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Archive 1Archive 2

Incompleteness

The table and two charts in this page are based on a (very) incomplete list, and are therefore both highly inaccurate and misleading. For example, there have been at least 270 US Nobel Winners [1], of which only 160 are listed here — a big enough difference to make the table and charts pretty useless in my opinion. Udzu 12:06, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Top section moved to body

I added this page because, for a Spanish exam coming up, we have to name three laureates from a Spanish-speaking country. I also put this page into Spanish. --Eleazar (talk) 23:29, 18 November 2008 (UTC)


List is messed up. Lots of names listed twice, under native country, AND later residence. GangofOne 21:21, 19 August 2005 (UTC)


Please stop removing Gobind Khorana's name here. He was born in Pakistan and got his bachelors and masters from a Pakistani University. From the introduction:

Note: "country" refers to country of residence at the time of receiving the prize, not necessarily the country of birth; unless otherwise known by birth place (e.g. German scientist, Swiss physicist). In cases where the laureate was naturalized and received the prize in the country of naturalization, the birth country is represented in italics.

This seems very subjective. Who's to say whether a laureate is known by their birth place or not? Could we not use the country of origin as defined at nobelprize.org? Several people are listed by both country of birth and residence, so there would still be duplications in the list, but at least there would be consistency. Dillon256 15:55, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

In the absence of objections I'll make some changes according to the following policies:

  • Relying on the official website as a source for nationalities.
  • Listing laureates under more than one country if the official website does so.
  • For laureates whose birth country differs from their country of residence, putting a * next to their name when they appear in the list for their birth country, and putting their birth country in italics next to their name. Dillon256 15:18, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

If the criterion for listing a laureate under a particular country is the laureate's nationality as stated in the official website, then Sir Arthur Lewis should be listed under the United Kingdom, with his country of birth, Saint Lucia, following in italics.


How about moving this to Nobel Laureates by country? The phrase is more idiomatic, and the lower case is strongly supported by Wikipedia:Naming conventions. Septentrionalis 20:38, 20 August 2005 (UTC)


William Henry Bragg seems to be missing from this list. He is William L Bragg's father. The former was born in the UK, the latter in Australia. They both worked in both the UK and Australia. I'm not sure where you would want to put WHB. Ordinary Person

"Judaism"

Isn't it a bit ridiculous to list Jewish Nobel Laureates? "Judaism" is not a country. By that logic "Islam", "Christianity", "Buddism", "Hinduism" and "Atheism" (oh, how about "Voodoo"?) would be sections too. That would just be stupid, wouldn't it? The "Judaism" section also seems to have some racial overtones as well, suggesting that Jewishness is an inherited trait (we all know how that logic turned out). While I won't take the unilateral action of deleting it myself, it seems pretty idiotic to have it there.

Agreed. Jewish Laureates is already a separate list. Besides, Israel is a listed as a nation. Judaism doesn't fit in this list.

Absolutely right, kowtowing to the jewish lobby no doubt, keep politics out of the nobel list, we all sympathise with the unsavoury treatment of the jews, but let us not mistake the faith with the country please. Either isreali or not.

Measure Nobel Prize Fractions to Avoid Misleading Picture

Unfortunately, none of Wikipedia's Nobel laureate lists is taking into account that not all Nobel laureates are of equal importance. Some obviously had much more impact than others. One of them even achieved superstardom and became "man of the century", while most of them remain largely unknown. Here we cannot judge who deserved it etc. But we ought to report how the Nobel committee expresses its own view of the value of individual contributions by awarding fractional prizes. The official Nobel web site explicitly says for each laureate X how much of a Nobel Prize X really got, for example, "1/4 of the prize" or "1/2 of the prize" or "1/3 of the prize" etc. If X got less than 1.0 Nobel Prizes X is still a Nobel laureate, of course, but it's also clear that X could have done better. Everybody in the field, and especially the laureates themselves, are fully aware of the significance of these fractional prizes. Suppose the physics prize goes to 3 researchers, one of them gets 1/2, the others 1/4 each - it's absolutely clear whose contribution was larger in the eyes of the committee.

I think all Wikipedia Nobel Prize lists must be augmented by this crucial information. This will also put in perspective the recent inflation of Nobel laureates in the sciences, which is easy to explain: most of the recent laureates had to share the prize while most of the early laureates got a full prize. The sum of the Nobel Prizes per year is constant; you may divide it among many laureates, but then the laureates necessarily become less outstanding on average.

The list of laureates by country must take this into account as well. For example, Glauber (US), Hall (US) and Hänsch (Germany) shared the physics prize of 2005. But we cannot simply add 2.00 points to the US count and 1.0 to the German count. Instead we have to add 0.75 to the US count and 0.25 to the German count (Hänsch and Hall each got only 0.25 of the prize, Glauber got 0.5). Similarly, Einstein's entry in the Nobel WWW site mentions both Germany and Switzerland. But we may not simply add 1.0 points to Germany and 1.0 points to Switzerland. Instead we have to add 0.5 points to each nation. Otherwise we'd violate the Nobel Prize conservation law: the sum of the prizes per year is constant, only the number of laureates may vary. Science History 15:06, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

You could make a list to supplement the one currently on the page to show fractional prizes but you cannot compute fractional prizes and multiple birth/citizenship countries in the same list. That would require a third list. Rmhermen 14:12, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

=

Jewish statement

The sentence "The Jewish people have the largest percentage of Nobel prize winners (approximately 160 in all) compared to any other ethnic or religious group." is downright laughable. How did someone arrive at this conclusion given the fact that 758 prizes have been awarded? I'd love to see a non-Jewish source for this info, until then the statement has been removed. JRWalko 02:23, 8 May 2007 (UTC)


Well "DUDE" Jews make 0.05% of the world population so 160 out of 758 (which include organizations etc) is a pretty large number.

Jewish people are nothing more than plain people. Mentioning people's religion or race is just wrong in this section. We could also mention that most laureates are white people, but this is just the beginning of racial slurs. There are obvious reasons why the amount of Jewish people is high, e.g. wealth and good education, which are ironically a consequence of historic unjustness that was bestowed upon the Jewish people. FMB 21:13, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

The Asterisk Business

This is a listing of Nobel laureates by country. Therefore ethnicity or parents birth-place is pretty much irrelevant. This list should only be sourced by the country precisely defined by the Nobel committee and nothing more or less. Bulldog123 17:54, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

The Nobel Price Committee actually does not pricisely define the laureate's "country". Besides, this articles says "Nobel laureates by country" and not "Nobel laureates by country (as viewed by the Nobel Price Committee respecitvely the Nobel Peace Price Committee)". To settle the "neutrality" dispute tag I propose the following criteria (that are the broadest I can think of; I think broadness will at the end lead to less controversy, rather than a narrow definition). A Nobel Laureate is considered of a certain country if

a. he or she is born in that country and had the citizenship of that country up to a certain point or until his death (e.g. Einstein = German)

b. he or she is not born in the country in question but gained its citizenship later on voluntary (e.g. Einstein = American)

c. he or she held the citizenship of a country that no longer exists AND had a strong personal connection (language, ethnicity, lived in the territory for a long time etc.) to the country in question and this country is one of the successor countrites to the country that no longer exists (e.g. Alfred Fried = Austrian; Austria-Hungary old country; new countries: Hungary, Czech Republic, Austria etc. OR Lev Landau = Azerbaijan; born in Baku and raised there; Sovietunion; new countries: Russia, Azerbaijan etc.)

BUT

d. if he or she just lived in a certain country, was not born there and did not hold the citizenship of that country or was born in a country that does no longer exist and did not have any ties to one special successor country (even though this is the legal successor to the old country), he should not be listed under that country (e.g. Shmuel Yosef Agnon who was born in Austria-Hungary in Galizia which is now part of Ukraine should not be listed under "Austria").

Please agree or disagree or comment on this proposal. Themanwithoutapast 19:10, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Comments and vote

Comment *Yes it does - in fact that is what was argued at the AfD for this article. Bigdaddy1981 21:33, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Bigdaddy, if you find an official definition for "country" of a specific laureate from the Nobel Prize Committee, please post a link here, because as far as I know there is none. Their categorization is as arbitrary as anyone's statement that one person "belongs" to one country or another. By the way, if we want to follow their categorization, it would for instance not be allowed to list Einstein under USA, because they list him under Germany and Switzerland. Themanwithoutapast 22:04, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
During the AfD debate - I amd another editor argued that country was subjective - subject additionally to changes in country boundaries and that the current article was flawed by the obvious attemot to add as many laureates as possible to all countries. It was insisted by other editors that these are in fact irrelevant concerns as all one needs to do is go to the Nobel website and see which country is listed for a given laureate. I am sure that all those in favour of keeing this article will be soon working diligently to make this change rather than simply moving on to the nect AfD. In any case, country *is* given for each laureate. I see no other way to avoid a violation of WP:SYNTH than to use the Nobel country selection. Bigdaddy1981 06:26, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Disagree Let's just use the country listed at NobelPrize.org the official website. or no country. The asterisks can be used for countries that were one thing when the prize was awarded and another today. And, Einstein is listed only under Germany and Switzerland. Why would anyone list him under USA? KP Botany 22:21, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
What about countries with multiple successor states - for instance the example of Agnon, above? Is it not more objective to use exactly what is on the Nobel website. I don't know how one would objectively implement in all cases the rule suggested by Themanwithoutapast regarding countries where the Laureate does "not have any ties to one special successor country" Bigdaddy1981 19:39, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
Yes, just using the country listed by the Nobel committee takes care of all sorts of issues. Just dealing with all the Poles who've one Nobel prizes and what the country was when they won could be an entire article. Just what the country is called by the Nobel committe, on the official web-site, and all other issues can be taken care of in articles about the laureate. KP Botany 22:00, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Top Rankings

..Country.......No.

