Author: Emily Conover / Source: Science News
Losing the Nobel Prize
Brian Keating
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Dust may seem insignificant, but in science, it can cost you a Nobel Prize.
That’s what happened to Brian Keating, a major contributor to the BICEP2 team that claimed in 2014 to have found the first definitive evidence of cosmic inflation (SN: 4/5/14, p. 6), a period of extremely rapid expansion just after the Big Bang. Months later, the evidence crumbled: A swirling pattern, seen in light released 380,000 years after the universe’s birth, was due to cosmic dust bunnies, not inflation (SN: 2/21/15, p. 13). Keating’s Nobel dreams disintegrated.
The most coveted of scientific honors, the Nobel Prize was a major motivator for Keating. But in Losing the Nobel Prize, Keating questions whether the award is good for science. He argues the prize punishes collaboration by rewarding at most three scientists for each discovery and concentrates already limited scientific funding into fields favored by laureates. Plus,…
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