Friday, February 19, 2010

To Stockholm via Ph.D. Thesis

The Scientist has a profile of Aaron Ciechanover, who shared the Nobel Prize for work on the proteasome. His Nobel-cited work began in his Ph.D. thesis.

In one of the physics books I was recently reading (I forget which one now, might have been How to Teach Physics to Your Dog, but I think it was Six Easy Pieces) it was mentioned that Louis de Broglie's committee wasn't sure what to do with his crazy proposal that everything has both particle and wave natures, but after consulting with Einstein awarded him his degree. Of course, this proposal withstood experimental test and led to a Nobel.

Anyone know other examples of Nobels which cite the laureate's thesis work?

7 comments:

Jonathan Badger said...

Better than the alternative, I suppose. Maxim's Ph.D. work led to a Nobel Prize -- for his advisor, Gilbert, but not himself! Oh well, at least the sequencing method is called Maxim-Gilbert, not that anyone actually uses it in practice.

Keith Robison said...

I meant to rule that out. Maxam not the only one -- Jocelyn Bell (pulsars) is often cited.

I fear such is rampant.

Raghu said...

I believe, last year's Medicine Nobel was awarded for Carol Greider's PhD work on telomerase.

Nash said...

Hans Spemann and Hilde Mangold(a Ph.D candidate) did work on the discovery of organizing centers in the developng embryo which later won a Nobel.

Anonymous said...

Joshua Lederberg for bacterial conjugation.

risc303 said...

Rudolf Ludwig Mößbauer, see http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1961/mossbauer-bio.html

Anonymous said...

Crick included the double helix nature paper as an appendix in his PhD thesis. Supposedly the work could not be included in the main body of the dissertation because of its collaborative nature.