  • 1 USA...........301 *
  • 2 UK.............114
  • 3 Germany......95
  • 4 France.........55
  • 5 Sweden........28
  • 6 Switzerland...25
  • 7 Austria.........22 *
  • 7 Russia..........22
  • 8 Italy.............20
  • 9 Netherlands..18
  • 10 Canada......17 *
  • ...
  • India................8
  • China...............5

-* Most winners "of USA" were not born and educated in United States. They came from Europe.==> That is true about Canada and Australia too.

Where is the table about Nobel-award / population ?

Easier access to higher education would seem to answer why these ranking numbers are skewed this way.

Clearly the Irish with only 9 Nobel Laureates are under represented by a factor of ? 1,000 !!


Footnote: With most (40-50 % ?) of the world's population, China & India both have had a very low number of Nobel laureates (13 of 758 - 0.017 %). Why ?

Perhaps clues: In China, its long long history of wars , factions, under Warlords, and Emperors and under the present Communist party , eliminated a high % of the brightest. And in China, most (? 75% of the population) has not had a path to higher education due to poverty).

In India, esp also poverty kept un educated 100s of millions the past 60 years as it grew from 250 million to today's 1 - 1.25 billion.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.230.159.228 (talk) 17:50, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm curious how the pre-WW2 ranking would look like. After the Nazis took over in 1933, many Germans went abroad, and due to WW2, many other Europeans wound up in the US, too. Also, many prices are shared in recent decades, leading to an inflation of laureates. In comparison, Einstein would deserve more than the one he received for the photoeffect. No special Nobel prize at all for the theory of relativity is, in general, relatively few. -- Matthead  DisOuß   16:50, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
FYI, Einstein couldn't receive a Nobel prize for his theory of relativity since it wasn't proven in his lifetime, nor was there any way to prove it then. While the Swedish scientists recognized its importance, the prize can only be given to achievements that have already been shown to be beneficial for mankind, and the laureate must be alive at the time the award is announced. So instead, they chose the photoeffect work, to make sure he was at least honored for something. The rationale given for his award ended up being "for his services to theoretical physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect", where "his services to theoretical physics" included his work on the theory of relativity, although not specifically stated. –panda 17:19, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Someone needs to do some simple mathematics when claiming that most US Nobel Prize laureates weren't US-born because from what I've counted 76% are US-born & 24% are foreign-born. 192.235.8.2 (talk) 17:41, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Question

Why is there a category for Russia and USSR? No other former country is so treated - there isn't Serbia and Yugoslavia, or Austria and Austria Hungary. If the idea is that Nobel Laureates are to be assigned to the successor states of former countries then this category makes no sense.

If there are both Serbian and Austrian Nobel laureates, then list both countries (actually, I thought they were). Soviet winners should be under Soviet, and Russian under Russia. The two countries are not precisely the same. KP Botany 18:13, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
I understand that they are not the same country precisely (just as Austria and Austria-Hungary and Serbia and Yugoslavia). So you suggest only assigning Laureates to successor states if those Laureates won their prize after that successor state was created? That isn't the way this page works at the moment. For instance, there is no Yugoslavia category. People who won the prize during the time of Yugoslavia are assigned to Serbia, Bosnia, and so on. Similarly Czechoslowakia, Austria-Hungary etc. It would make more sense to me to assign Laureates to the country that is listed for them on the Nobel website so for instance Lev Landau (http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1962/) would be listed under USSR. At the moment, Laureates are assigned in a highly subjective fashion to all sorts of countries based on editors' own beliefs/views etc. Bigdaddy1981 19:17, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

World map

I found this map of nobel laureates by country: [2]
I was wondering if it could be included in this page. By now, no page links to that map. Thanks.
--Emmanuel5h 16:58, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

There is currently a Request for Comments about the country data in the Nobel lists at Talk:Nobel Prize in Chemistry#RFC: Country data in Nobel lists. Since this topic has been discussed fairly extensively for this article, your comments would be appreciated. panda 16:38, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Some RFC updates:

  • You can find the definition of the country data included in the Nobel lists in the RFC under the point Country data defined.
  • There is currently a consensus moving towards removing all of the flags in the Nobel lists unless someone can devise an acceptable scheme for them. This portion of the RFC (point 2) will be closed in 2 weeks, i.e., 31 October 2007, assuming it is not challenged. That is, the consensus will be to remove all flags from the lists.

–panda 15:32, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

This RFC has been closed. The following was reach by consensus:

  • The country data on the Nobel Foundation list is the laureate's nationality (according to the book "Nobel: The Man and His Prizes"); knowing this, there are at least a couple errors for the laureate's nationality in the Nobel Foundation's list.
  • The countries/nationalities should be included in the list.
  • Use common names for the countries/nationalities. All variants of Germany should simply be called Germany except for West Germany, even though there never were any laureate's from East Germany. Only one editor commented on which variant of Germany should be linked to (the current one), so it's difficult to say if there is any consensus about that aspect.

For a list of inconclusive items, please see the closing comments. –panda 21:01, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Update totals

Anyone want to take a stab at including this year's winners in the opening statistics?== Czolgolz 05:56, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Some issues with this list

I've noticed a few errors here and I don't know how we should go about fixing them.

The Nobel website as a source should be inadmissible in many of these cases. It's important to note that their website is far from perfect. There's blatant errors and omissions there with regards to names and countries. One example is the person listed on their site as "Marie Curie nee Sklodowska" who was born "Maria Sklodowska" and received a Nobel prize which was for "Marie Sklodowska-Curie". The diploma has a different name than the website (I'd think Mrs. Sklodowska-Curie would've made sure they rendered her name as desired when she received it). It should be used in some cases but blind faith in it leads to the kind of errors that we currently have in this list.

Another problem has to do with countries. Leonid Hurwicz was a Polish Jew who was born in Moscow, Russia as a result of his family's displacement during WWI. Having "Russia" next to his name on this list seems a little misguiding. This is persistent on the list where people get reassigned to different countries according to some unknown formula. If someone from a country is born on land that is not currently that country they shouldn't be moved to the present day entity simply based on that fact. That's why over the last few months totals for some countries have jumped significantly. I see European countries who are missing people on account of changing borders and other countries being credited with the prizes of people who had nothing to do with that state.

This list also gives the impression that the US has a lot more prizes than it really does at the expense of other countries. The Nobel committees do not have a universally followed method of assigning prizes to people. Because many scientists retire to the US the US gets prizes that are awarded for research that was not done there by people who were not Americans.

If this list is going to propagate incorrect information it might as well not exist at all. JRWalko (talk) 01:36, 21 November 2007 (UTC)


International organizations

I would like to argue that awards for international organizations should not be counted by default for the country of the representative person. In the past, the Nobel Price comity has decided multiple times to award an organization AND an individual representing the organization, e.g. 2005 Peace, International Atomic Energy Agency plus Mohamed ElBaradei or 2001 Peace, the United Nations plus Kofi Annan. I think that in these cases, it is obvious that the awards should also be listed for the countries of these people. There are however cases, where only the organization is awarded, e.g. 2007 Peace, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In such cases, I recommend not to account the price for any country.

Since the list differs from this recommendation, I intend to make changes, namely with respect to the award for peace in 2007, where currently India has an entry for the respectable Rajendra Pachauri, who is personally not a laureat and does not appear in the listing on the official website. However, I wanted to give some time to discuss this issue first, in case anybody feels uncomfortable with the outlined ruling. Please, have a look on the official website for the Nobel Price, which points out clearly, whether an organization is awarded alone or in combination with a representative person. http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/lists/all/ Tomeasy (talk) 16:37, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Ireland

The heading Ireland (which links to an article on the whole island of Ireland) seems inconsistent with the other categories since the island is not a single state like the others (or at least is disputed). The inclusion of David Trimble seems particularly ironic in this regard. --Carmock (talk) 13:26, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Fixed both points. Tomeasytalk 21:27, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

This is still inconsistent as Seamus Heaney is a Northern Irish Laureate - just like Betty Williams, Mairead Corrigan, John Hume and David Trimble. Particularly Hume as they come from the same background. I'd suggest a sepeate heading for Northern Ireland or the listing of the laureates under both headings. --Gramscis cousinTalkStalk 12:28, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Please read the lead of the list first before making a case here that ignores how this list works. Things are actually very simple here. We just report what the official Nobel Prize committee declares on their website - and that again is plain and simple:
Heaney Nothing but Ireland, and of course the country is meant - not the island.
Hume Nothing else mentioned but the UK.
Please look up the rest for yourself, and report only if things here are reported differently than at the official website. I am not interested in discussing your personal research as it is not required. In my opinion, Northern Ireland is not a country. But again this opinion is meaningless. Once the Nobel committee attributes awards to Northern Ireland, we will also list this entity. Tomeasy T C 16:25, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Hungarisms & Anti-Hungarisms

How does this list work after all? I though it is countries of residence or birth, at least this is said in its beginning.

