This year’s Nobel prizes brought both delight and disbelief
Important work was honoured, but there was a surprising omission
SCIENTISTS SOMETIMES refer elliptically to winning a Nobel prize as “the trip to Stockholm”. Not this year, it isn’t. The white-tie award ceremony in the Concert Hall, the splendid banquet in the City Hall and—for those who can last the pace, the equally splendid unofficial after-party in the students’ union of one of Stockholm’s universities (they rotate the honour) are all cancelled, just as they were last year. That will probably not, however, diminish the joy of this year’s laureates. They will be on cloud nine already, having snagged the most famous awards in science.
This article appeared in the Science & technology section of the print edition under the headline “And the winners are...”
From the October 9th 2021 edition
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