at
the University of Tokyo where he picked up a
microscope and started peering at sacks in yeast
where cell components are degraded work that
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eventually brought him, at age 43, to the

discoveries that the Nobel Assembly recognized
now.
Dr. Ohsumi later moved to the National Institute
for Basic Biology, in Okazaki, and since 2009, he
has been a professor at the Tokyo Institute of
Technology.
Even after his retirement on 2014, he still
continues to serve as Professor at Institute of
Innovative Research, Tokyo Institute of
Technology until now.
Currently, he is head of Cell Biology Research
Unit, Institute of Innovative Research, Tokyo
Institute of Technology.

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How does autophagy even matter?

Autophagy controls important physiological functions
where cellular components need to be degraded and
recycled.
Autophagy can rapidly provide fuel for energy
and building blocks for renewal of cellular
components, and is therefore essential for the
cellular response to starvation and other types
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of stress.
After infection, autophagy can eliminate invading
intracellular bacteria and viruses.
Autophagy contributes to embryo development and
cell differentiation. Cells also use autophagy to
eliminate damaged proteins and organelles, a
quality control mechanism that is critical for
counteracting the negative consequences of ageing.
Disrupted autophagy has been linked to
Parkinsons disease, type 2 diabetes and other
disorders that appear in the elderly. Mutations in
autophagy genes can cause genetic disease.
Disturbances in the autophagic machinery have
also been linked to cancer.
Intense research is now ongoing to develop drugs
that can target autophagy in various diseases.
Ohsumis experiments offered a peek into the
mysterious process of autophagy. The process
however is yet to be properly understood.
((( )))

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19

Nobel Prize in Physics to three topologists

Three British-born scientists have won the 2016 Nobel

Prize in Physics for revealing unusual states of matter,
leading to advances in electronics that could aid
researchers trying to develop quantum computers.
David Thouless, Duncan Haldane and Michael
Kosterlitz, who all work at U.S. universities, share the
prize for their discoveries on abrupt changes in the
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properties, or phases, of ultra-thin materials. Knappily

explains their topological work.

What is the announcement?

The Nobel Prize in Physics for the year 2016 has gone
to three men - David J. Thouless, F. Duncan M.
Haldane and J. Michael Kosterlitz - who revealed the
secrets of exotic matter and explained the very weird
thing that happens to matter when you squish it down to
a flat plane, or cool it down to near absolute zero.

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Very few explorers of science have delved into

stranger worlds than these three newest Nobel
Laureates. All the laureates were born in the UK.
They have used advanced mathematical methods to
study unusual phases, or states, of matter, such as
superconductors, superfluids or thin magnetic
films.
Travel into mysteries: Using topology, these
three scientists were able to elucidate mysteries
like how super-cold films of helium change their
phase of matter, and how those phase transitions
then change their properties (like how conductive
they are to electricity and magnetism).
Announcement
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has
decided to award the Nobel Prize in Physics 2016
with one half to David J. Thouless, University of
Washington, Seattle, WA, USA and the other half
to F. Duncan M. Haldane, Princeton University,
NJ, USA and J. Michael Kosterlitz Brown
University, RI, USA for theoretical discoveries of
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topological phase transitions and topological

phases of matter.
Recognition: According to Thors Hans Hansson, a
Nobel committee member, at the Nobel
announcement, This prize is a reward for their
theoretical work. It has combined beautiful
mathematics and profound physics insights, and
achieved unexpected results that have been
confirmed by experiments.
Topology: It is a system of mathematics that focuses on
properties which change only by well-defined
increments. It also studies what properties are preserved
when objects are stretched, twisted, or deformed. A
topological invariant can only have integer numbers.

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Why do they deserve the Nobel?

According to the press release by the Society, these
scientists have opened the door on an unknown world
where matter can assume strange states.
Essence: In essence, they showed that the bizarre
properties of matter at cold or condensed states for instance, when super-cold materials conduct
electricity without resistance could be explained
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by the mathematics of topology. Their research

revealed new phases of matter that can be seen at
temperatures near absolute zero (-273 C).
What was their discovery?
Overturned theories of superconductivity and
suprafluidity: In the early 1970s, Kosterlitz and
Thouless overturned the then-current theory that
superconductivity or suprafluidity could not
occur in thin layers. They demonstrated that
superconductivity could occur at low temperatures
and also explained the mechanism, phase
transition, that makes superconductivity disappear
at higher temperatures.
Explained Quantum Hall effect: In 1982,
Thouless used this idea to explain the mysterious
Quantum Hall effect of electric conductance.
Within a thin layer at very low temperatures and a
high magnetic field, electric conductance was
found to build in units that could be measured with

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extreme precision - first nothing, then one unit,

then two units. He proved that the steps of this
effect can be explained by a topological invariant.
It worked by multiples of an integer
Extension of the concept: In 1988, Duncan
Haldane pushed this line of research to a new
frontier, discovering that thin semiconductor layers
can exhibit the Quantum Hall effect even without a
magnetic field. He discovered how topological
concepts can be used to understand the properties
of chains of small magnets found in some
materials.
Now exotic but could be real in future: Their
research launched an ongoing race to discover new
topological phases of matter hidden within layers,
chains and ordinary three-dimensional materials.
These discoveries might today be considered
abstract or exotic, but they could one day pave the
way for the discovery of indispensable,
commonplace materials.

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When was the last time a woman got Nobel Prize in

Physics?
Lack of diversity: Many scientists criticized the lack of
diversity in awarding the honor in the category of
Physics. This is because even this year all the Nobel
Prize winners for Physics were male. Till now only two
women have ever been awarded Nobel Prize in
Physics.
Critics: Agreed that this Nobel Prize, and even
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most of the best of men find it difficult to win it.

Plenty of men who deserve the honor will never
get that early-morning call from Stockholm, either.
But someone has to win it each year. It would have
been nice if the committee had honored a woman
just once or twice in the past half-century.
Least percentage of women honored: Of the 201
people who have been awarded the Nobel Prize in
Physics, just 2 have been women. This is the
category with the smallest percentage of female
winners. This is in spite of the number of women
obtaining doctorates in physics is actually
increasing.
The two women: Polish-born French physicist
Marie Curie took the prize in 1903 for her
pioneering work in radioactivity. Curie also won
the Nobel in Chemistry in 1911. German-born
American Maria Goeppert-Mayer won in 1963
for her discoveries in nuclear shell structure.
Women and the Nobel Prize:
The Nobel Prize and Prize in Economic Sciences
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have been awarded to women 49 times between

1901 and 2015. Only one woman, Marie Curie, has
been honored twice. This means that 48 women in
total have been awarded the Nobel Prize between
1901 and 2015. Physics winners are the
youngest. With an average age of 55, Nobel
physics laureates are the youngest of all laureates.
Australian-born British physicist William
Lawrence Bragg was just 25 years old when he
won the prize, along with his father William Henry
Bragg, for their work on X-ray crystallography in
1915.
However, this year the Physics winners are at the
upper end of the age bracket - Thouless is 82,
Kosterlitz is 74, and Haldane is 65.

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Where is their research being applied?

Haldane, when contacted, said that he himself is
surprised and gratified by the honor. This work
was a long time ago, but its only now that a lot of
tremendous new discoveries that are based on this
original work are now happening.
New fields of application: Many from the
scientific community echoed similar thoughts and
noted that scientists around the world now use
these tools to work towards practical applications
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in electronics, new materials and even components

in a new quantum computer.
Increase in computing capacity: The
understanding of phase states was particularly
promising in computing. Research is going on in
the labs to get these new materials which have
interesting properties of conducting electricity.
And one of the dreams is that these materials can
be used for carrying information and increase the
computing power enormously.
Topological insulators: Their research has also
led scientists to develop new materials with novel
properties. Some of these materials are called
topological insulators, which conduct
electricity solely on their surface. Although these
topological insulators havent made it into any
commercial products yet, the Nobel committee and
the scientists are still excited about the possibilities
of using them in quantum computing and other
yet-to-be discovered applications.
Case-in-point: One of these insulators, called
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stanene, a one-atom thick layer of tin, conducts

electricity at high temperatures with little
resistance. Scientists hope stanene could perhaps
replace copper components in computers.

Who were these scientists?

David James Thouless is a British condensedmatter physicist and Wolf Prize winner. He was a
postdoc at the University of California, Berkeley,

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and Professor of mathematical physics at

Birmingham University in the United Kingdom
from 1965-1978, before becoming a professor of
physics at the University of Washington in Seattle
in 1980. He has made many theoretical
contributions to the understanding of extended
systems of atoms and electrons, and of nucleons.
His work includes work on superconductivity
phenomena, properties of nuclear matter, and
excited collective motions within nuclei.
Frederick Duncan Michael Haldane is a British
physicist who is Eugene Higgins Professor of
Physics at the physics department of Princeton
University in the United States, and a
Distinguished Visiting Research Chair at Perimeter
Institute for Theoretical Physics. He is known for a
wide variety of fundamental contributions to
condensed matter physics including the theory of
Luttinger liquids, the theory of one-dimensional
spin chains, the theory of fractional quantum hall
effect, exclusion statistics, entanglement spectra
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and much more.

