THE NOBEL PRIZE WINNERS

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 154, 26 March 1938, Page 8 (Supplement)

THE NOBEL PRIZE WINNERS

Countries With Most

Honours

Dr. Ernest Gray Keller, New York, looks over the list of Nobel Prize winners and draws from it conclusions that seem to him to have social significance. The total awards to individuals since 1901 has been 194— not enough to justify valid statistical generalisations, yet enough ,to encourage speculation on the effect of environment and heredity on human accomplishment. Five countries —Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, Norway and Holland—produced from twice to twelve or more times as many Nobel laureates in proportion to their respective populations, as other countries of Europe and America, Dr. Keller points out. Each of these five has produced one Nobel Prizeman for approximately half a million population or less. The five in question are followed by Scotland, with a Nobel Prize recipient per 1,118,000; England per 1,355,000; German per 1,408,000; France -per 1,498,000; Belgium per 1,686,000; Ireland per 2,228,000; United States per 3,458,000 (counting foreign-born Car- ’ rel and Landsteiner); Argentine per 4,000,000; pre-war Austria per 4,500,000; Canada per 5,000,000; Italy per 5,412,000; Spain per 6,000,000; European Russia (exclusive of Finland and Poland) approximately per 31,000,000. Since most Nobel Prize winners were born before 1900, these,estimates are based on approximate populations of 1900 (or census nearest 1900), rather than on present populations. In proportion to their populations Denmark and Switzerland top the world. On this basis they supplied relatively more . than three times as many Nobel Prize winners as Germany of France, 13 times as many as Italy, and about 70 times as many as European Russia. “If only the last decade, from 1927 to 1937, were taken into consideration instead of the entire period from 1901 to the present,” Dr. Keller points out, “the United States would show a much better record.” Since 1927, 15 Nobel Prizes have been received by the United States as against 13 by England, 12 by Germany and seven by France.

Have the five countries which produced most Nobel Prize winners something in common not found to quite the same extent in other countries Dr. Keller thinks they have. “All hold high the ideal of personal liberty in the broadest sense of the word. Individual initiative has free rein, and reward according 'to accomplishment. All have exceptionally strong home Ties. General orderliness distinguishes all five countries, as does likewise a sense of social justice.”