Hoyle critical of Nobel award

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33814, 10 April 1975, Page 13

Hoyle critical of Nobel award

(X Z.P.A -Reuter—Copyright i i LONDON, April 9. J The British astronomer, Sir Fred Hoyle, has criticised the Nobel Prize Committee for its 1974 award for the discovery of pulsars, the mysterious radio sources in space. “It seems clear that the committee did not bother itself to understand what happened in this case,” he says in a letter to “The Times,” writing from Rice University, Houston, Texas.

The Nobel Prize for Physics last year went to two British radio astronomers, Professor Anthony Hewish

and Sir Martin Ryle, the citation mentioning the pulsar discovery, generally regarded as a milestone in astronomy research. But Sir Fred says that the discovery was made by a student, Miss Jocelyn Bell, and the follow-up in-] vestigation guided by Professor Hewish, her research supervisor at the Cambridge radio telescope. “Had Miss Bell not made her discovery, it is likely that pulsars would have remained unknown, even to this day,” Sir Fred says, adding that three or four other observatories could have performed the follow-up work had the discovery been reported at the time. “There has been a tendency to misunderstand the magnitude of Miss Bell’s | achievement, because it,

I sounds so simple. T would 'add that my criticism of the Nobel Award was directed against the awards committee itself, not against Professor Hewish.’’ The controversy over the award recently prompted a leading British scientific journal, “Nature,” to call for the abolition of Nobel Prizes. “The joy of astronomers, that at long last a Nobel Prize is within their grasp, is likely to be shortlived when they discover how divisive the whole con-

cept of vast cash award* and hobnobbing with royalty is to the scientific community,” it said.

“Ambition is a fine thing, but these inequitable, divisive, flattering prizes generate obsession. Isn't it time they were abolished?”

Professor Bengt Nagel, secretary of the Nobel Physics Commitee. said in Stockholm yesterday that committee members were forbidden to divulge the discussions which led to awards, but he added: “I do not think I would be breaki n g the rule of confidentiality if I said the committee was fully aware of Miss Bell’s role in the discovery of pulsars . . I am sure Sir Fred Hoyle does not really think, knowing all the exhaustive investigation that goes into Nobel Prize nominations, tha 7 we were ignorant of details of how the pulsar discovers' was .made?’