John Michael Kosterlitz is a professor of Physics
at Brown University. After a few postdoctoral
positions, including stints at the University of
Birmingham, collaborating with David Thouless,
and at Cornell University, he was appointed to the
faculty of the University of Birmingham in 1974,
first as a lecturer and, later, as a reader. Since
1982, he has been professor of physics at Brown
University. He is currently a visiting research
fellow at Aalto University in Finland. He does
research in condensed matter theory, one- and
two-dimensional physics; in phase transitions:
random systems, electron localization, and spin
glasses; and in critical dynamics: melting and
freezing.

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How are the Nobel Laureates selected?

Nomination forms are sent out in September.
The Nobel Committee sends out confidential
forms to around 3,000 people - selected professors
at universities around the world
Deadline for submission of applications is
February. The completed nomination forms must
reach the Nobel Committee no later than 31

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January of the following year. Screening is done

by the Committee and then it selects preliminary
candidates (around 250-300).
Consultation with experts is done during
March-May. The Nobel Committee sends the
names of the preliminary candidates to specially
appointed experts for assessment of the candidates
work.
Writing of the report: The Nobel Committee puts
together the report with recommendations to be
submitted to the Academy. The report is signed by
all members of the Committee.
Submission of recommendations: The Nobel
Committee
submits
its
report
with
recommendations on the final candidates to the
members of the Academy. The report is discussed
at two meetings of the Physics Class of the
Academy. This happens in September.
Announcement of Nobel Laureates: In early
October, the Academy selects the Nobel Laureates
in Physics through a majority vote. The decision
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is final and without appeal. The names of the

Nobel Laureates are then announced.
In December the Nobel Laureates receive their
prize. The Nobel Prize Award Ceremony takes
place on 10 December in Stockholm, where the
Nobel Laureates receive their Nobel Prize, which
consists of a Nobel Medal and Diploma, and a
document confirming the prize amount. Who
could not make it this time? The work on
topological insulators winning the prize came as
bit of surprise for Physicists.
LIGO? The detection of gravitational waves at
LIGO was one of the most stunning physics
announcements of the year, confirming a
prediction made by Einstein more than 100 years
ago. Many predicted the scientists who led that
work would win.
One reason why it could have missed out is that the
breakthrough, announced by international
researchers in February, may have come too late
for the Nobel Committee (Nobels deadline for
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consideration is January) to take it up this year.

Also, the Nobel Committee typically awards
scientific discoveries many years after they are
first shared after they have truly impacted the
wider world.
((( )))

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Molecular machine developers win chemistry

Nobel

The 2016 Nobel Prize for Chemistry has been awarded

for the development of the worlds smallest machines.
Jean-Pierre Sauvage, Sir J Fraser Stoddart and Bernard
L Feringa will share prize for the design and synthesis
of machines on a molecular scale. They have

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developed molecules with controllable movements,

which can perform a task when energy is added.
Knappily takes you to the world of tiny lifts and
minuscule motors.

What is the announcement?

The 2016 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded
to three scientists for their ground-breaking work on
molecular machines tiny, man-made structures with
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moving parts capable of performing tasks.

Jean-Pierre Sauvage, Sir J. Fraser Stoddart and
Bernard L. Feringa share the prize equally.
Three laureates have opened this entire field of
molecular machinery and shown us that you can
make machine-like function at molecular level,
said a spokesman for the Nobel chemistry prize
committee.
Molecular machines, the worlds smallest
mechanical devices, may eventually be used to
create new materials, sensors and energy
storage systems, the Royal Swedish Academy of
Sciences said in announcing the prize.
Molecular machines are controllable, nanometre-sized
structures that can convert chemical energy into
mechanical forces and motion. These miniaturised
machines are taking chemistry to a new dimension.

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Why do they deserve a Nobel?

It may not be an exaggeration to claim that these
three are the Henry Ford of the molecular world.
Nanotechnology the creation of structures on
the scale of a nanometer, or a billionth of a meter
has been a field of fruitful research for a couple
of decades. Now, scientists are learning how to
construct tiny moving machines about onethousandth the width of a strand of human hair.

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The first step to creating a molecular machine was

making a moving part. Chemists have long been
able to synthesize ring-shaped molecules, and they
knew that interlocking rings might function as
molecular parts.
Dr. Sauvage figured out how to create a second
ring that passed through the first ring in 1983.
A charged copper ion essentially acted as a pin
around which to form the interlocking rings, he
found. Once connected, the copper ion could be
removed. These molecules became known as
catenanes.
Instead of two interlocking rings, Dr. Stoddart,
then at the University of California, and his
colleagues synthesized rotaxane a ring
molecule wrapped around a dumbbell-shaped axle.
The ring slides back and forth along the dumbbell,
like a bead on an abacus. Dr. Stoddart went on to
construct a small computer chip that was
essentially a molecular abacus, as well as other
complex devices. One was composed of three
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rotaxanes whose rings were connected to form a

larger platform that could rise 0.7 billionths of a
meter a molecular elevator. Rotaxanes bending
thin layers of gold acted like an artificial muscle,
he found.
Dr. Feringa, in 1999, became the first person to
develop a molecular motor, creating a
minuscule rotor blade powered by light that
spun continually in the same direction. The first
motor was not fast, but 15 years later, he and his
research group demonstrated one that spun 12
million times per second.
In 2011, they built a four-wheel-drive molecular
car four of the molecular motors acted as wheels,
connected by a nano-chassis.

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When did these tiny creations become such a huge

break-through ?
How small can you make machinery? That was a
question asked by Nobel Laureate Richard Feynman,
famed for his 1950s predictions of developments in
nanotechnology, in 1984. Thanks to these three
scientists, we finally know the answer:one thousand
times thinner than a strand of hair. In other words,

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extremely, extremely, extremely small.

Time has clearly shown the revolutionary effect of
miniaturising computer technology, whereas we
have only seen the initial stages of what could
result from the miniaturisation of machines.
Currently the development of these molecular
machines is in an early stage, but the pioneering
work of these three scientists is set to have a huge
impact in the future.
Chemists hope that one day these mini machines
could be developed so they can deliver drugs
within the human body directly to cancerous
cells or target a specific area of tissue to
medicate. Its like thinking of tiny robots that a
doctor will inject in your blood veins which will
then go to search for a cancer cell.
Recent research into molecular machines has
suggested that as well as killing cancer cells or
transporting molecules for medical reasons, they
could one day lead to the design of a molecular
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computer which could be placed inside the body

to detect disease before any symptoms are
exhibited.
In terms of development, the molecular motor is
at about the same stage as the electric motor
was in the 1830s, when researchers proudly
displayed various spinning cranks and wheels in
their laboratories without having any idea that they
would lead to electric trains, washing machines,
fans and food processors. The potential of
molecular machines is unimaginable.

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Where is the importance of their work?

The three men invigorated the field of topological
chemistry, the academy said on Wednesday.
They were pioneers in the second wave of
nanotechnology, a field that the physicist Richard
P. Feynman, also a Nobel laureate, foresaw as
early as 1959. He gave a seminal lecture in 1984,
toward the end of his life, on design and
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engineering at the molecular scale.

In living organisms, nature has produced a slew of
molecular machines that ferry materials around a
cell, construct proteins and divide cells.Artificial
molecular machines are still primitive by
comparison, but scientists can already envision
applications in the future.
Think about nanomachines, microrobots, said
Dr. Feringa, who spoke by telephone with
journalists assembled in Stockholm at the prize
announcement.Think about tiny robots that the
doctor in the future will inject in your blood veins,
and they go search for cancer cells or going to
deliver drugs, for instance.
The technology could also lead to the creation of
smart materials that change properties based
on external signals, Dr. Feringa said.

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Who are the winners?

Dr. Jean-Pierre Sauvage
Dr. Sauvage, 71, was born in Paris and received his
Ph.D. in 1971 from the University of Strasbourg in
France, where he is a professor emeritus. He is
also director of research emeritus at the National
Center for Scientific Research in France.
Sauvage obtained his Ph.D. under the supervision
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of J.-M. Lehn (Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1987).

During his PhD work, he contributed to the first
syntheses of the cryptand ligands. After
postdoctoral research with M. L. H. Green, he
returned to Strasbourg.
A prolific scientist, he has worked in several areas
including electrochemical reduction of CO2 and
models of the photosynthetic reaction center.
A large theme of his work is molecular topology,
specifically mechanically-interlocked molecular
architectures. He has described syntheses of
catenanes and molecular knots based on
coordination complexes.
Sir James Fraser Stoddart
Dr. Stoddart, 74, was born in Edinburgh, England,
and received his Ph.D. in 1966 from Edinburgh
University, and is a professor of chemistry at
Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. He
previously taught at U.C.L.A. and was knighted by

51

Queen Elizabeth II for his services to science.

Stoddarts papers and other material are instantly
recognizable due to a distinctive cartoon-style
of representation he has developed since the late
1980s.He was one of the first researchers to
make extensive use of color in chemistry
publications. Stoddart maintains this standardized
color scheme across all of his publications and
presentations, and his style has been adopted by
other researchers reporting mechanically
interlocked molecules based on his syntheses.
He has published more than 1000 papers and holds
at least ten patents. For the period from January
1997 to 31 August 2007, he was ranked by the
Institute for Scientific Information as the third
most cited chemist with a total of 14,038 citations
from 304 papers at a frequency of 46.2 citations
per paper.
Bernard Lucas Ben Feringa

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Dr. Feringa, 64, was born in Barger-Compascuum,

the Netherlands, and received his Ph.D. in 1978
from the University of Groningen, where he is a
professor of organic chemistry.
Feringas research achievements range from
fundamental
contributions
in
modern
stereochemistry and chirality to the rapidly
developing field of molecular nanotechnology
and dynamic molecular systems with seminal
contributions to organic synthesis, asymmetric
catalysis, molecular recognition and self-assembly.
Ben Feringa holds over 30 patents and has
published over 650 peer reviewed research papers
to date, cited more than 30,000 times and has an hindex in excess of 90. He has guided over 100 PhD
students over his career.

