the Daily Whale - 29 May 1991

The good thing about the Nobel Prize is that it gives ambitious scientists a goal: “I want to do something worthy of a Nobel.” The bad things are two. One, it is rarely awarded for controversial work; two, once a scientist has been awarded the Nobel, they’ve reached the goal, and often slack off on their work.

The first problem is inherent to the nature of the prize. To fix the second problem, I propose that the Nobel be awarded only posthumously.