Alfred Nobel in 1853. (The Nobel Foundation)Imagine you were running a scientific conference and the great grand nephew of Alfred Nobel, who created the Nobel prizes, asked if he could use your event to introduce the first new Nobel prize in 40 years. Sort of cool, huh, in that international academic prestige sort of way.
So there was no shortage of excitement among the organizers of NanoTX’07, a nanotechnology conference, when Michael Nobel, who is indeed Alfred’s great grand nephew, approached them about announcing a new prize for advances in alternative energy. He wanted to be the featured speaker at a reception meant to honor the surviving members of the team of scientists who won the 1996 Nobel Prize for chemistry for the buckyball — a novel soccer-ball shaped form of carbon. (The buckyball hasn’t amounted to much, but excitement stemming from its discovery in 1985 played a crucial role in the discovery of other new materials and getting nanotechnology on the radar of governments, industry and investors.)
Mr. Nobel told conference organizers them that his goal, with the family’s support, was to focus attention on the need for advances in alternative energy, a field of passionate interest for Dr. Richard E. Smalley, a leader of the buckyball team who died in 2005. The arrangements were announced on Aug. 30 in a press release that intriguingly withheld mention of what field the award would cover.
Alas, two weeks later, the organizers received a disturbing fax from The Nobel Foundation in Sweden. It advised them that Mr. Nobel had been voted out as head of the Nobel Family Society at a meeting in August of 2006 “mainly because of his unauthorized activities and involvements in the name of the Nobel Family Society.” And it threatened legal action against those involved in creating “The Dr. Michael Nobel Award”, as Mr. Nobel had indicated it was to be named.
“We were flabbergasted,” said Peter G. Balbus, a management consultant who had volunteered to arrange the Nobel laureates’ reception for NanoTX’07.
Robert Mason, chairman of the conference, did not wait to hear Mr. Nobel’s said of the story. “We immediately took every mention of him off the website,” said Mr. Mason. Mr. Nobel was “disinvited” via email and various phone messages, Mr. Mason said, but neither he nor Mr. Balbus have received a response.
Mr. Nobel has, so far, been unreachable for his side of the story. But NanoTX’07 organizers said that the relationship was troubled even before the bad news arrived from Sweden. To start with, Mr. Nobel had initially demanded an appearance fee of “at least $25,000″ Mr. Balbus said, a payment that was completely out of the question for a show where almost every participant is a volunteer coming for the networking opportunities.
Then there was Mr. Nobel’s plan to have the actual awards presented next spring in an event he told Mr. Balbus would be produced by Dick Clark Productions — a mix of Hollywood with the staid Nobel name Mr. Balbus said he found surprising. And the original plan at least was for four awards, one for governments, one for scientists, one for industry and one, astonishingly, for the “celebrities” who advanced the alternative energy cause. One online technology blog that had been following developments, The May Report, had noted that such an approach might discourage serious researchers from having anything to do with the award even though figures like $25,000 per prize were being mentioned.
To be sure, that was up in air too.
“He claims he’s getting huge support from the Koreans, whatever that means,” said Mr. Balbus in a phone interview.
So why were Mr. Balbus and his NanoTX’07 colleagues so surprised at the outcome? It’s a story rapidly becoming familiar to all of us — there was plenty of information about Mr. Nobel’s career and activities that looked good on the Internet with no obvious warning signs it might be out-of-date or exaggerated. And who wanted to look for bad news when the Nobel family name could be added to the speaker list?
“We were really impressed he knocked on our door,” Mr. Mason conceded.
Even after their rude awakening, the NanoTX’07 organizers sound more wistful than angry.
“I think his intentions are good,” said Mr. Balbus.
(More than a week after this was originally posted, Michael Nobel phoned me with a different view of what happened, a view summarized by another Nobel relative, Philip, in the comments section for this post — check it out)
Comments are no longer being accepted.