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How did molecules become machines?

The parts that make up the tiny world of molecular
machines are described using familiar terms:an
alkyl chain might be called a piston, for
example, or a benzene ring a wheel.
Instead of nuts and bolts, molecular machines
are held together by intermolecular forces; the
subtle electrostatic attractions and repulsions

54

between molecules.
Chemistry is inherently dynamic, so these forces
can hold molecules together strongly, but also
enforce softer attractions, which pull molecules
together, but still allow some degree of movement.
And it is these softer interactions that are key to
many molecular machines.
The machine has a track with two stations and a
shuttle that can slide along between them. The
shuttle cant escape from the end of the track
because there are bulky stopper groups at both
ends which it cant fit over.
The intermolecular forces that exist between the
shuttle and the different points on the track
determine where it sits.
Under normal conditions the shuttle doesnt have
much preference between the two stations, so it is
free to move rapidly over the polyether chain and
between the two ports.

55

However, the machine is cleverly designed to

change its properties under different conditions.
The nitrogen atoms in the first station are basic.
That is, they are easily able to accept a hydrogen
ion (proton) on exposure to acid. In the process the
first station gains a positive charge. This repels the
shuttle (which also has a positive charge), and so
the shuttle is pushed to the second station.
What the chemists had made was essentially a
switch. With the addition of a little acid, their
machine switched from freely moving between both
states to being confined at a single station.
((( )))

56

57

Juan Manuel Santos wins Nobel Peace Prize

What a roller-coaster few weeks it has been for

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos. Last month
he got a historic peace deal done with the FARC rebel
group to end a 52-year long bloody conflict. In a
surprise result, the Colombian electorate rejected the
deal in a referendum on October 2. And now, Juan

58

Manuel Santos is the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize

for 2016 for his resolute efforts to find peace.

What is the announcement?

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award
the Nobel Peace Prize for 2016 to Colombian
President Juan Manuel Santos for his resolute efforts
to bring the countrys more than 50-year-long civil war
to an end, a war that has cost the lives of at least 220
59

000 Colombians and displaced close to six million

people.
The press release noted that this award should
also be seen as a tribute to the Colombian
people who, despite great hardships and abuses,
have not given up hope of a just peace, and to
all the parties who have contributed to the
peace process.
Tribute was paid, not least, to the representatives
of the countless victims of the civil war.
The committee mentioned the following attributes of
Santos as reasons why he deserves this prestigious prize

He initiated the 4-year long negotiations that

culminated in the peace accord signed between the
Colombian government and the FARC guerrillas
on September 26, 2016.
He did this in spite of knowing that the accord
was controversial, even putting his political
60

career at risk. It was clear he was willing to pay a

personal price for peace.
The committee also took note that the outcome of the
referendum vote (on October 2) was not what President
Santos wanted:a narrow majority (by 0.5%) of the
over 13 million Colombians who cast their ballots
said no to the accord. This award should encourage
Colombians to pursue peace regardless of the result of
the referendum.
Quick analysis
As is the case with every Nobel Peace Prize, even
this award will have its share of controversy.But,
in our opinion, the Nobel Committee should be
congratulated for using Nobel Peace Prize as a
motivator for taking the peace deal to
conclusion.
Also, the fact that the Committee took note of the
recent developments indicates that the prize was
decided at the last moment.
61

It is good if the Nobel Peace Prize can be used as a tool

to address a current problem in the path of peace.
Santos is facing political back-lash. He stares in
the face of possible electoral defeat in the next
elections because his critics say he was too weak
in negotiations and his approach of peace at any
price was wrong.
That he has become a Nobel laureate will motivate
other leaders to not let political calculations come
in the way of peace.

62

Why is his achievement worthy of praise?

Santos spear-headed long and often difficult
negotiations to end the conflict with FARC. And he
succeeded, more or less.
FARC is among the oldest and the largest of
Colombias left-wing rebels and one of the worlds
richest guerrilla armies. Almost everyone in
Colombia has either experienced violence or knows
63

someone who has. Of the almost 220,000 Colombians

who have died as a result of the conflict, around 80%
were civilians.
The horrible five decades (52 years to be precise) of
conflict is close to over with the Colombian government
and Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)
signing a peace deal in September.
Colombias President Juan Manuel Santos and the
rebel leader Timoleon Jimenez, known as
Timochenko signed the deal. The ceremony was
full of symbolism - a pen made from a bullet to
sign the peace deal, the singing of Beethovens
Ode to Joy, and everyone dressed in white.
Timochenko said the FARC, which began as the
armed wing of the Communist Party in 1964,
was being reborn to launch a new era of
reconciliation and of building. He also apologized
to all the victims of the conflict. He said: I would
like to ask for forgiveness for all the pain that we

64

have caused during this war.

President Santos said:Colombia celebrates; the
planet celebrates because there is one less war in
the world. We will achieve any goal, overcome any
hurdle and turn our nation into a country weve
always dreamed of - a country in peace.
The peace deal was put to vote on 2nd October.
Then the unexpected happened by a razor thin
difference, the Colombian electorate voted against
the deal. Embarrassed but still determined, Santos
has vowed to carry on the peace deal though he
knows he will have to face huge legal and political
hurdles to cement the deal.
Santos relentless pursuit to end the war that was as
bloody as it was costly must be praised. He wants the
country to move on, though not everyone in his
country feels his peace deal is just.

65

When did Santos begin the peace negotiations?

Having started peace talks in November 2012, the
deal came after four years of talks in Havana, Cuba,
between government and rebel negotiators.The key
issues included what concessions to make to the
rebels and what kind of justice they should face.
Under the accord, the Colombian government will
support massive investment for rural development
66

and facilitate the FARCs rebirth as a legal

political party.
FARC has promised to help eradicate illegal drug
crops, remove landmines in the areas of conflict,
and offer compensation to victims.FARC leaders
can avoid prosecution by acts of reparation to
victims and other community work (this part of
the deal has generated controversy). As per the
accord, the government and rebels must also
provide land, loans and services to impoverished
areas to help local populations.
It is the first time that the victims have been
placed at the center of the solution to the
conflict addressing their rights to truth, to
justice, to reparations and to non-repetition.
After this deal, the European Union removed FARC
from its list of terrorist organizations, in a show of
support for the peace deal. The US is also reviewing
FARCs terrorist status and has pledged almost $400m
to support the peace deal.
67

The FARCs 52-years in brief:

1964: Set up as armed wing of Communist
Party
2002: At its height, it had an army of 20,000
fighters controlling up to a third of the country.
Senator Ingrid Betancourt kidnapped and held for
six years along with 14 other hostages.
2008: The FARC suffers a series of defeats in its
worst year
2012: Start of peace talks in Havana
2016: Definitive ceasefire and signing of the peace
accord (which was subsequently rejected in a
referendum).

68

Where does the criticism come from?

Most of the people who voted no in the
referendum said they thought the peace agreement
was letting the rebels get away with murder.
Under the deal, special courts would have been
created to try crimes committed during the
conflict.Those who confessed to their crimes
would have been given more lenient sentences
69

and would have avoided serving any time in

conventional prisons. This, for many Colombians,
especially those who have lost their loved ones to
FARCs atrocities, was one step too far.
Many Colombians were also angry at the
governments plan to pay demobilised FARC
rebels a monthly stipend and to offer those
wanting to start a business financial help. No
voters said this amounted to a reward for criminal
behaviour while honest citizens were left to
struggle financially.
Others were unhappy that under the agreement, the
FARC would be guaranteed 10 seats in
Congress. They said this would give the newly
created party an unfair advantage.
Many also said that they simply did not trust the
rebels to keep their promise to lay down arms for
good. They pointed to previous failed peace
negotiations when the rebels took advantage of a
lull in fighting to regroup and rearm as evidence
that the FARC had broken their word before.
70

The No Voters were also worried the rebels would

not turn over assets from drugs and illegal mining,
potentially giving them a formidable war chest that
could outstrip the coffers of traditional parties.
And, therefore, as a political party, the FARC
would be able to spend its way to electoral success.
The fact, however, is that the only alternative to not
pursuing peace is continuation of the war and greater
loss of lives. There is no Plan B to peace.

71

Who supports the peace deal?

Santos appeared shocked after knowing that his people
rejected the deal he had worked so hard to get. Then he
resolved to not give up the pursuit of peace.
He asserted that the cease-fire with the FARC,
which has held for more than a year, would remain
in place. He said he would convene all political
groups, including the opponents of the deal, to
72

discuss how to move forward.

I will continue to seek peace until the last
minute of my time in office, he said in a
televised address, because that is the path to
leaving a better nation for our children.
In a statement, even the FARC resolved to not give up
on peace. We know that our challenge as a political
movement is even bigger and will require more strength
in order to build a stable and durable peace. Under
the deals terms, the group had agreed to abandon
its camps and hand over its weapons to the United
Nations.
The FARC also said that it would remain faithful
to the accord signed with the government and
called on Colombians to mobilize peacefully to
support terms of the existing agreement.
If the FARC still remains committed to peace, it is
only because they believe that Santos means peace
and will somehow get there.

