In 1974, Antony Hewish won the physics Nobel Prize for discovering pulsars. Who should win the Nobel Prize? (“Nobel Prizes” in this article is a stand-in for many prizes of its type, including the Abel Prize, the Wolf Prizes, and the Lasker Awards.) Why did Hewish alone receive the Nobel Prize instead of the technicians who built the radio receiver? But we can’t get rid of the Nobel Prizes: they’re too embedded, too useful as a signal, and — yes — too good at generating headlines.

Source: The Hindu February 17, 2026 04:06 UTC