However, Robert Bárány lived all his life, from birth till death, outside Hungary, no matter how would you define it - Hungary was no country of residence or birth for him. I don't see any Hungary mentions at http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1914/barany-bio.html . Hi lived 20 years in Sweden, but he is not mentioned under Sweden.

My anti-hungarian friend! Robert Barany as famous considered himself as Hungarian. Lot of hungarians were and born lived in Vienna , the capital of austro-hungarian empire Nationality, ethnicity based on self-determination according to United Nations. Answer to this:

Actually, Vienna was the capital of Austria-Hungary at the time which was one state. The question here in my opinion is, whether it was more something like the present-day EU (a collection of independent states) or the present-day USA or Germany (a federation). Since it had a single foreign policy and a single head of state (not just a symbolic, like the Queen for the Commonwealth countries), I would say, the latter. Therefore and since he is obviously of Hungarian ancestry as well (Barany means "sheep" in Hungarian), I would consider Robert Bárány to have been born in the capital of the superstate of which Hungary was part of. Hence the commenter was not signed-in, I will restore Robert Bárány's name to the Hungarian list. If opinions differ, please let me know. -zoli2xa

John Polanyi was born in Berlin and lived in many countries, but never in Hungary. He lived for 20 years in England, but his name doesn't appear under UK. Richard Adolf Zsigmondy lived in Vienna and Germany, which again is outside any-size Hungary. Answer to this: the same as above (Robert Barany) - zoli2xa

He was member of famous hungarian noble family, most hungarian top aristocracy lived in Vienna. He could speak hungarian, and detemined himsef as hungarian.Nationality, ethnicity based on self-determination according to United Nations

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.136.109.247 (talk) 18:33, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

- What about Philipp Lenard (Lénárd Fülöp)? He was born in Pozsony (Bratislava), that time part of Hungary. Though Bratislava now belongs to Slovakia, he has no more connections to that country besides it. He considered himself as a Hungarian, was born in Hungary (that time), but worked and achieved his results in Germany. So I think he should be listed under Hungary and Germany - and no way under Slovakia. Quoting your favourite reply: "Nationality, ethnicity based on self-determination according to United Nations." He NEVER EVER considered himself as a Slovak.

Please sign your comments with ~~~~.
Thanks for pointing to Mr. Lenard. There were indeed some inconsistencies in his listings. This is the place to look up how his award should be dealt on this site. This way it is clear that he should not have an asterisks in his German listing. So the non-asterisk list item is clear.
More complicated is the entry due to his place of birth, i.e., the one with asterisk. If I understand you right, you propose to move his entry from the Slovakian list to that of Hungary, because by then the country was Hungary. Well, that is quite a simplification. By then the country was Austria-Hungary and this country does not exist anymore. Is Hungary the rightful successor of the Slovakian part of Austria-Hungary? You see, it's getting very difficult here...
Unfortunately, there are many complicated instances as the European borders constantly changed. What about the asterisk entry of a German speaking scientist, born in Warsaw, when this was still Russia? The only clear cut solution that I see is to consider the borders of today. A birth place is usually a very well defined location and thus we only have to see which country this location is part of today. So, I think the asterisk entry should go to Poland and in the case you brought up (Lenard) to Slovakia. If we were to consider former states, we would end up in never ending discussions about the current list entry that represents this former state.
Observe, the alleged national emotions are not at all important. When we talk about a birth place, and that is what the asterisk entry shows, we talk about a complete different concept. See for example Doris Lessing, who is listed under Iran, but has certainly no Iranian nationality. Tomeasy T C 14:13, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

How this list works

Actually it is quite simple. This work reproduces the information stated on the official website. If you click on one of the laureates on this list you will find some brief information. This tells us which country receives the points for this laureate. As far as I know, the underlying rational for the Nobel committee is not country of birth or residence, but citizenship. However, this is not our problem. We simply respect the ruling of the awarding institution. In some cases where the birth place differs from the "awarded" country, the place of birth is also stated on the official website. Tomeasy T C 09:50, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Example

Let's do one example: Yuan Lee received the chemistry price in 1986. The points go to the USA, as it is mentioned as his country. However, he was not born there, but in Taiwan and this is also stated on the official site. So, Taiwan, i.e., Republic of China, puts him on its list with an asterisk (*). (The asterisk indicates no points if you want so.) On the USA list the specifier Taiwan indicates that his place of birth differs from the USA, while his award is affiliated with the USA. I know, the lead of the article was difficult to understand, but I hope with this example it got easier. I have also rephrased the lead in the meantime to be comprehensible in itself. Tomeasy T C 09:50, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Original research

It is important not to pursue original research here. Thus, we are bound to reproduce what the Nobel committee publishes. After all, it is not us to decide who gets the awards and which country, but it's the committee. Whoever objects this strict dependency on the official website should consider that any other approach will open Pandora's box with endless discussions about the nationalities of some individuals. Reality knows very complex cases and we should be happy that we can simply use the information provided by the authoritative source. I am sure that they have anyway considered/discussed these issues and made their decisions as published. Tomeasy T C 09:50, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

In the case of the two Hungarians (?) mentioned in the previous talk section: The official site makes no mention of Hungary. Thus we will also make no mention here. Tomeasy T C 09:50, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

What to do to change the content

If you want to change the information provided in this list, please visit this list on official Nobel website first, click on the person whose entry you want to change, and check whether your intended changes are backed up by this source and comply to how this list works. Tomeasy T C 09:50, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Discuss these guidelines

Of course, I do not want to impose myself, if there is substantial disagreement to these guidelines. Also, I may have missed an important point or made some other mistakes. Therefore, feel free to post your (dis)approval and thoughts here. Tomeasy T C 09:50, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Osamu Shimomura

I think we have a problem with this scientist in the sense that we do not agree where to list him. Unfortunately, this yielded an edit war with myself being involved. I have to say it is a difficult issue. Reasons are: Shimomura is apparently a Japanese citizen, yet the official website makes no mention of Japan on his laureate card.

It is a long standing consensus on this list that we do not take other sources into consideration than this one. We never tried to research ourselves which nationality a laureate has and simply reported the information of the mentioned card. This strict handling was necessary to avoid constant edit wars concerning laureates with some alleged decent. The case at hand is more difficult, because the Nobel committee itself states elsewhere that Shimomura is citizen of and born in Japan.

So, it is very difficult to argue that his name must not appear on the Japanese list. On the other hand, we should be careful that our solution (that we are hopefully designing here) will be a stable one with respect to all the other contentious entries. Please, keep their treatment in mind when you are going to post your comments regarding Shimomura. Tomeasy T C 07:05, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Shimomura doesn't have American nationality as he stated in a phone interview. See: [3]. 15:06, 9 October 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nj008833 (talkcontribs)
That's what I wrote in the above comment. This was the problem we were facing. The question was, how to deal with it. Stick to the account presented on the official website and their choice (IMO the only stable solution to maintain this list) or put in our own knowledge at this point and overrule the decision made by the Nobel committee. Tomeasy T C 07:54, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

OK, I think the problem has been solved by the Nobel committee itself. The laureate card has been changed. The information was added that Shimomura was born in Japan, see here.

The Nobel committee knows about his Japanese citizenship, see here, yet they apply the price to the US, while correctly mentioning his birth place. Apparently, it is the conscious decision made by the committee not to apply the award to the country of citizenship. There is no account that the committee must apply the award to this country and apparently they sometimes choose not to.

IMO, we have to respect their decision, which (since the recent addition) appears reliable to me. According to the standards of the list I added Shimomura to both list, with an asterisk under Japan and with the Japan specifier under the US. I am confident this is the right thing to do here. So the bottom line remains: Do not research on your own and just stick to the Nobel committee's website. Tomeasy T C 08:21, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Algeria deleted

Algeria, during this time, was french so considering Camus and Cohen-Tannoudji as algerian born is totaly wrong. They born french, in a french territory this is why the Algerian part was deleted. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.69.114.79 (talk) 20:23, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Just see how this list works and then also this link. That should answer your question. Tomeasy T C 07:50, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

+ You just CANNOT compete for 2 countries. that's WHY Camus and Cohen are considered FRENCH Nobel prizes! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.99.78.52 (talk) 22:42, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

++ So how is it with this subject ? I can still see that the 2 "Algerians" laureates are cited for both countries... Shouldn't they be either in France ou in Algeria, but not in the two countries ? The officiel Nobel Prize website cites them as "French". Algeria should be deleted... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.154.154.167 (talk) 05:59, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Please read the lead of the list first, before you comment any further. Tomeasy T C 09:30, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Economics

I find it worth noting that there is no actual Nobel Prize in Economics, as this prize was not mentioned in Nobel's will nor funded by his estate. While the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel does deserve to be noted alongside the actual Nobel prizes, I find it necessary to point out this disparity.134.173.61.196 (talk) 07:43, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

I totally agree. This is important, so much that I put it above the internal explanation of how the list is organized. I hope you like the language changes I made. Also, I added the information that you mentioned here (but not in the article) how the two prizes are different. Tomeasy T C 16:27, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
Absolutely agree. These entries should simply be removed and put onto a separate page. This is mixing up two completely unrelated prices, which is especially bad considering Nobels attitude towards economics (i.e. did not approve them). --Ymk1234 (talk) 22:36, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

New Discussion

A discussion has been started at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countries/Lists of countries which could affect the inclusion criteria and title of this and other lists of countries. Editors are invited to participate. Pfainuk talk 13:42, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Dalai Lama

"The list ranks laureates under the country/countries that are stated by the Nobel Prize committee on its website." See [4] which lists Tibet. -- Tcncv (talk) 16:52, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

If that should be the case, Gorbachev should be listed under USSR, not Russia. Frysun (talk) 18:55, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

No, this analogy does not hold. The USSR exited until 1991, but now no more.
Tibet, however is today as much as it was in 1989 (when the Dalai Lama was awarded) a disputed state that is arguably occupied by or an integral part of China. I think, we should not go into this issue (as we would probably fail to solve it), but simply adhere to the judgment of the Nobel Committee. Tomeasy T C 20:56, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
But he was born in Qinghai province wich was de facto and de jure a part of China(see Ma Bufang). 93.136.69.78 (talk) 07:01, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Two asterisks for organizations?