73

International appeals for Colombia to stay on the path to

peace also flooded inThe United Nations applauded the maintenance of
a ceasefire in Colombia despite the vote and said
its special envoy, Jean Arnault, would also travel
to Cuba to help the process.We would have hoped
for a different result, but I am encouraged by the
commitment expressed (by Santos and
Timochenko), U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon said. I
count on them to press ahead until they achieve
secure and lasting peace.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest expressed
U.S. support for efforts by Santos and other parties
to negotiate and urged all sides to continue the
pursuit of peace. He said that Washington was
prepared to play a constructive role.
Were saddened by the slim victory for No,
said Ecuadors foreign minister, Guillaume
Long amid a chorus around Latin America.
Colombians, even those who backed the No
74

vote, expressed shock at the outcome and

uncertainty about the future.
We never thought this could happen, said
sociologist and No voter Mabel Castano.Now I
just hope the government, the opposition and the
FARC come up with something intelligent that
includes us all.
Let us not forget that the referendum was defeated by
a wafer-thin margin. There is popular support for the
peace deal.

75

How controversial is the Nobel Peace Prize?

The Nobel Peace Prize is probably the most
controversial Nobel of all and the best justification of
this argument is that Mahatma Gandhi the greatest
champion of peace the planet has ever hosted - never
got one in spite of being nominated 5 times.
Such is the stature of Gandhi that most people
when asked about the reason why Gandhi was
76

never given Nobel Peace Prize respond by saying,

Possibly because he was above that prize.
Geir Lundestad, Secretary of Norwegian Nobel
Committee in 2006 said, The greatest omission in
our 106 year history is undoubtedly that Mahatma
Gandhi never received the Nobel Peace
prize.Gandhi could do without the Nobel Peace
prize, whether Nobel committee can do without
Gandhi is the question.
The Nobel Committee of 1948 may have tacitly
acknowledged its error, however, when in 1948
(the year of Gandhis death), it made no award,
stating there was no suitable living candidate.
Nobel Prize is not awarded posthumously.
Criticism that have been levelled against some of the
awards include allegations that they were politically
motivated, premature, or guided by a faulty definition of
what constitutes work for peace.
For example, the 2009 prize went to Barack

77

Obama for his extraordinary efforts to

strengthen
international
diplomacy
and
cooperation between peoples. The award, given
just nine months into Obamas first term as
president, received criticism that it was
undeserved, premature and politically motivated.
In 2009, New York Times ethics columnist Randy
Cohen argued that the prize should be taken back in
those extreme cases when a past winner has repeatedly
acted contrary to the values the prize enshrines. He
suggested a few possibly unworthy winners, including
President Teddy Roosevelt, Henry Kissinger, and
Yasser Arafat. (According to the Nobel Prize rules, a
prize cannot be taken back.) Many people would now
recommend adding Barrack Obama to this list. He has
bombed quite a few people during his tenure.
One person and only one declined to accept the
Nobel Peace Prize.
Henry Kissinger and Vietnamese politician and
78

negotiator Le Duc Tho were awarded the 1973

Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating a peace deal in
Vietnam, but Tho refused it, reasoning that
peace has not yet been established.
((( )))

79

Age and gender bias in Nobel Prizes

Science takes pride in being apolitical but a look at the

recent trend of Nobel Prize recipients suggests
otherwise. Especially in traditional sciences, laureates
are likely to be white men in their sixties. The reason
for this shift in age and the skewed gender ratio of
laureates is multifaceted but needs to be addressed.
Scientists and non-scientists need to direct their efforts
towards eliminating gender bias.

80

What appears to be a pattern among Nobel Prize

recipients?
Since 1950s, Nobel Prize winners in the traditional
sciences are, in general, male, senior citizens.
The long waiting period for breakthroughs to be
recognized was not required in the earlier half of
the twentieth century the average age of
laureates was 56, and for Physics Laureates, it
81

was 47; now its the late sixties.

One factor attributed to the trend of aging
laureates in Physics is the increase in the
number physicists from around 1000 in the earlier
part of the twentieth century to around a million
now. As achievements become common among
younger physicists, the gap between doing
something spectacular and being recognized for
it is widening. But this still doesnt explain why
laureates in medicine, economics and literature
remain younger.
A group of scientists analyzed this trend and noted
the increased frequency of longer waits for the
Prize across all three branches of science. In an
article on this topic, they showed the wait to have
gotten longer with time, and the rate of delay
increased faster than a linear rate, in each
field.This trend of waiting for more than 20
years has become common in all three
categories of science but is most noticeable in
Physics.
82

Also, the vastness and depth of knowledge means

that scientists need a longer time to scale the
heights required before they create or discover
something on their own.
Another trend which one cannot help noting is the
highly skewed ratio of male to female laureates,
with male scientists bagging way more Nobels
than their female counterparts.This pattern of
course, has recurred since the Nobel was
instituted.

83

Why does the current gender bias give hope and

despair?
The situation has improved over time but women
laureates are still a very small percentage, not only in
traditional sciences but other spheres as well.
One explanation for fewer women laureates points
to the waiting period.Laureates are now
recognized for discoveries made at a time when
84

there were very few women in science,

especially physics. As women are slowly making
inroads in physics, there is reason to hope the
gender gap will shorten with time. But if lesser
representation is a reason, it means women
achievers should be duly recognized, it becomes all
the more important to do so. But this has not
happened.One frequently cited example is Vera
Rubin. Born in 1928, she discovered in the 70s,
the strongest evidence up to that time for the
existence of dark matter. Many scientists and
non-scientists have called for Nobel Committees to
award her the Nobel, but so far the Prize eludes
her.
More women have received Nobel Prizes over the
20th century and into the 21st. The records show
only 4 women laureates in first twenty years of the
twentieth century. And for every twenty years after
that there were only 5 recipients till 1980.In the
last twenty years, the number reached 11 and

85

from 2000-2015 rose to 19. But still the

percentage of women laureates in the
traditional sciences in this period is abysmally
low (5.71 percent in medicine, 2.33 percent in
chemistry, and 1 percent in Physics). Even in
categories like Literature and Peace, women have
barely crossed the double digit (12.50 percent for
Literature and 12.40 percent for Peace).
As lists of old nominations are released
(nominations are kept a secret for 50 years), it is
clear women have been nominated for Nobel
Prizes, though in small number. But, like in the
case of physicist Lise Meitner, the number of
misses is alarming. Meitner was nominated at
least 48 times by different people for Chemistry
and Physics prizes between 1937 and 1965. She
died in 1968 without receiving the Nobel.
The Nobel Museum says records do not indicate
any evidence of gender bias.Even so, Marie
Curie, arguably the greatest female scientist
ever, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics
86

only after her husband protested against the

Committee leaving out her name. When one of
the most esteemed scientists suffered this
discrimination, it is very unlikely other women
scientists have not.
Facts: As of 2015, Nobel Prizes have been awarded to
822 men, 48 women, and 26 organizations. 16 women
have won the Nobel Peace Prize, 14 have won the
Nobel Prize in Literature, 12 have won the Nobel Prize
in Physiology or Medicine, 4 have won the Nobel Prize
in Chemistry, only 2 have won the Nobel Prize in
Physics (Marie Curie in 1903 and Maria Mayer in
1963) and only one, Elinor Ostrom, has won the Nobel
Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.Curie is also the
only woman to have won multiple Nobel Prizes; in
1911, she won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Curies
daughter, Irne Joliot-Curie, won the Nobel Prize in
Chemistry in 1935, making the two the only motherdaughter pair to have won Nobel Prizes.The most
Nobel Prizes awarded to women in a single year was
87

in 2009, when five women became laureates. The

most recent women to be awarded a Nobel Prize were
Tu Youyou for Medicine and Svetlana Alexievich for
Literature (2015).

When, in the twentieth century, has there been an

exception?
When quantum mechanics took the academic world by
storm in the early twentieth century, it also provided
88

several young achievers in the field to be recognized

soon enough by the Nobel Committee.
In 1923, the proportion of physicists who
achieved breakthroughs by the age of 30 was at
its highest 31 percent. A whopping 78 percent
had reached the peak of their scientific careers
by age 40.
Quantum mechanics, being a new field set off a
revolution. Another explanation for aged Laureates
was the experimental work necessary to achieve a
breakthrough was better done by elders who had
aggregated knowledge. The quantum mechanics
revolution required starting from scratch. This was
the forte of the youngsters.
As researchers explain through the anomaly of quantum
mechanics, New ideas sometimes serve as revolutions
and revolutions favor the young. Thus, If there are
future revolutions out there, it may make winners
younger yet again.

89

Note: William Lawrence Bragg was, until October 2014

(when his record was surpassed by Malala Yousafzai at
the age of 17), the youngest ever Nobel laureate; he
won the prize in 1915 at the age of 25. He still remains
the youngest Nobel laureate in science. He won the
award along with his father for for their services in the
analysis of crystal structure by means of X-rays.

Where are the problems in the aged laureate

pattern?

