The problem with Nobel prizes and the myth of the lone genius | Jenny Rohn

Restricting Nobel prizes to three individuals has always been problematic, and increasingly glosses over the contributions of everyday scientists

Yesterday, the Nobel prize in physics was awarded for the discovery of gravitational waves, following a massive group effort by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (Ligo) experiment. The announcement reignited the perennial discussion of how a scientific advance can possibly be ascribed to so few people.

According to a tweet by BBC science correspondent Pallab Ghosh, Professor Martin Rees, former Astronomer Royal and President of the Royal Society, told BBC News, "@LIGO's success was owed to hundreds of researchers. The fact that the #NobelPrize2017 committee refuses to make group awards is causing increasingly frequent problems + giving a misleading impression of how a lot of science is actually done".