I simply deleted this rule and the accorded symbols with substitution. I think this case does not need a special treatment. I guess there are no objections, so I was bold. However, I wanted to open this forum - just in case... Tomeasy T C 23:14, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

How to deal with the birth countries: Historical countries or modern ones?

I think it is a good idea to put an asterisk in case that a country is a mere birth place. Clearly, the Nobel committee makes this distinction and so should we. Also, it is a good idea to specify in italics at the other listing(s) that the birth place differs and what it is. I think, so far these rules are pretty clear, sharply defined, and easy to handle. The problem lies somewhere else:

There is no consensus yet as to which country shall be specified in italics. Shall we specify historical or modern countries. Think of a laureate born in Zagreb in 1914—then Austria-Hungary today Croatia—whose award is related to the US. (BTW, I see no point at all to talk about Yugoslavia in this case.)

My proposition would be to consider the modern state only. I have two reasons for this:

(i) This derivation would be a clear matter of fact and free of WP:OR, while historic countries might easily become controversial issues. I can give examples, if needed.

(ii) Only if we rely on modern countries, the italic specifier will coincide with listings where the asterisk is used. Take the above-mentioned laureate, who is of course listed under Croatia with an asterisk, since there are no listings for Austria-Hungary or Yugoslavia. Therefore, the entry under the US listing would be more consistent, if it also mentioned Croatia instead of Austria-Hungary

I hope, I could bring the problem and my opinion to it across well. Please, mention your thoughts. It would be nice to come up with a consensus on this question, so we can enforce a stable solution in the future. As far as I can see, this is the last vague issue with this list. Tomeasy T C 23:46, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Hrm. So you're saying the laureate born in 1914 Zagreb should be put under the heading "Austria-Hungary"? Or under "Croatia" with the sidenote "then Austria-Hungary"? What about the Dalai Lama? I believe his birthplace is Taiwan, but his work would always be most associated with Tibet. —/Mendaliv//Δ's/ 20:25, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
Not at all! Is my above post so unclear? "My proposition would be to consider the modern state only."
So, the laureate should be listed under Croatia with an asterisk. Since, the award in this example is related to the US, the laureate will further be listed under USA, with the tag Croatia specifying that the USA is not his birthplace.
The Dalai Lama: This is how the official website of the Nobel Committee reports his price. So, this case is absolutely clear. The Dalai Lama is listed under Tibet, no asterisk, no italic country. Tomeasy T C 20:38, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
Ah, I see. Personally, I'm more inclined to put the entries under the country names at the time of the award's issuance. But from a practical standpoint, the modern names (at least as stated by the Nobel Committee) ought to be used. —/Mendaliv//Δ's/ 23:20, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
Oh another layer of complication, I have not thought of. Considering the countries as per date of award! That might bring Yugoslavia into play (in my example above). I think this shows that we really need a clear procedure here. To reply to your comment: The problem I see with it is that this country might not exist anymore and the name is put with an asterisk at a different listing. Tomeasy T C 21:54, 28 December 2008 (UTC)


I object to 'modern state only' suggestion. List should have the name of the country at that time, and also current name for the given territory. 212.200.243.116 (talk) 19:26, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Problem of "then"

There seems to have been a misunderstanding. The entry I tried to modify read as: "Ivo Andric*, (then Austria-Hungary), Literature, 1961 " I don't know if I was the only one to understand this as: "In 1961 the laureate was living/working in Austria-Hungary." which of course is absurd. It makes perfect sense to note the country of birth, only in that case I would suggest to change the shifter "then" to "born in". What do you say? --Lynxmb (talk) 15:24, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

It's a very interesting suggestion and certainly a way forward in this complex issue, which is discussed in the thread above in a more general aspect. Why don't you join there. I am very much looking forward to solve this issue once and for all with a strong consensus. Tomeasy T C 16:50, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
I have added born in to all of the italicized prose that refers to birth place. Where someone was working/living when awarded is of no interest to us. Of course, this might influence the Nobel Committee's decision as to which country they attribute the award in the first place. Tomeasy T C 18:51, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

How many of these "chinese" nobel prize receivers:

... are actually chinese citizens, have been chinese citizens in the last 30 years of their lifes, or were chinese citizens when then worked for or received the Nobel prize ?

this "making" of chinese born americans,into "chinese nationals" when they are famous for positive reasons, or into "american nationals" when they are famous for some negative reasons (in the eyes of the chinese propaganda) keeps puzzling me.

Ok lets see some examples:

Daniel Chee Tsui - born February 28, 1939, Henan Province, China - is an American physicist - attended Pui Ching Middle School, Kowloon, Hong Kong (in the 1940's that is); a British Colony then - moved to the United States in 1958 and stayed and lived there until today - received the Nobel in 1982 as an american citizen

Chen-Ning Franklin Yang - born 1922 in Hefei, Anhui, China, - Yang attended elementary school and high school in Beijing; that is the 1930's - from 1946, Yang studied at The University of Chicago; lived and worked in the states since then (except for when he visited the Chinese mainland in 1971 for the first time after the thaw in China-US relations - received the 1957 Nobel prize in physics as an american citizen

you can check for yourself and edit the info on the other "chinese" nobel prize winners

in a nutshell, of all these 5 "chinese" only one has chinese citizenship (and that's because Hong-Kong is now part of China). Furthermore the childhood time spent on China seems irrelevant, as they have spent decades of their lifes as american citizens, and was the result of this that led to the recognition of the Academy.(.. Of course, some will insist that the kindergarten and elementary school years spent in China, must have had a major impact in their "chineseness" and further accomplishments) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.200.90.34 (talk) 19:43, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Nobody here on Wikipedia is making up Chinese or other nationalities. We just present what is published by the Nobel Committe on its website. Why don't you read at least the lead of the present list before you post such a long, confused comment? Tomeasy T C 09:21, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Please give the EXACT link to this claim. The one put on the present version does not say what you claim. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.130.207.151 (talk) 22:48, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Seriously, what is wrong with you people? One is a Chinese, a Swede or an American ONLY if one held this CITIZENSHIP at the time of the RECEPTION of the Nobel Prize. Everything else is entirely IRRELEVANT, including place of birth, ethnic heritage, etc.

China has had ONLY two recipients meeting this standard demand; the 14th Dalai Lama and Liu Xiaobo. This remains undisputed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.130.207.151 (talk) 22:55, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Lack of standart

When listing people under countries, citizenship should be considered. If you consider ethnicity the name of the page should be changed as this way it's misleading. For example, under india, many non-indian citizens are also included although they are already listed for other countries where they have citizenship. But if you look at USA, there are plenty German scientists who are not listed under Germany. And can someone tell me why Albert Einstein is listed under both Germany and Switzerland! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Baloglu (talkcontribs) 15:18, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Disagree. We should stick to the country definitions used by the Nobel Committee, which is the awarding authority. Please read the lead of this list. You arguments are based on the wrong assumption that we make up a definition here. Tomeasy T C 09:16, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Individual lists for ethnicities?

going back to the issue of the "chinese" nobel laureates, it seems somebody created a new list called "ethnic chinese nobel laureates" ..... whatever that means. Actually this "ethnic" now redirects to "han chinese" not even "overseas chinese".

Should we also create a list of "ethnic german nobels" , "swedish german nobels" etc .. ? That is american citizens with american, or swedish , etc .. ancestry ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.200.90.4 (talk) 16:04, 18 October 2009 (UTC) Marie Curie is also listed under Poand and France lol, One winner, one entry please. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.183.140.51 (talk) 11:26, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

These potential articles are not subject of this talk page. We might want to discuss here whether we link to them. If the existence or name of these are an issue, please discuss this on the respective talk pages. Tomeasy T C 09:13, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Use of different name styles

For the Hungarian laureates, their Hungarian spelling was added to the English one, so that in many cases very similar forms of their names are presented twice next to each other. I am not in favor to this change. It would require doing so for the other languages as well (only those based on Latin letters or all languages??).