90

In addition to delay between the discovery and the

award, scientists have also been observed to make their
discovery or achieve the breakthrough that wins the
Nobel at a later age than before.This seems to follow
the observation that laureates receive their PhD
later than they did before. While they start at a later
age, it has also been observed that they end their careers
at the same time as their predecessors did. Researchers
say this means the greatest of our minds are
productive for a shorter period of time and their
work yields lesser. Researchers are worried this could
result in the stagnation of technological advancement.
Though life expectancies have increased, there is a
possibility that some potential laureates may die
without receiving the Nobel Prize (it is not
awarded posthumously) and their contribution
may not get the recognition it deserves. A group of
scientists who authored an article on the aging
pattern said physicists are at a greater risk due
to this trend.
91

As there is a marked difference between physics

and medicine, the possibility that there is an
increased slowdown in progress when it comes to
the field of physics.
The explanation of increased time delay has
notable exceptions that are worrying.The
discovery of graphene and the acceleration and
expansion properties of the universe are
examples. These counter the somewhat
comfortable explanation of having to wait for long
and pitch the alternative one there have been
fewer worthwhile discoveries of late.

92

Who are some of the potential women laureates in

Physics and Chemistry?
Though the gender gap exists in all Nobel Prize fields, it
is at its worst in Physics and then Chemistry. In these
fields there are several deserving women candidates. A
few are shortlisted below.
Jocelyn Bell Burners primary contribution as a
graduate student led to the discovery of the pulsar.
93

It was she who found and recognized the evidence

for the pulsars existence.The discovery was
recognized by the Nobel Committee but the
prize went to her adviser Antony Hewish and
colleague Martin Ryle in 1974.
Mildred Dresselhaus is known to have fuelled
researchers to take an active interest in the
applications of carbon. She predicted it could be
used to form nanotubes whose nature of
conductivity changed depending on how they were
rolled. Her research heralded the two discoveries
which won Nobel Prizes.
In 1999 Lene Hau slowed light in stages and even
stopped it along with her colleagues. She and her
team in later experiments trapped light, transferred
information stored in it to matter and reversed the
process. This would be a breakthrough for future
quantum computing and cryptography
applications to build on.
Deborah Jin and her team in 2003 created
fermionic condensates. Apart from being a
94

stupendous technical breakthrough, they provided

a new way to study superconductivity and
enigmatic aspects of electricity.
Vera Rubin and her colleague Kent Fords
work on galactic rotation speeds formed a strong
and sustaining basis for proof that yet to be seen
dark matter constitutes around 85 percent of
the Universe. Several scientists in the field have
acknowledged her role and question why she has
not received a Nobel Prize.
These womens achievements were widely noted and
acknowledged through other prestigious awards.By all
standards, they deserve the Nobel Prize but luck or
gender has not favored them so far.

95

How can these biases be overcome?

As far as the age bias is concerned, the explanations for
starting late and a long waiting period seem
reasonable.These imply the need for the next
scientific revolution and a gateway for young
achievers.
Another reason given is that budding scientists
are just not allowed to access the expensive
96

equipment which has now become an essential

part of research. This factor needs to be probed
and discussed.
As for gender bias, studies have definitively shown
science professors to consider women students as less
competent than men. Implicit or explicit, this unfair
bias that women performed as well as men and are yet
not given the same importance damages progress.Job
and mentorship opportunities become less available,
and women find it more difficult to obtain grants
and access to resources. When this vital environment
is not provided to women, there is less chance, even of
them entering their chosen field of research. Every
possible effort and beyond should be made to minimize
and eliminate these biases at the graduate level.
Positive findings of research on gender bias in the
US scientific committee suggest identifying the
bias as a concrete step forward. It was observed
that tapping the scientists innate need to remain

97

unbiased could yield effective results. Giving

examples and presenting study results without
stoking feelings of guilt seemed to motivate
scientists to consciously make an effort to reducing
their unconscious biases.
Voices repeatedly call out for the need to draw
more women into STEM fields (science,
technology, engineering, and math).Merely
having more women join science streams is not
enough. The environment should facilitate them to
have equal opportunities to scale the academic
ladder.
Studies need to widen beyond Europe and the US,
and focus on what hampers women in Asia,
Africa and other parts of the world from
achieving the recognition their male counterparts
get for scientific achievements.
Increased transparency in the evaluation and
decision process whether in evaluating research
papers or evaluating the candidates worth as a
Nobel Prize nominee or recipient will give a
98

clearer understanding of how these systems work.

This makes it easier to identify innate flaws and
reduce all types of discrimination.
Cultural change takes different forms across
countries and curricula but is extremely crucial to
bring about substantial progress.
Another suggestion put forth to recognize a
diverse, collaborative contribution as most
contributions receiving Physics Nobel Prize are
is to award it to the team instead of one to three
individuals.
People scientists and non-scientists - have actively
called for the Nobel Committee to recognize of Vera
Rubins achievement by awarding her the Nobel Prize.
They have also taken to social media to voice the need
for urgency on this front. Such initiatives, whether futile
or not, are heartening, and should continue till there is
sufficient momentum for positive change.
((( )))

99

100

Nobel Prize in Economics for Contract

Theory

Bengt Holmstrm and Oliver Hart, two academics

who developed modern ways to think about writing
contracts in areas as diverse as car insurance, bonuses
for chief executives and the provision of public
services, have won the 2016 Nobel Prize for economics.

101

They share the $925,000 award from the Swedish

Riksbank in memory of Alfred Nobel, for their
contribution to contract theory in the 1970s and 1980s.
Knappily analyses their work.

What is the announcement?

Harvard Universitys Oliver Hart and Bengt
Holmstrm of the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology won the 2016 Nobel Prize in Economics
for laying the groundwork for contract theory and its
role in shaping everything from executive pay to public
sector privatizations.
102

They will share the 8 million-krona ($926,000)

prize for their work in contract theory
developing a framework to understand agreements
like insurance contracts, employer-employee
relationships and property rights.
Work by the 67-year-old Holmstrm in the 1970s,
and later by Hart, 68, helped establish contract
theory as a fertile field of basic research, the
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said.
Contract theory has greatly influenced many
fields, the Royal Swedish Academy said. These
include everything from corporate governance to
constitutional law. Because of Hart and Holmstrm
we now have the tools to analyze not only
contracts financial terms, but also the contractual
allocation of control rights, property rights, and
decision rights between parties.
The two so obviously deserve the prize, Paul
Krugman, who himself won a Nobel economics prize in
2008, wrote on his twitter account. Krugman said his
103

first thought was: Didnt they have it already?

Why is their contribution to contract theory

considered significant?
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said their
theories are valuable to the understanding of real-life
contracts and institutions, as well as potential pitfalls in
contract design.

104

Holmstrms theories in the 1970s helped

companies design compensation contracts for
employees where performance can only be
partly measured.
His informativeness principle argues that pay
should also depend on outside factors, such as
linking a managers pay to the share price
relative to competitors. This helps to avoid
rewarding people for good luck and punishing
them for bad luck.
He explored how to balance risk and incentives
both in idealized theory and in real-life situations.
One early insight, according to the Nobel
committee, was that high-risk industries should
have more fixed salaries while stable industries
should more often consider performance
bonuses.
Hart has focused his research on the division of power
in economic relationships, including in contracts.

105

As part of this work, he in the 1980s developed a

major breakthrough in analyzing the domain of
incomplete contracts.Harts idea is that the
very basic contract, since the future is
uncertain, must spell out who has the right to
decide what to do when the parties cant agree.
Hart has written seminal papers on using contract
theory in mergers, acquisitions, corporate
ownership and vertical integration. One of his most
cited papers was written with Sandy Grossman in
1986.
Fellow Harvard professor Dale W. Jorgenson said
in 1997 that Harts work revolutionized the field
of corporate finance.
The theory of incomplete contracts also provides
a way of thinking about which government
services can benefit from being privatized, and
which are better off under government control.
Pennsylvania State University economist Ran Shorrer,
who taught contract theory as a graduate student at
106

Harvard, said Hart and Holmstrom have had a huge

influence on the way corporations decide to pay
executives. Any modern compensation scheme is
informed by their work, he said.

When do we need a contract?

Contracts determine our actions in the real world. As
Hart says, contracts are just fundamental to the whole
idea that trade is a quid pro quo (something for
107

something) and that there are two sides to a

transaction. We sign contracts mainly for two
reasons:
First, a contract helps the two sides of the deal
work together over a long period of time. Think of
what would happen if each company would have to
search for new employees at the start of every day,
or vice versa.
Second, the contract creates rules that allow agents
with different interests to cooperate to achieve
some goal. No market economy can work without
such cooperation premised on trust but also backed
by the law. How contracts are designed defines our
incentives in various situations in the real world.
There are various nuances in our contracts. They could
be formal or informal, depending on whether they are
enforced by law or social norms. They could be
complete or incomplete, which is based on whether
they take into account all possibilities that lay in the

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future.
One side of a contract may know more than the
other because of information asymmetry, so
insurance companies, for example, may end up
covering people with health problems rather than
the healthy, through what is called adverse
selection.
There are also agency problems as when
managers who are under contract with shareholders
actually try to maximize their own earnings rather
than those of their shareholders.
Contract theory helps us understand these problems.
And helps us solve them through better contract design.
Take a simple informal contract. An agitated
mother has to leave the house for a couple of
hours. She is worried her two children will bring
the house down by fighting over a large piece of
cake in the refrigerator.
The mother leaves a simple instruction the elder
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child will cut the cake while the younger one will
choose which piece to eat. Now, the elder child
cannot cheat. The mother has aligned their interests
or achieved incentive compatibility through
an informal contract.
Thus, their combined work helps us understand our
interactions with others and design better rules so
that social outcomes are better than before.

