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Citation Station: Nobel Prize for blood relatives

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    The fact "Charles Hard Townes and his great nephew are the only Nobel Prize recipients who are blood relatives." isn't true. At least two examples exist: Marie Curie and her daughter Irène both won Nobel Prizes, and so did Jan and Nico Tinbergen. The latter two were brothers.

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      CommentAuthorTaed
    • CommentTimeOct 25th 2006
     

    Ah, but Marie Curie's daughter was adopted, though many have made a strong argument that she is actually the illegitimate daughter of Marie's sister who coincidentally had a child die during childbirth around the same time. Perhaps you stand in that camp, but there's no proof of that position, though it is awfully coincidental particularly considering how similar they looked.

    It's also well known that Nico Tinbergen was also adopted at the age of 5 from an orphanage, and at the time of being awarded the Nobel, he was trumpeted as a "poster child" of successful adoptions.

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    Now I understand, I forgot to say it's not Jan and Nico Tinbergen, but Nico and his natural father, Kamerlingh-Onnes who gave his son away for adoption.

    • CommentAuthoralt36
    • CommentTimeNov 8th 2006
     

    J J Thomson was awarded the Nobel prize for physics in 1906. His son, George Thomson, was awarded the same prize in 1937. Not only that, the father was essentially recognised for proving that the electron is a particle-like object, whilst the son demonstrated it is a wave-like object.

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      CommentAuthorTaed
    • CommentTimeNov 9th 2006
     

    J. J. Thomson's Nobel prize was recinded in 1949 following his guilty plea during the Neurenburg trials.

    • CommentAuthoralt36
    • CommentTimeNov 9th 2006
     

    I can find no mention of this either in any of the biographies of J J Thomson I've found so far, or on the Nobel Prize website. Can you provide a reference for this?

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      CommentAuthorUdoboy
    • CommentTimeNov 9th 2006
     

    It would help if Taed had spelled Nuremberg [Nürnberg] correctly. :angry:

    www.nuernberg.de has some info on the subject, but it's in German:

    Nobelpreis Herr-Thomsons war leider ein Unfall des Krieges. Während seines Zeugnisses ließ er zum Verwenden seines Wissens, um das Drittes Reich geheim zu unterstützen zu. Er beschloß, sein prize forty-three Jahre zurückzubringen, nachdem er es empfangen hatte und dem geglaubt, weil die Früchte seines Wissens zum menschlichen Leben möglicherweise schädlich waren, daß der Preis verlegt wurde.

    • CommentAuthoralt36
    • CommentTimeNov 9th 2006
     

    Thanks for the info. My German's rusty, but I remember enough to get the general idea :) I'm kind of surprised it wasn't mentioned in *any* of the biographies I looked at. Anyway, the Nobel prize website lists a total of 6 father/son pairs who both won Nobel prizes (including the Thomsons). It also lists the Curies and Tinbergens, but they've been discussed here already..

    http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/nobelprize_facts.html

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      CommentAuthorUdoboy
    • CommentTimeNov 9th 2006
     

    The best factoids are the ones you don't find in the obvious places.

    • CommentAuthoralt36
    • CommentTimeNov 9th 2006 edited
     

    OK, but surely being correct is a fairly important factor as well? This discussion started by saying that the statement that Townes and his great nephew are the only blood relatives to receive the Nobel prize is wrong. I'm simply trying to help illustrate that the statement does seem to be wrong..

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    I fail to see how you've shown that the factoid is false. I mean, I can just come in here and start making things up, too. Look:

    • Based on interviews with a random sampling of international PhD candidates, Nobel prizes are 18 percent less prestigious than they were 75 years ago.

    • CommentAuthoralt36
    • CommentTimeNov 9th 2006
     

    How is citing reputable sources making things up, exactly?

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    I don't know why everything has to be a battle with some people. I never said you were just making things up. Don't start putting words into my mouth, mr. smarty pants.

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      CommentAuthorcadet
    • CommentTimeNov 11th 2006
     

    Oh I found this fact on Digg.com yesterday,

    Of the 787 Nobel laureates only 483 actually did a deed or performed research that was worthy of the coveted prize.

    and yes, i'm citing a reputable source for that quote...

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      CommentAuthorFact totum
    • CommentTimeMar 6th 2007
     

    I am still occasionally perusing the old threads. This is the type that makes all my exhaustive research worthwhile.

    Well, this and the stipend of $10,000 per front page factoid that Legat pays me.

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