As this is a list, and each name is linked to the article of this laureate, I think we should remove this redundant information, as it is more appropriately provided there. Tomeasy T C 09:27, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

In all instances, the first name to appear must be the standard English style name, which, presumably, is the way the name appears on Wikipedia and on the Nobel Prize website. However, I have no real problem with another form of the name (Hungarian or other) appearing, as an option (it is not necessary in every case to add such alternative form of name), after the English name, especially where the spelling (as in the case of Hungarian) is quite different from the English. However, I believe that such alternative form of name should only be used where it is in the language (or a transliteration of the language) of the country under which the listing is being made and only Latin letters should be used. Davshul (talk) 18:01, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Countries change! Where is a place of birth?

I tried to attract attention to this topic several times above. Unfortunately, discussion did not come up. We need to have a clear rule for this. The latest changes to people who have been born on grounds that were Austro-Hungarian, Yugoslavian, or USSR at one point in time are as a whole very inconsistent, and promote too many reverts. A stable solution needs solid grounds. Please make suggestions how to define the country that a birth place belongs to. Tomeasy T C 09:35, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree that there needs to be a more consistent approach on this topic. I proposed discussing the different issues below and would appreciate your views before implementing any changes. Davshul (talk) 17:41, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Austria-Hungary

From 1867 until its breakup in 1918, Austria-Hungary, also known as the Dual Monarchy, consisted of two distinct parts, the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary. Accordingly, rather than, as at present, placing all Austria-Hungarian laureates under 'Austria', I suggest that those who were born in the Hungarian territories (or lived in the Hungarian territories at the time of the award), should be placed under 'Hungary' rather than 'Austria'. We could add line under the heading of "Austria" which would state something like "As regards Austria-Hungary, for laureates born or living in the then Hungarian territories prior to 1918, see under 'Hungary'". and a simlar line should be added in the 'Hungary' section. This should cut down on some of the needs to revert, although it does not satisfy those who try to list a laureate as Austian or Hungarian based upon his German or Magyar ethinicity, irrespective of where in Austra-Hungary (nor should it, based on the critera for this list). Davshul (talk) 17:41, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your thoughts. The Nobel Committee mentions countries for three possible reasons when presenting laureates, [e.g., http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2008/]. The mentioning on to is what we acknowledge as country affiliation of the award. The second mentioning, which occurs recently for scientific laureates, concerns the work place of the laureate. This has no relevance for our list (so far). The third mentioning concerns the place of birth, which we are discussing here, because this list also mentions a country if it was just a place of birth (with a qualifier, the *).
It is important to me that the Nobel Committee is the authority to award laureates and affiliate awards o countries. So, the observation that a laureate was living somewhere when they were awarded is irrelevant. Either this country is mentioned on the official site on top or not. How the Nobel Committee decides, which country is mentioned on top is beyond our scope.Neither should we discuss ethnicities. This is all original research and provokes edit wars. We have to come up with a solution how to treat countries mentioned by the Nobel Committee that do not exist anymore.
For Austria-Hungary, you propose to look at the part (Austrian or Hungarian) of the dual monarchy in which the laureate was born, and hence add an item to either Austria or Hungary. Plus you want to add an item to the country in which the birth place is located today. You exemplify this rule for some instances. Did I understand you right? Tomeasy T C 19:37, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
Yes, your understanding is correct. I believe that this still in keeping with your concern that the Nobel Committee is the authority. Davshul (talk) 12:12, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Based upon the above (and adopting the proposed change suggested in the next topic - "Presentation of birth details", on looking through the earlier laureates listed, I believe the following changes should be made:

  • Philipp Lenard (1905) (listed under Austria, Germany and Slovakia) is a particularly difficult case. He was born in Pressburg (present day Bratislava, which is now in Slovakia). Slovakia from 1867 until 1918 was part of the Kingdom of Hungary and although Lenard was born in 1862, five years prior to the creation of the Dual Monarchy, at which time when the whole of the Empire was known as the Austrian Empire, the Kingdom of Hungary existed as a recognised entity within the Empire. At the time of the Award in 1905, according to the Nobel website, his country is shown as Germany. I beleve that Lenard country of birth should be shown under Hungary (rather than Austria, as at present) with the words (born in then Austrian Empire - the Kingdom of Hungary, now Slovakia). Under Slovakia, it should state (born in then Austrian Empire). Under Germany, it should state (born Austrian Empire, now Slovakia). However, in this particualr case, in light of his birth prior to the actual creation of Austria-Hungary, there is possibly some justification also for his continued inclusion under 'Austria', in which case, he will appear with the words (born in then Austrian Empire - the Kingdom of Hungary, now Slovakia). Davshul (talk) 17:41, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
I have added Lenard back to the Hungary list but, at least for the time being, I have not deleted him from AustriaDavshul (talk) 21:53, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
  • Robert Barany (1914) Listed under Austria. I suggest the wording in brackets be (then Austia-Hungary, now Austria). He was also born and lived in Vienna. Davshul (talk) 17:41, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
  • Friderik Pregl (1923). Listed under Austria and Slovenia. I suggest that under 'Austria', the wording in brackets be (born then Austia-Hungary, now Slovenia) be added, and under 'Slovenia', the wording in brackets be (born then Austia-Hungary) be added. Davshul (talk) 17:45, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
  • Richard Zsigmondy (1925). Listed under Austria and Germany. Under Austria the words in brackets should be (born then Austrian Empire, now Austria), as he was born in 1864. Under Germany the words in brackets should be (born Austrian Empire, now Austria) Davshul (talk) 17:45, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

If someone was born in Vienna (Austria-Hungary), listing under Austria (with an asterisk, if the award is affiliated to another country) is sufficient, I think. Otherwise, we would have to so many distinctions just because the names of states have been changing, e.g., due to a constitutional change from monarchy to republic. In these cases, I would prefer to keep things simple. Tomeasy T C 19:44, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree that in the example in question, it is not necessary to add the additional bracketed words. Davshul (talk) 12:12, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Soviet Union

What would you do for laureates born in the Soviet Union? Should we have a list section Soviet Union? Shall Russia inherent soviet union mentioning by default? I think neither should be done. A birth place can be attributed without discussion to a present day country. This is what we should use. Tomeasy T C 19:37, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

I would not create a new list section Soviet Union. However, unlike Yugoslavia (and to a lesser extent, Austria-Hungary), although there are 15 successor states to the Soviet Union, there is one state (Russia) that stands out above all others and, for a number of purposes (e.g. membership of the UN Security Council) is viewed as "the" successor state. For this reason, I believe that as regards all awards referring to the Soviet Union, or mentioning the place of birth of the laureate as being situated in the then Soviet Union, such award should be included in the list for the Soviet Union. We should add a line at the top of the Russia section stating that it inclides all awards to Soviet laureates.
Nevertheless, where the place of birth of a laureate, or the Nobel Prize country affiliation of the award) also refers to a place in a Soviet Republic other than Russia, I believe that the award should also be listed under such republic (i.e. the present day successor state). Davshul (talk) 12:47, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
I am also against the section Soviet Union or Yugoslavia. However, I have a problem with applying all Soviet Union awards automatically to Russia, and additionally to other successor states only if the birth place really falls there. The same problem, I see with Austria-Hungary (just that in this case it is always either of the two states). Nevertheless, if we can come to an agreement based on what you proposed, I am happy to give my consent. Most important is to have clear and agreed-on rules that can be defended as neutral. Tomeasy T C 17:31, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
It's kind of strange that Alexievich, for example, is mentioned to be born in "then Soviet Union, now Ukraine", while Russian laureates born in Soviet Union are attributed to Russia without such words ("then Soviet Union, now Russia"). I think, the neutral way would be to mention "then Soviet Union" to all the Soviet republics or not not to mention at all. --Amakuha (talk) 17:56, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

Yugoslavia

For me this is the same problem as the Soviet Union. Tomeasy T C 19:37, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