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Where are the reasons the Economics Nobel is not

considered a real Nobel?
When the Swedish dynamite tycoon Alfred Nobel died
in 1895, he left his fortune to be used to establish the
prize in his name, but he stipulated only five categories
for the award, and economics was not one of them.
Though the Nobel Prize in the original five
categories has been awarded since 1901, the
version of the award for Economics was only
established in 1969.
It was not created as a result of an initiative by the
Nobel family or the managing organization behind
the Nobel Prize.
In fact, it was the Central Bank of Sweden that
created the award in the 1960s, and the true
name of the prize is the Sveriges Riksbank
Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of
Alfred Nobel.
That it has come to be known as the Nobel Prize in

111

Economics is not entirely accurate.The Nobel

Foundation doesnt pay out the award or
chooses the winner (though the winner is chosen
in accordance with the same principles used by
the Nobel Foundation), but it does list the prize
on its website along with the Nobels, tracks
winners the same as Nobel laureates, and even
promotes the prize alongside its own.
Reason for its existence:
Notre Dame historian Philip Mirowski has found
evidence that the economics award grew out of
Swedish domestic politics. According to Mirowski,
in the 1960s, the Bank of Sweden was trying to
free itself from government oversight and become
independent.
One way to do that was to frame economics as
purely scientific, rather than political in
which case, government interference could only
hurt the bank. Having a Nobel Prize boosted

112

economics scientific street credibility.

Mirowski isnt the only academic who is skeptical of
whether there should be a Nobel-associated economics
prize.
Friedrich von Hayek, who won the award in
1974, used his Nobel Banquet speech to critique
the prize! The Nobel Prize confers on an
individual an authority which in economics no man
ought to possess, Hayek said.
He worried that the prize would influence
journalists, the public and politicians to accept
certain theories as gospel and enshrine them in
law without understanding that those ideas have
a different level of uncertainty than, say, gravity or
the mechanics of a human knee.
The word of caution, thus, is that when the Nobel Prize
in Economics is announced, maintain some perspective
on the history of the award.

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Who are the new winners?

Oliver Hart
A British-born U.S. citizen, Hart received a
bachelors degree in mathematics from Cambridge
Universitys Kings College in 1969, a masters in
economics from the University of Warwick in
1972 and a doctorate from Princeton University in
1974.
114

He joined Harvard in 1993 and was chairman of

the economics department from 2000 to 2003. Hes
also a visiting professor at the London School of
Economics and Political Science.
Hart is an expert on contract theory, theory of the
firm, corporate finance, and law and economics.
His research centers on the roles that ownership
structure and contractual arrangements play in the
governance and boundaries of corporations.
Bengt Holmstrm
Holmstrm, born in Finland, received a bachelors
degree in mathematics and physics from the
University of Helsinki in 1972, a masters degree
in operations research from Stanford University in
1975 and a doctorate in business, also from
Stanford, in 1978.
In the early 1970s, he was working for a Finnish
company that wanted to use computers to improve
productivity. Dr. Holmstrom, sent to Stanford on a

115

one-year fellowship, concluded that the real

challenge was not programming but providing
employees with proper incentives.
He joined MIT in 1994 and was chairman of its
economics department from 2003 to 2006. He
served on the board of Nokia Oyj from 1999 until
2012.
Holmstrm is particularly well known for his work
on principal-agent theory. More generally, he has
worked on the theory of contracting and incentives
especially as applied to the theory of the firm, to
corporate governance and to liquidity problems in
financial crises.

116

How is their work applicable in a variety of real

world situations?
Contract theory does not necessarily provide definitive
or unique answers to questions, as the best contract
will typically depend on the specific situation and
context. However, the power of the theory is that it
enables us to think clearly about the issues involved.
Pay-for-performance
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According to Holmstrms paper published in 1979, an

optimal contract should link payment to all
outcomes that can potentially provide information
about actions that have been taken. This
informativeness principle does not merely say that
payments should depend on outcomes that can be
affected by agents.
For example, suppose the agent is a manager
whose actions influence her own firms share
price, but not share prices of other firms. Does that
mean that the managers pay should depend only
on her firms share price? The answer is no. Since
share prices reflect other factors in the economy
outside the managers control simply linking
compensation to the firms share price will reward
the manager for good luck and punish her for bad
luck.It is better to link the managers pay to her
firms share price relative to those of other,
similar firms (such as those in the same
industry).
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A related result is that the harder it is to observe the

managers effort the less the managers pay should
be based on performance.
In industries with high risk, payment should
thus be relatively more biased towards a fixed
salary, while in more stable environments it
should be more biased towards a performance
measure.
For example, for Uber cab drivers or couriers
working at DTC, the theory demonstrates why
their pay can be based so heavily on performance.
With the technology underpinning the gig
economy enabling employers in the sector to have
almost complete information about their workers,
those companies can perform more strongly by
using heavily performance-based remuneration
rather than fixed hourly wages.
This is trickier in occupations where output is more
difficult to measure, where people work in teams
so individual contributions are harder to establish,
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and where certain incentives may lead to distorted

outcomes.Payments for teachers linked to
student test results, for example, risk generating
good grades at the expense of any teacher effort
in developing harder-to-measure skills in
students, such as creativity, Holmstrm found.
Allocating rights
Hart along with other research colleagues analysed how
to allocate the ownership of physical assets, for example
whether they should be owned by a single firm, or
separately by different firms.
Suppose a new invention requires the use of a
particular machine and a distribution channel. Who
should own the machine and who should own the
distribution channel the inventor, the machine
operator, or the distributor?
If innovation is the activity for which it is most
difficult to design a contract, which seems
realistic, the answer could be that the innovator
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should own all the assets in one company, even

though she may lack production and
distribution expertise. As the innovator is the
party that has to make greater non-contractible
investments, she also has greater need of the
future bargaining chip that property rights
bring to the assets.
In financial contracts, such as providing finance to
entrepreneurs, rather than paying people as
employees to innovate, Hart found it was best to
allow them to take control as entrepreneurs so they
gained most of the profits of their efforts. The
outcome is that entrepreneurs get to control their
companies if performance is good but
progressively lose control as it worsens. Banks, for
example, can remove control from companies if
covenants in loans are breached.
Privatization
Another application of Harts theory of incomplete

121

contracts concerns the division between the private and

public sectors.Should providers of public services,
such as schools, hospitals, and prisons, be privatelyowned or not? According to the theory, this depends
on the nature of non-contractible investments. Suppose
a manager who runs a welfare-service facility can make
two types of investment: some improve quality, while
others reduce cost at the expense of quality.
A 1997 article by Hart showed that incentives for
cost reduction are typically too strong.The
desirability of privatisation therefore depends
on the trade-off between cost reduction and
quality.
In their article, Hart and his co-authors were
particularly concerned about private prisons.
Federal authorities in the United States are in fact
ending the use of private prisons, partly because
according to a recently released U.S. Department
of Justice report conditions in privately-run
prisons are worse than those in publicly-run
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prisons.
((( )))

123

Bob Dylan wins Nobel Prize in Literature

There had been a wide range of favorites for Nobel

Laureates in literature this time. While Bob Dylans
name did come up, the actual announcement of his
selection immediately polarized the platform on social
media and outside of it. Strong arguments in his favor
were countered by strong arguments against the
Committees choice. Knappily delves into both sides of
the argument, and the parallels with Rabindranath

124

Tagore.

What unraveled at the Royal Academy Hall?

In a decision which was met with astonishment,
the Nobel Committee awarded the Nobel Prize
for Literature to American songwriter Bob
Dylan.
Breaking from the normal course of conferring the
literary award the same week as the science
awards, the delay had created quite a stir. The last

125

time such a delay happened was in 2005. Media

caught whiff of a disagreement within the
Committee over the winners choice. But the
arguments usually centered on disagreement over
someone whose work was widely-known to be
within the realm of literature.
Even two minutes before the announcement,
people waited with bated breath outside the closed
room. And then Professor Sara Danius, Permanent
Secretary of the Swedish Academy emerged to
announce the winner Bob Dylan for having
created new poetic expressions within the great
American song tradition.
Gasps within the Royal Academy Hall were
followed unusually by some laughter.
Professor Danius said the decision had not been a
difficult one and she hoped the Academy would not be
criticized for its choice. If that was the genuine thought
among the 18 Committee members, they definitely had
another think coming.
126

Why was the decision applauded?

Dylan is widely renowned as a genius and his
name has been brought up as a worthy candidate
for the Nobel. Literary scholar Christopher Ricks
placed the bard from Hibbing, Minn on par with
works of Keats, Yeats and other great poets.
There have been arguments pointing to the allembracing influence he exerted. Many people
have felt he epitomized various facets - poet,
protest singer, reluctant star, desultory prophet,
127

unwilling voice of a generation, and elder

statesman of rock music.
The diverse relevant themes his songs explored
made his genre a first of its kind. As someone
who brought in so much to the rock n roll world
his themes were a protest against modern forms
of inhumanity beyond war such as corruption,
climate change etc. and set the stage for several
legendary musical artistes, the Nobel was long
pending, say his admirers.
Fans on Twitter hailed Dylan as a master of
language, as someone who uses music to
strengthen relevant messages, someone who
went beyond being a fad and inspired music
and listeners across generations.
Some also hailed the unconventionality of the
decision as a positive sign that would usher in a
modern view of what amounted to literature, and
that it emphasized the Committees constant
assertions that beyond the comfy confines of fullpage book reviews and top-10 lists lies a world of
128

potential treasure.

