Dubious Awards

Antonio Moniz 1949 Physiology or Medicine For invention of prefrontal lobotomy. The committee failed to appreciate how widely discredited the procedure had become by the time award made.

Johannes Fibiger 1926 Physiology or Medicine For discovering parasite that caused cancer (it didn't).

Julius Wagner-Jauregg 1927 Physiology or Medicine For treating dementia by infecting with malaria.

Philipp Lenard 1905 Physics For discovering that the energy of the rays produced by radiating metals in  vacuum with ultraviolet light was independent of the light intensity. Lenard became Chief of Aryan Physics under the Nazi regime and denounced Albert Einstein as "the Jewish fraud of relativity."

Alexander Fleming  1945 Physiology or Medicine Observed mold (penicillin) had developed accidentally on a culture plate and created bacteria free circle. Fleming became convinced that penicillin would not last long enough in the human body to kill bacteria effectively. Fleming was modest about his part in the development of penicillin, describing his fame as the "Fleming myth."

 

The Nobel peace prize has become the most controversial of the six awards.
Suspect recipients include:

Theodore Roosevelt 1906 Peace Drew up 1905 peace treaty between Russia and Japan.

Henry Kissinger 1973 Peace Negotiated the Vietnam peace accord in 1973.

Yasser Arafat 1994 Peace For effort to create peace in the Middle East.

Shimon Peres 1994 Peace For effort to create peace in the Middle East.

Yitzhak Rabin 1994 Peace For effort to create peace in the Middle East.

Al Gore 2007 Peace For the effort to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change.

Overlooked Achievements
Based on the will of Alfred Nobel, the Nobel Prize may be split by as many as three individuals
and cannot to be a warded posthumously. The following individuals should have been awarded
the Nobel prize or at least received the award sooner:

Dmitry Mendeleyev Originator of the periodic table, Mendelev failed to attain Nobel prize in chemistry  by a single vote. Undoubtedly his Russian nationality influenced the Swedish dominated committee.

Johannes Rydberg Devised the Rydberg Equation (1888) which is used to predict the wavelengths of  light emitted by changes in the energy level of an electron in an atom.  Rydberg believed spectral studies could assist in a theoretical understanding of the atom and  its chemical properties. Although nominated, Rydberg was never awarded Nobel prize.

Thomas Edison For numerous inventions.

Nikola Tesla  Referred to as "the man who invented the 20th century," Tesla is best known for alternating current, induction motor, rotating magnetic field, and wireless technology.

Gilbert Newton Lewis Performed pioneering work involving the covalent bond, electron dot structures, purification of heavy water, chemical thermodynamics, theory of acids and bases, photochemical experiments. Although nominated 35 times, Lewis never received  the Nobel Prize. Lewis has the distinction of being the greatest American chemist  not to have won Nobel Prize.

Mahatma Gandhi  Nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize five times between 1937 and 1948 but never received the prize.

Lise Meitner Forced to leave Germany (1938) but continued to correspond with research associate Otto Hahn. At Meitner's urging, Hahn bombarded uranium with neutrons and found radioactive barium formed. Totally baffled by this result, Hahn wrote to Meitner asking, "Perhaps you can suggest some fantastic explanation!"  Meitner did have an explanation, the uranium atom had split! Using Einstein's equation (E = mc2), she made calculations showing the formation of barium, krypton, additional neutrons, and energy. The Nobel prize in chemistry (1944) was awarded solely to Hahn.

Charles Best While a medical student, Best performed key work in isolating insulin. The 1923 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine was awarded to Frederick Banting and John Macleod (provided Banting with laboratory space). Banting protested the award to Macleod and gave half of his monetary award to Best.

Oswald Avery Published a landmark paper on the transforming ability of DNA (1944).

Rosalind Franklin Obtained x-ray evidence to support the discovery of the structure of DNA (1953).  Crick, Watson and Wilkins were awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize for Medicine or Physiology. Only Wilkins mentioned Franklin in the Nobel speeches saying,  "Rosalind Franklin made some very valuable contributions to the x-ray analysis."

Jocelyn Bell Discovered the first radio pulsars with her thesis supervisor Antony Hewish. Hewish was awarded the Nobel Prize without  inclusion of Bell. The award was denounced  by Hewish's fellow astronomer Fred Hoyle.

Francis Rous 1966 Physiology or Medicine Given the award 56 years after discovering cancer causing viruses in chickens.

Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar 1983 Physics Postulated black holes in 1930 but had to wait over 50 years for the award .