The Nobel Prize Is About to Break Because Everyone Winning It Is So Old

Want a Nobel Prize in science? Be prepared to wait a really long time.

That’s assuming, of course, that you’re a world-class physicist, chemist, or medical scientist. If you are, know that in the past several decades, scientists winning Nobel Prizes in one of the three science categories have had to wait more than 20 years between their original discovery and actually receiving the award. That’s because it’s taking longer and longer for fellow researchers to prove or disprove Nobel-worthy theories. Take, for instance, Peter Higgs, who won the Nobel Prize in physics last year for his work theorizing the Higgs Boson particle—more than 50 years after he originally proposed it. Luckily, the 84-year-old Higgs didn’t kick the bucket before he earned his prize, as the award is not granted posthumously.

Writing in Nature, Santo Fortunato, a researcher at Finland’s Aalto University—who, like you and me, is Nobel Prize-less (please email me if you have won a Nobel Prize, let’s talk)—says that extended wait times “threaten to undermine science’s most venerable institution,” because all the deserving scientists might be dead by the time their achievements are recognized.

In some years, everyone worthy of winning a Nobel could very well be dead.

Before 1940, Nobel Prizes that were awarded 20 years after the original discovery happened 11 percent of the time in Physics, 15 percent of the time in Chemistry, and 24 percent of the time in Physiology or Medicine. Since 1985, those numbers have jumped to 60 percent, 52 percent, and 45 percent, respectively.

“If this trend continues, some candidates might not live long enough to attend their Nobel ceremonies,” Fortunato wrote. “As this average interval becomes longer, so the average age at which laureates are awarded the prize goes up. By the end of this century, the prizewinners’ predicted average age for receiving the award is likely to exceed his or her project life expectancy.”

There’s no real obvious solution to this—science is getting more complicated, with, presumably, all the easy-to-prove theorems snatched up. But for any hopefuls, it’s worth remembering that a winner gets $1.2 million. So if you’re planning on doing Nobel-worthy work, better make it something that can be proved quickly.