When else did a songwriter win a Nobel?

Observers compared the choice to Rabindranath Tagore
winning the Nobel Prize in recognition of the idealistic
and for Westernersaccessible nature of a small
body of his translated material focused on the 1912
Gitanjali: Song Offerings.They have done so, both to
point out that Dylan was not the first songwriter to
be awarded the Nobel and to add their own

129

argument to the debate on whether he is a deserving

candidate.
Some observes emphasized that hailing Dylan as
the first song-writer to have won the Nobel
highlighted a gross ignorance of Tagore and his
works.
Others who applauded Dylans choice made the
comparison to support the argument that
literature had been recognized in songs by the
Nobel Committee long before and this decision
was not a deviation from tradition.
Others who were not convinced pointed out that
Tagore had produced remarkable works in
poetry such as his Manasi and Bhnusiha
poems.

130

Where does the criticism stem from?

Critics argue that his lyrics when laid bare on
paper are colloquial, characteristic of an artist
rather than a poet, and need music to be
brought to life. This is not the same as poetry by
itself a language which uses the rhythm of words
to unfold an experience that can be captured
directly by the reader.
They feel Bob Dylan, for all his genius did not
produce works which can be defined and
131

experienced as literature. In this sense, Dylan is

as unqualified for the prize as an economist or
political saint.
Opponents on Twitter pointed out that while
Dylans mark is undeniable; the award was
unfair to writers who had much fewer means of
being recognized for their works than musical
artists. Dylan himself has been rightly celebrated
in several ways while writers whose work is much
more worthy of recognition as literature have been
excluded.
Critics also pointed to his tendency to borrow
words from others and re-fashion them to cater
to his music. He was accused of taking excerpts
from Jack London and Junichi Saga among others.
Ms. Danius recognized this as wonderful
sampling and others pointed out T.S. Eliot and
Thelonious Monk to have plagiarized the way
Dylan did.
By choosing Bob Dylan, the Nobel Committee
passed up several writers at a time when it is
132

essential to celebrate and reaffirm the worth of

fiction and poetry. As the New York Times
opinion piece puts it, They could have chosen a
writer who has made significant innovations in the
form, like Jennifer Egan, Teju Cole or Anne
Carson. They could have selected a writer from the
developing world, which remains woefully
underrepresented among Nobel laureates. They
could have picked a writer who has built an
audience primarily online, like Warsan Shire, who
became the first Young Poet Laureate of London in
2014.Instead, the committee gave the prize to a
man who is internationally famous in another field,
one with plenty of honors of its own. Bob Dylan
does not need a Nobel Prize in Literature, but
literature needs a Nobel Prize. This year, it wont
get one.

133

Who were the bets on?

After last years decision considered a rarity to
award Svetlana Alexievich the Nobel, the bets for this
year encompassed a wide range of candidates. Some of
the favorites who were esteemed choices were:
Adonis, the pen name of Syrian poet, essayist
and translator Ali Ahmad Said Esber has been
considered a worthy candidate since long. Known
for his forthrightness, he has been hailed for
leading a modernist revolution as the greatest
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living poet of the Arab world and been issued

death threats by Islamic authorities and scholars.
Ngg wa Thiongo is a Kenyan playwright,
novelist, and essayist who was given a rebel status
by Kenyas dictatorial regime in 1977 for
innovating the presentation of theatrical works to
involve the audience and get them to break away
from being passive recipients of art. He has written
numerous novels, childrens books, plays, and
essays, along with two works of memoir and a
short story collection.
Jon Fosse, a highly prolific Norwegian author
and dramatist who has a string of awards given
to those of the highest caliber to his credit and
whose works have been translated into more than
forty languages. He has written novels, short
stories, poetry, childrens books, essays and plays.
Haruki Murakami, whose reach extends way
beyond his native land Japan has to his credit
critically acclaimed and commercially successful
novels which led his name to be among the
135

favorites this time as well.

Don DeLillo, Joyce Carol Oates and Philip Roth
also enjoyed a high popularity rating.
While last years winner was favored by the British
betting site Ladbrokes, this year Bob Dylans odds were
50/1.

How did Dylan rise to fame?

His early life

136

He was born Robert Allen Zimmerman on May 24,

1941, in Duluth, Minnesota. He took up the name
Bob Dylan while performing folk and country
songs as a college student.
In May 1960, he dropped out of college at the end
of his first year. He came to New York city in 1961
as a performer and fan he wanted to visit Woody
Guthrie who had made a deep impression on him.
He played at clubs and acquired material from
friendly folk singers and Irish musicians.
His success which began in September experienced
its initial share of turbulences. His first album
barely managed to break even. His career began an
upward climb from the second half of 1962 and by
the time his second album , The Freewheelin
Bob Dylan released, he was beginning to court
success.
His iconic status and its influence
In 1960s his widely-celebrated songs such as

137

Blowin in the Wind and The Times Are aChangin which chronicled social unrest were
religiously chanted by anti-war and civil rights
movements. He earned an early reputation of
being more than a songwriter.
His six-minute single Like A Rolling Stone
expanded the range of popular music. Despite
criticism from the folk movement, his songs which
infused the style of rock music became runaway
hits.
His lyrics defied convention in every possible
sense and explored a vast range of themes
political, social, philosophical and literary.This
appealed to the counterculture movement.
He has been celebrated with every famous
award that recognizes and esteems genius and
continues to perform at the age of 75.
((( )))

138

139

A beautiful medal

Late John F. Nash Jr.s Nobel Prize went on auction at

Sothebys on October 17. This prize was all the more
special to Nash, and it is a symbol of human triumph.
Nash did groundbreaking work at a very young age and
was recognized as a mathematical genius when his
struggle with paranoid schizophrenia began. The movie
A Beautiful Mind was inspired by his fight against and
140

recovery from insanity.

What makes Nashs Nobel special?

It is a symbol of human triumph.
At the time he received the Nobel, he was
unemployed after a long struggle with paranoid
schizophrenia. Those outside of his community
wondered whether he was alive or dead even as
they talked about the vast applications of his
work.Nash said the prize was his resurrection
and had a tremendous impact on my life, more
than on the life of most prize winners.
141

The book and movie both named A Beautiful

Mind which made his name more widely known
were inspired by his fight with illness and recovery
and the Nobel Prize greatly strengthened the core
of their message.

Why did he have to wait for four decades to win the

Nobel?
John Nash submitted his thesis in 1950. In the 60s,
142

economists started to apply game theory to real life

situations.By the late 1970s, game theory had become
a building block of modern economics and Nash
equilibrium was its central part.
The Nobel Prize website recognizes Nashs Nobel
winning, revolutionary contributions to economics
He introduced the distinction between
cooperative games, in which binding agreements
can be made, and non-cooperative games, where
binding agreements are not feasible. Developed an
equilibrium concept for non-cooperative games
that now is called Nash equilibrium.
This groundbreaking contribution was noted by the
economics committee as early as the mid-80s when
game theory began to disrupt classical ideas in
economics. The delay in coming to a decision and the
reason for eventually doing so has been discussed in
PBS
When asked to report on the most promising
143

candidates for a Nobel in game theory, researcher

Ariel Rubinstein placed Nashs name at the top of
the list. In 1987, the committee asked economics
professor Jrgen Weibull for advice and he too
opined Nash was the most worthy candidate.
Weibull visited Nash in 1989 and was asked by
Assar Lindbeck, the most important voice in the
economics committee, to update on the status of
Nashs mental condition.
Weibull felt Nashs eccentric behavior did not
exceed that of many other academics. He and
Nash made their way to the Princetons faculty
club. As they were about to enter, Nash stopped
and asked hesitantly, Can I go in? Im not
faculty. Weibull was touched and in that moment
he went from being a casual informer to a strong
supporter of Nashs candidacy.
In 1993, it was decided that the economics
committee would award the Nobel to a genius in
game theory the next year. Lindbeck wanted Nash
to be one of the recipients and had to campaign
144

hard.The arguments he faced were that Nash

was a mathematician, had done his work long
ago, had dropped research at an early age, and
was mentally ill.
Nash was selected after a heated debate
something that had never happened among
committee members before which resulted in
victory for Nash and two others by barely a
handful of votes.

145

When else, in the recent past, have Nobels been

auctioned?
There are only a handful of occasions and almost all
auctions have been commercial successes.
In 2015 three Nobels were sold Alan Lloyd
Hodgkins 1963 prize in physiology or medicine
fetched $795,614, Leon Ledermans 1988
physics prize fetched $765,002 and the Simon
Kutnezs 1971 economic prize fetched $390,448.
Francis Crick and James Watson the
discoverers of DNA had their medals sold for
$2.27 million in 2013 and $4.75 million in 2013
and 2014. The story behind Watsons medal is
even more special (more on this later).
Kenneth Wilsons 1982 Physics prize had to be
removed from auctioning in May 2016 as it failed
to raise the minimum bid. It has currently returned
to the auction table.
Carlos Saavedra Lamass Peace prize sold for

146

$1.1 million in 2014. He is former foreign minister

of Argentina.

