Science Woodstock and Nobel Prize: what remains in 50 years?

2014 is a year of commemoration – good remembrances and bad ones, for individuals and for mankind. Let us stay with the good ones. 1964 was the year of the Beatles when they took USA in one strike. In 5 years, there will be the 50th anniversary of the legendary, pivotal Woodstock concert. Unbelievable how seemingly fast the time went. Although I cannot remember that anymore, I was already a small child at that time. In 1974, Germany won with some fortune the soccer world championship and the corresponding memory is crystal-clear in my mind. In the Netherlands, almost a whole nation still suffers a bit because of that event. I know that Hungary was virtually in shock for their unexpected loss in 1954. In 1984, I made my high-school diploma and a lighthearted youth was ended. The obligatory military service took away the easiness of live and set in place severity. In 1994, I started my professional life at the Institut für Mikrotechnik Mainz GmbH … yes, with microreactors. This once marked another cut in my life – from student to researcher. A cut to the better. In 2004 (or a bit later), I changed accommodation and my village. Again to the better.

Question is why we remember some incidences, sports events, music releases, persons of public interest, and so forth so strong as if it would have happened yesterday. Why some much more recent occurrences vanished out of our memory. I have read the last days extensively about the iconic last three LPs of the Beatles, which were “The Beatles (White Album)”, “Let it Be” and “Abbey Road”. These showed the probably greatest band of the world at their absolute best, yet also in heavy clashes between each other, leading to the band’s split within short time. Reading that all was alike a time warp, as if it would have been yesterday. At the Grammys event hold in the Staples Centre in Los Angeles – in 2014 – Paul and Ringo reunited, recapping all what was so great and another time warp seemed to be set in place. Yet, who remembers the Monkeys, the American “copy” of the Beatles?

It is now autumn, it has become dark. This is the time to become calmer and slower, the time to think and remember. Harvesting. Also in science. The Nobel Prizes were just awarded the last month. Do we still remember the names, the topics, … not only for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (and related), but for the one in literature and for peace? Are we aware of last year’s prize winners, the ones 10 years ago? Some we indeed remember. Undoubtedly, Watson and Crick and their proposed DNA helix (Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine) have burnt deeply into our mind like Voodoo Chile from Hendrix in Woodstock. Why, by the way, do we not remember the third winner, Wilkins? He was born in New Zealand. I just was 3 weeks ago in Perth/Australia. When jogging in the ultimately pleasant King’s park, I discovered the DNA tower out of a sudden and climbed on it. This is like a miniature version of the Eiffel tower “a la DNA”. Einstein is certainly also in our collective mind. Same for Grignard and both the Curies. Just recently one colleague and I tried to remember who actually won both the Nobel Prizes in Chemistry and Peace – for the first and only time – and in addition was so busy with Vitamin C research. After a time, the name Linus Pauling came back to our active memory. Interestingly, when making this list completely spontaneously, just during Editorial writing – in a stream of consciousness – I realize that it contains no name out of the last 20 or 30 years. OK, if I now push myself, names arise such as Sharpless (also since I do click chemistry), Michel (also since I am German as he), Lehn (also since I did supramolecular chemistry), and Olah (also since I like carbocations since I was a student; actually without knowing why these are ‘better’ than anions). Thus, there are personal and collective arguments which keep us remembering.

One could say my statements are subjective. Yet, type “Nobel Prize Chemistry” in Google and one will virtually the same names appear. Maybe, there is some truth behind my aphorism.

We talk so much about impact in science. It would be nice to compare impacts of those winners being still present in our collective mind and those having vanished. To compare impacts of Nobel Prize winners and those researchers seemingly making similar achievements but being not awarded – before and after the prize releases. And so on. I really would be interested if a meaningful result comes out. These days, we are believing so much in impact factors of journals, of science papers and scientists themselves. Question is – in 50 years’ retrospective – what will remain. Maybe one of the next editor-in-chiefs of Green Processing and Synthesis will take up the question in 2064 and look for the very first articles. By the way, it will be 100 years Beatles then …

Maybe some of the work initially not cited a lot will with time become of considerable relevance. Maybe some of the work rejected harshly by high-impact journals will turn out finally so powerful when being published in a “lower impact journal”. Maybe we are too much driven and partly on one eye blind by some expectations and habits in the science evaluations. I definitively experience that. Point is habits may change with time; very soon likely. This reminds me once more about the three last great albums of the Beatles mentioned above. Initially, most of the critics were not so content with these and claimed the Beatles did not reach the highest standard (used to since their masterpieces Sergeant Pepper and Revolver). Point is the new albums were even more complex in sound and certainly not smooth as their very first releases in 1963–1965 which made them famous. As a matter of fact, the “White Album” and “Abbey Road” mark no. 10 and 14 of the 500 best pop and rock albums ever (in the respective RollingStone magazine list “500 Greatest Albums of All Time”). The latter is the best-sold album of the band and one of the best sold ever.

We may learn from this that not the critics have the final sense, but the long-term reception by the audience and history. Accordingly, it is the big chance and responsibility of scientific committees to award their prizes to those who indeed set landmark research and epoch-making trends, i.e., who simply have and had impact.

The Nobel Prize committee always had the tendency to wait long before awarding a researcher in order to check carefully his/her cumulative impact rather to jump on the hype bandwagon. Good policy.