Geniuses, Heroes, and Saints: The Nobel Prize and the Public Image of Science
Massimiano Bucchi (Translated by Tania Aragona)
The MIT Press ( Mazy 2025)

“How [and why] has this cult of science arisen?” Thorsten Veblem (1906)

Of all the questions to which Massimiano Bucchi responds in this volume, these are of greatest interest and value to me:

o How and why did a mistaken death notice lead Albert Nobel to establish the most important award in science?
o How are recipients of the Nobel Prize selected? How are they not?
o To what extent is it a “prize without borders”?
o How did Albert Einstein receive the Nobel Prize? Why did he almost not receive it?
o Why is Lise Meitner uniquely significant? Why are she and others viewed as “ghosts”?
o Nobel Prize recipients tend to become become more important. Do they also become more appealing?

I commend Bucchi on this widely and deeply researched book. (See the Notes, Pages 173-187.) Remarkably, it is also an immensely entertaining survey of all manner of geniuses, heroes, and saints throughout the years since Nobel Prizes were first awarded in 1901 in physics, chemistry, and physiology or medicine.

As Massimiano Bucchi explains so well, “What I hope I have shown here are the power and importance of the three narratives that characterize the prize and its public dimension: the scientist as genius, the scientist as national hero, and the scientist as saint.

“The importance of the genius emphasizes the creativity of the scientist, the intellectual exceptionality, which is reflected in a solitary and romantic ideal that is very effective from the point of view of public image.

“The narrative of the national hero enables the Nobel-winning scientist to speak as the voice of a nation, replacing and sublimating national tensions and rivalries through a more peaceful and noble competition.

“The narrative of the saint [begin italics] embodies [end italics] (literally, as we have seen) the scientist’s moral exceptionality, revising the traditional idea of the man of science as a secular ascetic.

“The three narratives complement, balance, and reinforce each other. ‘In a sacred idiom, scientific discovery is divine inspiration; in a secular idiom it is spontaneous and serendipitous.’ [Steven Shapin, The Scientific Life, 2010] When combined, they define the Nobel Prize as ‘the right prize at the right moment.'”

Bravo!

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Here are two suggestions while you are reading Geniuses, Heroes, and Saints: First, highlight key passages. Also,  perhaps in a notebook kept near-at-hand (e.g. Apica Premium C.D. Notebook A5), record your comments, questions, and action steps (preferably with deadlines). Pay special attention to Chapter 1 and to the Epilogue (“Geniuses, Heroes, and Saint — How the Nobel Prize (Re)invented)  the Public Image Image of Science.

These two simple tactics — highlighting and documenting — will expedite frequent reviews of key material later.