Where does the worth of a Nobel come from?

It celebrates phenomenal achievements and
recognizes a few of the worthy people who deserve
a tribute.
This worth is often masked in the process of an
auction where it may often be that the richest
147

person and not the person who values the

medal the most will win the medal.
Where is Watsons auction story different?
The discovery of the double-helix structure of the
DNA for which Watson and Crick won the Nobel
Prize was largely made possible by the
crystallography work of Rosalind Franklin at
Kings College London. Franklin died before the
Prize was given. Watson made sexist remarks on
Franklin and also took a racist view on
intelligence.
He was shunned from the academic community
and decided to sell his Nobel. He became the
first living laureate to do so. It was bought by
Alisher Usmanov, the Russian entrepreneur for
4.75 million dollars.
In a surprising twist, Usmanov announced he
would return the medal to Watson and
proceeded to do so. He said he wanted the

148

money fetched by the sale to be donated to

scientific research and the medal must remain
with Watson. Usmanov said, In my opinion, a
situation in which an outstanding scientist has to
sell a medal recognising his achievements is
unacceptable.
Note: The auction house Sothebys has not yet released
the details of Nashs medal auction. It, however, says
that the estimate is between $2.5 million and $4.0
million.

149

Who helped Nash during his recovery?

Nash underwent a long and relentless struggle against
insanity. He said his first release from the hospital
required him to act and be normal; it was as if thought
police were steering the forcing normal thoughts into
his mind. In the 80s, his condition improved. He had
ceased to take medication by that time.
His wife Alicia had divorced him in 1963. But
when he was finally discharged from hospital,
150

she felt it would be best for him if he lived with

her and their child. She decided to take him in. In
Alicias words, They say that a lot of people are
left on the back wards of mental institutions. And
somehow their few chances to get out go by, and
they just end up there. So, that was one of the
reasons I said, Well, I can put you up. Several
have said it was a decision that saved Nashs
life. His sister and mother cared for him too.
He is also said to have received support from
colleagues in the mathematics community who
recognized his genius and helped him find jobs
where he had people to take care of him.
As the couples biographer, Sylvia Nasar, wrote in
the 1998 book A Beautiful Mind, It was Nashs
genius to choose a woman who would prove so
essential to his survival.
They even died together
On May 23, 2015, Nash and his wife were killed in

151

a vehicle collision in New Jersey. They had been

on their way home from the airport after a visit to
Norway, where Nash had received the Abel Prize
(the highest honor in Mathematics), when their
taxicab driver lost control of the vehicle and struck
a guardrail.

How much justice was done to his character in the

movie The Beautiful Mind?

152

Nash on the movie

In an interview at the first meeting of Laureates in
Economic Sciences, Nash said it would be hard for
the movie to depict the delusions he had accurately
his delusions were auditory and in the movie,
the central character had visual delusions. He
said the movie gave an insight of what a mentally
ill person goes through from within and also
pointed out that in the end the character is shown
to be reliant on medicine while he had stopped
taking medication when his recovery began. He
added that this was because the director was
concerned about sending out a wrong message
to people to discontinue medicine.
In an Al-Jazeera interview, he asked how a threehour movie could be expected to depict a life
shaped over the course of decades. He said the
movie could give out a message of hope for the
families of people struck by mental disorders
and also pointed out the wrong portrayal of his
153

character in the end.

Other opinions
The Guardian pointed out how Nashs sense of
gross irresponsibility when he was young he
had a child with Eleanor Stier, and did not
contribute in any way to his sons upbringing,
as well as other incidents were not depicted in
the movie. The Nash shown in the movie was
presented as an adorable, awkward nerd.
Though scientifically inaccurate (at least as far as
Game Theory is concerned), the movie received
applause for its portrayal of the journey of a
mentally ill person.
((( )))

154

But where is Bob Dylan?

Bob Dylans staunch silence after he was announced

as the recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature this
year has evoked mixed reactions. Fans revere him all
the more while committee members do not know how
to respond to his silence or interpret it. This is definitely
not the first time Dylan has been reluctant to talk about
his award. Knappily explores what might be on his

155

mind.

What has perplexed the Nobel Committee and

angered one of its members?
On Thursday the day he was announced as a
Nobel Laureate evening, Dylan performed at a
concert and did not mention the Nobel Prize. On
Friday, at another concert, he was commemorated
with reference to the Prize by the Rolling Stones,
but said nothing himself.
Neither has Dylan responded to the repeated phone
calls from the Swedish Academy.His
156

irresponsiveness annoyed academy member and

Swedish writer Per Wastberg who reportedly
said, Its impolite and arrogant.
His silence on the award also has the academy
wondering if he will arrive to the award
ceremony. Wastberg called the situation
unprecedented. Sara Danius, permanent secretary
of the academy said they were in waiting mode
now. She added, If he doesnt want to come, he
wont come. It will be a big party in any case and
the honour belongs to him. I am not at all worried.
I think he will show up.

157

Why is Dylans non-responsiveness not very

surprising?
Dylans unconventional relationship with award
ceremonies has been noted several times in the past.
In 1963, at his Tom Paine award speech the
award is given for civil rights a part of his longwinded speech did not go well with many.He said
he sympathized with JFKs assassin Lee Harvey
158

Oswald. He later apologized.

In 2000, he chose to accept an Oscar award his
song Things Have Changed from the film Wonder
Boys was chosen in the Best Original Song
category via video link from Australia.
In 2007, he chose to play at Omaha when he was
expected at the Crown Prince of Spains ceremony
to award the Prince of Asturias medal.In 2010, he
did not arrive at the White House to collect the
National Medal for the Arts.
Dylan was initially reluctant to play at the White
House. When he eventually did so on the occasion
of Black History Month in 2010, he performed
and walked off. Obama, in a 2013 interview said,
Heres what I love about Dylan: He was exactly
as youd expect he would be. He wouldnt come to
the rehearsal and he didnt show up to take a
picture with me.

159

When has discomfort between the Laureate and the

Committee been noted in the past?
The Nobel Committee dilly-dallied over giving
the Nobel Prize to Einstein for as long as they
could. Science historian Robert Marc Friedman
explains this dilly-dallying was driven by a bias
against theoretical physicists, pacifists and Jews.
Even when they did nominate him, it wasnt for the
revolution-stirring relativity theory, instead for the
relatively insignificant photoelectric effect.
Einstein, for his part, was on the way to Japan
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at that time, and did not attend the ceremony.

When he listed the honors that meant most to him
he started off with the Max Planck medal he
revered Planck and followed it with other awards
from different nations. The absence of the Nobel
was a highlight in itself of how much he cared
about it.
The 1964 Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded
to Jean-Paul Sartre. The news reached him a few
days ago and he immediately wrote to the
Committee to cancel the decision. But his letter
was addressed wrongly and did not reach in time.
He had refused another award, the Legion
dhonneur and stood firmly by the reason he did
not want to be transformed by such an award,
and did not want to take sides in an East vs. West
cultural struggle by accepting an award from a
prominent Western cultural institution.
In 1973, North Vietnamese negotiator Lu Duc Tho
refused the Nobel Peace Prize he was awarded
along with Henry Kissinger.He pointed out that
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peace had not yet been established in Vietnam.

Where are the different reactions to Dylans silence?

For fans and worshippers, it reinforces their faith
in Dylan. They say he has always stood for staying
out of the rat race. This is the different Dylan his
fans revere and his silence, as an article in Firstpost
puts it, is just another marker of his radicalism.
Some are defining the line between not
acknowledging the announcement and rejecting the
prize outright. Poet Amy King said, Bob Dylan
now has a chance to do something truly great
for literature: reject the Nobel Prize for

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Literature. He can take a stand and declare that

fame and ease of consumption should not play a
role in determining merit when it comes to
focusing the public eye on one writers books.
For some of those disappointed with his
selection, his non-responsiveness gives them yet
another reason to add to the argument of why
he does not deserve the prize.

Who has Dylan shown he is?

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Despite the Nobel Committees annoyance, there is a

section of people who feel this is Dylans way of
making a statement in addition to the usual reticence
and shying away from award ceremonies that is
characteristic of him.
Dylans song selections just before and after the
announcement have fuelled the thought.
Alfred Nobel can be called one of the Masters of
War; he was one of the first modern armament
producers and also a major producer of modern
cannon. In the concert that Dylan performed just
before the award was announced he chose to sing
his Masters of War as the final encore song.
In several concerts following the announcement,
he chose his Why Try to Change Me Now? as
the final encore song.
By refusing the award, Dylan could make a
compelling case that if he acted otherwise, it
would have been a silent endorsement of the

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platform built by Alfred Nobel and a legacy

established by a master of war.

How true is his anti-war stand that is often hailed by

the media?
His protest against US involvement in the Vietnam
War made media frame him as a relentless champion
against war.But over time, his hard line stance
against war seems less credible.
His strong support for Israel in its war against
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the Palestinians is an example. As Dylan no

longer participates in anti-war activism, one need
not delve into how much of the anti-war sentiment
is still within him.But media, in its portrayal of
him as a relentless champion against war
overlooks this glaring example.
In 1971, he commended the sincerity of Rabbi
Meir Kahane, leader of the racist Kach movement
who ordered several Palestinians out of their native
land.
This other side of Bob Dylan often goes unnoticed by
the media.
((( )))

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