I note that I had not responded with regard to Yugoslav laureates. Here there is clearly no single major successor state (although Serbia at one stage did try to assume such mantle). Accordingly, as it is already established that we do not wish include defunct states in the list, there is no alternative to tracing the appropriate successor state based upon place of birth. However, one award appears to have been made a Yugoslav citizen (Ivo Andric in 1961). Although his place of birth is given as Bosnia, are we correct in giving his country affiliation as Bosnia? I believe we are. Davshul (talk) 14:33, 3 November 2009 (UTC)
In all sources he is serb origin. Also, Serbia is legal ancestor of former Yugoslavia, and he lived, worked and died in Belgrade. He writes in Serbian. i will add that. --Tadija (talk) 17:23, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
Not true at all. He is listed as an ethnic Croat born in Bosnia. he even lists Croat as ethnicity when he traveled to Poland. Jackiechan321 (talk) 02:33, 5 April 2015 (UTC)
Most of what you write is a kind of OR that I would not want to get at, because we are just trying to implement what the Nobel Committee wanted. Obviously, they awarded Andric as Yugoslavian, a state that does not exist any more. These cases, I admit, are a bit of a head ache here, especially when it comes to this country that was split up in almost equal parts.
Therefore, for me, the most interesting statement in your post (Tadija) is the claim that "Serbia is legal ancestor of former Yugoslavia". If this can be sourced, I would argue that we should apply the same ruling as for Russia and the Soviet Union.
In any case, Bosnia H. must be mentioned as a country of birth. I think, this is so clear that we need not to argue about. Tomeasy T C 07:07, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
In this case it is far better to put Yugoslavia down. He may well have identified himself as Yugoslavian and the OR is trying to make him something he did not claim to be. Don't even consider the idea of Sebia inheriting the mantle of Yugoslvia because it is very common for Bosniaks to identify themsleves primarily as Yugoslavians. I think more common than it is for Serbs who generally primarily identify themsleves as Serbian. Polargeo (talk) 17:09, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
Tadija's "argument" is original research as stated above. Andric's nobel prize page says nothing of Serbia and only mentions Bosnia and Herzegovina and Yugoslavia. PRODUCER (TALK) 17:37, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
No, it doesn't. It just said "Bosnia". So, that is Bosnia as part of Yugoslavia. --Tadija (talk) 22:04, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
The problem is that we do not have a Yugoslavia listing here, and we do not want to have one, because this country does not exist any more. So, which country "inherits" laureates who are affiliated with Yugoslavia on the official site. I have myself no satisfying answer to this, but I am certain that we should not discuss how somebody felt, which language somebody spoke, or where where somebody lived most of his lifetime. This list is not about Laureates by Nationality or Ethnicity, but just about the country that the Nobel Committee acknowledges along with the laureate.
I am open to here more opinions, but please try not to explain each other that Bosniaks in general feel one way and Serbs feel another way. Even if it was true, it would not solve the issue. Tomeasy T C 19:59, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
Well, the easier solution is just to add both Bosnian and Serbian. And no problem left... --Tadija (talk) 21:58, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
No many problems are left! Why Bosnian and Serbian? Our list does not use adjectives, also because we are not interested in nationalities or languages but countries. So, did you rather mean to add Bosnia and Serbia? Well, Bosnia is not a country, as you figured out above! Serbia and Bosnia Herzegovina are already on the list. Should Andric be added to both lists, according to you? Then why not to add him to the Croatia list?
Another detail, neither Tadija nor Producer seem to acknowledge that there are two rationales to add laureates to a listing: The country is mentioned by the Nobel committee in affiliation with the award, or just because it is mentioned as a birth pace. The latter would be complimented with an asterisk. What would be your rationale, Tadija, for the listing under Bosnia and Herzegovina? And what the rationale for the listing under Serbia? Tomeasy T C 07:41, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
Bosnia and Herzegovina per birth place, and Serbian per all stated by me above, and per sources on Andrić wiki page... --Tadija (talk) 19:26, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
His parents were Croatian. He is of Croatian decent. Surely it would make more sense to post him under Croatia and Bosnia. It appears to me Tadija wants him listed under Serbia just for the sake of Serbia being on the list of Nobel laureates by country which would be discrediting to the entire page. 8.35.164.132 _ 09:23, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

Ireland vs. UK

The heading "Ireland" is clearly intended to be that of the Republic of Ireland and should not include Northern Ireland laureates who should be included under the United Kingdom, as discussed above (in 2008). Perhaps it should appear as "Ireland, Republic of". Accordingly, I have removed two laureates (Mairead Corrigan and Betty Williams) who appear under United Kingdom and are described on the Nobel site as such.Davshul (talk) 16:07, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

I absolutely support the removal. The case is more than clear. No research from our side is necessary. Tomeasy T C 07:28, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

However, there is the issue of place of birth with regard to those Irish laureates born prior to 1922 (when Ireland achieved independence). Until 1922, the present territory of the Irish Republic was an integral part of the UK, accordingly with regard to those laureates born in Ireland prior to that date, we should (based upon the criteria for other countries) add the words born in then United Kingdom. This sounds a bit strange. Perhaps, in this instance, we should write something more specific, say born in Ireland, then part of United Kingdom. On this basis, the same laureates (MacBride, Beckett, Walton and Yeats) should also be added to the UK list, with an asterisk, and a similar remark. Alternatively, we could treat the UK and Ireland as the two successor states to the UK that existed until 1922. However, I'm not sure that this is really accurate. Davshul (talk) 08:16, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

An asterisk in the UK listings would be completely wrong. Please review the use of the asterisk.
As concerns the issue whether the birth place is Ireland or not. My stance is absolutely clear. The Nobel Committee does not specify anything else than the UK, especially they do not mention the place of birth. We have to accept this here, and refrain from researching this topic ourselves. Tomeasy T C 08:58, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

(As the comment of Tomeasy commencing "I absolutely.." relates to the first paragraph under the above caption, this paragraph has been to below such comment.) Davshul (talk) 08:16, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Tomeasy, I note that you have not yet commented on this issue. The whole question of British versus Irish with respect to Northern Ireland is a sensitive one. As you may have noticed from my user page, I have been very active with regard to the categories relating to the national affiliation or nationality of Nobel laureates. For the purposes of the categories, a much wider view of national affiliation is taken than for the purposes of this list. Most recently, I have succeeded in having the unworkable category "English Nobel laureates" deleted and its contents merged with "British Nobel laureates" (the latter to include all UK laureates, although those with affinities to Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland can also be included in an appropriate subcategory.) This has, however, embroiled me in the Britain/Ireland dispute (see Talk:John Hume). Davshul (talk) 08:16, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
Please note that the present list does not care about nationalities or ethnicities. If you do so elsewhere, I am not surprised that this causes trouble. Obviously, with such topics you are moving on dangerous grounds. Let's avoid this trouble here, and stick to the countries that the Nobel Committee mentions when awarding a laureate. Tomeasy T C 09:02, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
At no time have I tried to introduce the aspect of nationalities or ethnicities into this list and having deleted endeavors by others to do so. I are not talking about nationality or ethnicity, when I note that at the time of birth of the laureates in question, Ireland (under which country they are exclusively listed) did not exist as a separate political entity, it was part of the UK. Davshul (talk) 09:27, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

General Solution

I think I got your ideas now. I am looking forward to implementing your ideas as general rules. More than about the details, I am concerned that there is no consensus yet. So, I urge everybody to contribute to this discussion, thereby establishing such consensus, in order to enable a stable list in the future. In the following, I will try to cast my understanding into rules that are applicable to all cases.

  1. A birth place will always be mentioned in the listing of the country where the place belongs to today (e.g., a Pressburg birth place will invoke listing under Slovakia, and a Baku birth place listing under Azerbaijan).
  2. At the time of birth, the modern country might have not existed, and the historic state might have a modern successor. This will invoke listing under the successor state as well. These are
    1. Turkey for the Ottoman Empire
    2. Russia for the Soviet Union, and its predecessor, the Russian Empire
    3. Austria or Hungary (depending on the place) for Austria Hungary
    4. Please add to this list, if possible

Another problem which often occurs may be solved based on these two rules. The problem is as follows: A historic state might have a modern day equivalent but different borders (e.g., German or Russia Empires contained parts of present day Poland). Accordingly, Marie Curie's birth place will invoke listing under Poland and Russia, because Warsaw is undoubtedly in present day Poland (rule 1) and Russia is the modern successor state of the Russian Empire (rule 2).

Although I agree with you on this one, there is an arguement that although Poland was effectively under Russian rule until 1918, it was in theory the separate Kingdom of Poland, with the Tsar as king, in personal union with the Russian Empire. However, especially in light of the changing borders, I believe it would be preferable to give the double listings. Davshul (talk) 19:30, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Minor question to answer is what to write in M. Curie's listings? I propose the following: She will be listed under France without asterisk nut with the comment born in Poland, then Russian Empire. In the Russia and Poland listings an asterisk will symbolize that these listings are for birth place reasons only. No further comment needed. Tomeasy T C 17:21, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Suggest that as regards all three listings of M. Curie (and of others with a similar birthplace) - "born in Russian Poland". This was one of the names by which Poland was known at the time. Davshul (talk) 19:30, 3 November 2009 (UTC)
OK about specifying in depth knowledge about the birth place even in the two listings that are for birth place only. According to my taste, it is a bit too much, but I can very well live with it. The good thing with this rule is that less people are triggered to remove M. Curie from either of the two listings, because the additional information makes them understand and accept the listing.
Not OK with Russian Poland. When saying born in Poland, then Russian Empire it is clear why she is listed twice for birth place. More importantly, this rule works for all cases, while your proposition as a tailored solution to this one problem opens the door to discussions like was this denomination really so common or but the official state was this or that and we always mention the state. At last, your proposal would omit the information to which country the birth place belongs today, and which country it was in the past.
My proposal: Give additional birth place information also in birth place listings, if the associated country has changed, thereby invoking multiple birth place related listings. Tomeasy T C 20:38, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
I'm not sure I understand you on this. (Pity that this talk page appears to have become somewhat of a dialogue, which is suprosing in light of the number of earlier comments and recent edits by other parties!) Davshul (talk) 21:42, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
I am glad that at least it has become a dialogue ;-) Before, I was the only one concerned about not having technical rules for things we discuss here. Of course, more contributors would be appreciated. So please everybody, join in! Tomeasy T C 22:10, 4 November 2009 (UTC)


Seriously, what is wrong with you people? One is a Chinese, a Swede or an American ONLY if one held this CITIZENSHIP at the time of the RECEPTION of the Nobel Prize. Everything else is entirely IRRELEVANT, including place of birth, ethnic heritage, etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.130.207.151 (talk) 22:52, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Presentation of birth details

I believe that use of the word "then ...." in brackets following laureate's name to indicate both where there is a change in the name of the country of birth, or where there is a change the name of the applicable country at the time of the awards, is a little confusing, even though in the former case the wording is preceded by an asterisk. I suggest that, when such information relates to the country of birth, we use "born..." or "born in then..." instead of "then..." Davshul (talk) 17:41, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Agree. The word then is very ambiguous, and always causes trouble. People often misunderstand then as the time when the award was given. The use of born in is clear. Tomeasy T C 19:41, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
Since we agreed here, I started implementing this proposal. I.e., I write born in <state>, or if applicable born in <modern state>, then <historic state>. Tomeasy T C 18:17, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
If a listing is for birth place only, this is indicated by an asterisk. I propose not to specify additional information in this case. I mean it is quite irrelevant, whether this is a birth place listing because the birth place was once in this country or is now. Too much of these texts are just confusing. Tomeasy T C 18:17, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
I beleve that we should give the additional birth information, even when the listing for birth only. I feel it is helpful to those who are not familar with the history and who, without the additional information, are likely to believe that, say, the Czech Republic (in the case of Bertha von Sutter), Slovakia (in the case of Philipp Lenard) or Slovenia (in the case of Frederik Pregl) (to name but three), existed as independent states many decades before they actually achieved statehood. Davshul (talk) 20:04, 3 November 2009 (UTC)
OK. Let's do it like this then. Tomeasy T C 20:23, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
When adding the historic state for birth purposes to the listing for the modern state, I propose we write born in then <historic state>, rather than the simple then <historic state>. Davshul (talk) 22:57, 4 November 2009 (UTC)


I see that you have added statements like this born in then <historic state>, now <modern state>. I was wondering if you did it purposely this way around. Earlier, I proposed to use born in <modern state>, then <historic state>. Is it that you did not like the formulation I chose, or perhaps it does it not matter to you and you did not realize the difference?

I see advantages in both formulations. Readability is better in my proposal, as it uses a more succinct language (born in then ... sounds a bit awkward). However, the wording you used is a factually more correct, because the laureate was not born in the modern state but in the historic state - only now the place falls into the modern state.

To conclude, I can live with either formulation, as long as we use it consistently. You may pick. i would then go through the list and make them all the same. Tomeasy T C 22:26, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

I did it inadvertently - I thought that we had previously presented the historic state first, and only subsequently did I notice the order proposed by you and in the meantime, you commented on the issue. However, on considering the issue, I believe it does make more sense to mentioning the historic state first. Davshul (talk) 22:57, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
Fine with me. That is, we shall use the wording born in then <historic state>, now <modern state>. Tomeasy T C 23:06, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
I'm not sure that in this instance (where we are mentioning both the historic and the modern state that we need the word "then". I believe thta simply born in <historic state>, now <modern state> will suffice. Davshul (talk) 16:14, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
Agree. Certainly, this will improve readability. Tomeasy T C 07:33, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Parenthesis or not

I note that in some instances (by far the minority), the birth information is currently given in parenthesis as well as in italics. Although this may well be an error, I believe that such information actually looks better in parenthesis, as it clearly separates such information from the primary information, namely the name of the laureate, the nature of the prize and the date. If others agree, I believe we should adopt the prenthesis. Davshul (talk) 20:04, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

My preference would be to use italics. this has always been the rule outlined in the lead. I do not know how the parenthesis thing got it. Certainly, doing both is stylistic overkill. I am against the parenthesis since the birth place information occurs quite regularly, and it would look aweful to have it in parenthesis when it appears in listings that have already parenthesis to mention some other trivia (e.g., forced to refuse, youngest laureate, etc.). Tomeasy T C 20:26, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
O.K by me. Davshul (talk) 21:39, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

During the past day, some edits were made related to three scientist who were born on today's Ukrainian grounds. I edited these additions in the sense that we discussed. Let me know, if my edits reflect what we elaborated, so that I know that these kind of questions are already consensus. Tomeasy T C 05:51, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Laureate–country connections that are not mentioned at the official website are not considered in this list

The above is a citation from the lead, and perhaps the most important rule to keep the article stable and original research out of it.

The problem is that we know that Fritz Pregl was born in (what is today) Slovenia, and Jassir Arafat was born in Kairo. However, the Nobel Committee chose not to acknowledge these birth place [5][6]. I strongly favor to stick to the information published by the Nobel Committee. Other laureates may exist where the birth place is disputed, and then we should be able to refer to the Nobel Committee as the authority. Moreover, we should assume that the Nobel Committee knows what it is doing, and respect their choice of not mentioning birth places sometimes.

I can imagine, not everybody will happily agree to following the Nobel Committee as strictly as I propose here. However, anything else would open Pandora's box, and last but not least it is not us awarding the price. Tomeasy T C 23:03, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Davshul, I opened this section to discuss in general the question that you have just raised above for the specific case of Irish-British-English laureates. Perhaps you would like to solve the question here in a general way. Tomeasy T C 09:04, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Tomeasy, I am not totally with you on this one. I agree 100% that, as regards the country affiliation of the award, this must be the sole consideration and we must accept the Nobel Committee's decisions (although that, even in this case, it has been decided to give the modern state equivalent.) However, as regards the country of birth, surely, this is a matter of fact and record. If the official Nobel website were to mention a country of birth that was totally incorrect, surely Wikipedia should not just repeat the inaccuracy - it should give the correct information, citing its source and adding that the the information on the Nobel website appears inaccurate. In many case, the Nobel website does not actually give a place of birth and one assumes that the country affiliation of the award and country of birth is one and the same. I believe that the inclusion of the place of birth on the Nobel site is intended to add some additional information and not to be definitive. Where there is clearly a reputable source or there is a clear fact (i.e. that the country in question did not exist at the time of birth) showing a country of birth not mentioned on the Nobel site, such country should be noted, but with a referenced note as to the source, etc. Possibly the wording of the the citation from the lead of the article needs to be amended slightly to make this clear. I have no wish to open a Pandora's box, but I believe that the overall objective should be one of accuracy. Davshul (talk) 09:15, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
Specifically as regards Fritz Pregl, nothwistanding the above comment, no mention is made on the Nobel site as to place of birth and the assumation is that he was born in the country affiliation of the award - Austria. Since, at the time of his birth 1869, Slovenia was an integral part of Austria (being in the Austrian part of Austria-Hungary), and that we that we generally list under the successor states of Austria-Hungary (of which Slovenia is one), I believe the listing under Slovenia should remain, if necessary, with a noted reference to the fact that Pregl was born in the Ljubljana, the present capital of Slovenia. Davshul (talk) 09:15, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
With reference to Pregl, the Nobel website at http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/1923/pregl-bio.html states that he was born in present day Slovenia. Davshul (talk) 09:53, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
Indeed here we disagree. This might may need more time to discuss. I am not willing to base the listings of this article on what you assume or believe as the underlying rationale of the Nobel Committee's publication. I am not convinced that these assumptions are necessarily the true intent of that organization, and for sure other people will propose other interpretations. I do not want to give an interpretation at all. i do not want to question the awarding authority. We may distribute Wikipedia awards but not Nobel ones.
By the way, we can discuss this issue with an even much clearer example case, which is free of changing countries. Seán MacBride, born in France, Peace, 1974 must not be listed under France, and the comment must be removed, according to me and. Let's consider this example. If we are able to convince ourselves on this one, the other related questions are automatically solved.
Incidentally, on the Nobel site, at http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1974/macbride-cv.html, it states that "Seán Mac Bride was born on January 26, 1904 in Paris." Davshul (talk) 10:09, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
And yet, they do not mention the birh place on his laureate card. I would be very careful in making assumptions as to why or when they give credit to a birth place. It can very well be that the Nobel Committee knows pretty well what they are doing and they do so on purpose. For me this appears at least as probable as any interpretation that we can make as outsiders. Tomeasy T C 14:11, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
Perhaps I will reply less quickly from now on to grant myself more time of reflection. These questions are there for long and we do not need to rush solving them. Tomeasy T C 09:30, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
I agree that maybe with both need a little more time for reflection on this point. Davshul (talk) 09:53, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Birth place not at all acknowledged on official laureate card

Perhaps we can come back to this question. So, your stance is that we should acknowledge France as Macbride's birth place, even though the Nobel Committee doesn't, because we shall assume they did a mistake? Tomeasy T C 05:56, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

As all other issues of principal discussed above appear to have resolved by consensus (albeit between only two users), I feel it might be helpful to set out clearly what appears to be the sole issue on which there is disagreement, in the hope of other users joining in with their comments. I am therefore giving it a new heading, so that new users can comment without feeling the need of wading through all the above discussion. Tomeasy, please feel free to amend my interpretation of your view of the issue. Davshul (talk) 07:15, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
Thanks, and well done. I am happy with the way you presented the case (and my stance), and I am also looking forward to hearing more opinions. I want to state upfront that I respect your argumentation. It is certainly reasonable, and I would be able to live with it and keep the article in this spirit if it was the result of the section below. Nevertheless, I would prefer the strict rule that refers to the card only, for the reasons I gave and might give again if someone joins in. Tomeasy T C 07:59, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

What country of birth should appear in list

The basic outstanding outstanding issue is whether the sole source for the country of birth in the list should be the official laureate card on the Nobel website or whether a wider view should be taken.

  • Tomeasy takes the view that the official laureate card should be used as the sole source. The only departure from this would be the giving of the modern successor state, where the card gives sufficient information in order to determine the successor state. He believes that anything else would open Pandora's box.
  • I believe that a wider view should be taken. I consider the place of birth to be a matter of fact. If the official laureate card omits to mention the birth place or gives an inaccurate place of birth, I believe we should nevertheless list the accurate country of birth in the list, citing the source of our information. In the two specific cases raised above by Tomeasy, even the official Nobel website, on pages other than the laureate card (see Fritz Pregl biography and Seán MacBride C.V), presents data on the place of birth not appearing on the laureate card. Davshul (talk) 07:15, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Please would other users present their views on this subject. Davshul (talk) 07:15, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Birth country and Original Research

According to the text preceding the article, the birth country is the state to which the place belonged when the laureate was born there. This is obviously not the case if we look at the list. I didn't come any longer than the first country, Algeria, to find the opposite. Camus and Cohen-Tannoudji were both born in France, the state of Algeria didn't exist at the time. Looking through the list I see a lot of similar examples, it seems to be the rule rather than the exception. I'm also doubtful about the practice of listing countries with which the laureates had no connection, such as listing Doris Leesing as an Iranian laureate. To the best of my knowledge, she left the country at the age of five, had no family connections to it and never spoke the language. All in all, the list seems to be based more on people trying to stock up Nobel laureates for their own country than on anything else.Jeppiz (talk) 05:56, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Here is what the lead says about it:
Some laureates are listed under more than one country, because the official website mentions multiple countries in relation to the laureate.[3] If a country is merely mentioned as the place of birth, an asterisk(*) is used in the respective listing to indicate this.[4] In this case, the birth country is mentioned in italics at the other listings of this laureate. For the same award, two birth place related listings occur when the place of birth is currently in a different country then at the time of birth.
Now, let's have a look at what the official site tells us about Camus and about Lessing. You will see that both, Algeria and Iran, are mentioned. And so so we. Is the questioned answered? Tomeasy T C 06:35, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

"Is the questions answered?", No it is not. The Nobel Prize website obviously does not claim that Algeria as country existed in 1913. Or do they in your opinion? It is also obvious that the website author(s) were trying to be more specific and in that intent Algeria appears to be listed as country of birth, while it was a département of France in 1913 (see French Algeria). In the moment of the prize reception it also clearly states the country. The wikipedia country list is not consistent and not only concerning people of Arabic origin. It needs at least to be renamed by country of origin. Also, please, look at the double recipient Marie Curie who is listed under Poland. On both occasions of Prize reception, no such country existed as she was working in France all that time and she was born the Russian Empire. Such misinterpretation leads confusions as country political borders do change to such degrees that claiming laureates in such manner may not even make a sense. Aleksandr Grigoryev (talk) 15:38, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Honorary Citizenship and Ancestral Residence

I was wondering what the editors' policy for this article is regarding the granting of honorary citizenships and ancestral residences. For example, Amartya Sen was granted honorary citizenship by Bangladesh after winning the Economics Prize in 1998, and his family had a home in Wari in Dhaka, Bangladesh, where he lived for a time during his childhood (also, his mother was born in Manikganj, Bangladesh, though then part of British India). Also, Rabindranath Tagore's family had vast holdings of real estate in Kushtia in Bangladesh, and Tagore spent many years on the said estate, penning a lot of his work while there. Although once again, the site was part of British India, and was not inhabited by the Tagore family after the formation of Bangladesh, fact remains that Tagore spent a lot of time in the geographic area of what is now Bangladesh.

Should Tagore and Sen also be listed under Bangladesh, possibly with an asterisk or footnote indicating that they only had honorary citizenship or ancestral residences in East Bengal (what is now Bangladesh)?Avman89 (talk) 03:57, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

We do not care about citizenship (or nationalities, in case that means something different to you). All care about is the country mentioned by the Nobel committee to attribute the laureate. Usually, this is the country of their residence when awarded. Tomeasy T C 06:22, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
Usually this is almost never the country of residence when the Prize is awarded. Most researchers are employed by universities in North America, Europe, Australia or Japan when they receive the Prize. On no occasion is a laureate recognized by the country he is living in, unless (s)he became a naturalized citizen of that country. In other words, if that were the case, almost every laureate would be listed under USA, UK, Germany, France, Japan or possibly Russia, Canada or Australia. The Nobel Committee obviously mentions the laureate original nationality when recognizing the winners. In my examples above, Amartya Sen would be listed under UK as he was at Balliol College, Oxford University when awarded the prize.
Another example of confusing nationalities would be Niels Ryberg Finsen. Finsen was born in the Faroe Islands, and is listed under Faroe Islands and Denmark. Now as a Faroese he had Danish citizenship, and was living and working in Denmark when awarded the prize, so inclusion under Denmark makes sense. However, his parents were both Icelandic, and he went to school in Iceland, and only moved to Denmark as an adult, and only spent his early childhood in the Faroe Islands. If Faroe Islands deserves to be listed, then so does Iceland given that he was of Icelandic descent and spent a number of years there. If the country listed is only the one for which that person has citizenship, or was resident in when awarded the prize, then he should only be listed under Denmark. Including Faroe Islands for the sole reason of Finsen being born there seems insignificant. A person's place of birth has far less influence on their work (and achievements) than a place they lived in for a significant number of years as an adult. Just my two cents.Avman89 (talk) 01:11, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
Do not waste your energy. There s no need to delve deeply into the biographies of the laureates. It is not us, here, attributing their wards to a country. All the information we need is readily available here. Please check out, based on this list, whether our list has errors. If so, correct them. Thanks.
For the two cases you mentioned, I checked and found that everything is well in shape here at our list. Tomeasy T C 08:07, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Venkatraman Ramakrishnan and Charles K. Kao

Venkatraman Ramakrishnan and Charles K. Kao are both citizen of USA and their primary residence also is the USA. I am just wondering why both men are not listed in the USA ‘s list. Tarikur (talk) 18:20, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Because this list does not ask for citizenship. Please read the the lede of the list. Tomeasy T C 19:03, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Argentina

Could be added Sandra Díaz? She won the nobel peace prize in 2007 being part of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Here's a reference from an important argentine newspaper http://www.lavoz.com.ar/especiales/cordobes07/nota.asp?nota_id=134159 Thanks. Alakasam (talk) 21:58, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

No, the award went to the organization only. Not even Rajendra Pachauri may be mentioned as a laureate. The only source that counts here is the Nobel Committee. Tomeasy T C 22:08, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Ok, no need to be rude. A newspaper is a good source. Anyway I understand what you said. Alakasam (talk) 22:43, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, if I appeared rude to you - I did not mean to. Actually, I still do not see which part was rude ...
I do not understand Spanish. However, if your source really says that she is a laureate then this simply proofs how bad newspapers can be as sources. Tomeasy T C 07:34, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

New official website

The official Nobel website has changed. It does not include information about the country affiliation anymore. In view of this, I foresee uncontrollable edit-warring and an unstable article, as there is no supreme authority anymore and people are going to present their WP:OR as they please and mutually disagree.

As I see it now, I would not want to be part of this. However, someone else might see a possibility to maintain this article without the problems I laid down above. Please comment. Tomeasy T C 06:29, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

The method of choosing the country for a laureate

I think the laureats should be included in the list of the country where they activated, and the country of birth to be specified in Italics if necessary

Example:

  • Fritz Pregl is called in the Britannica article Austrian chemist. He was born in Ljubliana, at that tiem part of Duchy of Carniola, Austrian Empire. However, he activated at the University of Graz so I think he should be included only in Austrian list (and deleted from Slovenian list)

On the other hand, an even more complicated article is List of Nobel laureates by country per capita, which offers very misleading data, because the European borders have changed very much as a result of the world wars: Romania doubled its territory in 1920, Hungary lost 3/4 of the territory in 1920 etc. I think that article should be deleted, because the provided information are not rigorous (YellowFF0 (talk) 08:49, 20 August 2010 (UTC))

The second paragraph should be deleted from this talk page ;-) The issue you mention there should be discussed here.
I guess he is listed under Slovenia because Ljubiliana falls into that country. This listing is identified with an asterisk to show that it is only due to birth place. You can also find Pregl listed under Austria, there without the asterisk, which probably follows the rationale you explained.

BTW, if you were to count the number of laureates per country, you should not count the asterisk listings. But be aware, such counting would be highly WP:OR. Tomeasy T C 16:15, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Ljubiliana falls TODAY into Slovenia, in that times it was a part of Austria. By this logic, if USA would be conquered one day by China, should we list then the American laureates in China's list?(YellowFF0 (talk) 09:23, 21 August 2010 (UTC))

Yes. This would apply to listings as birth place. 09:47, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Why Andre Geim (2010 Nobel in Physics) listed under Netherlands

Where is the consistency? Let's get this straight, Andre Geim was born in Russia, who has Dutch citizenship but his residence is in UK. Now, scroll back back up in this discussion page to a title called "Venkatraman Ramakrishnan and Charles K. Kao" that was written by me in February, 2010. Venkatraman Ramakrishnan was born in India, who has USA citizenship but his residence is in UK. Charles K. Kao was born in China, who has both UK and USA citizenship. Both Venkatraman Ramakrishnan and Charles K. Kao are not listed under USA because "this list does not ask for citizenship. Please read the the lede of the list". Both Andre Geim and Venkatraman Ramakrishnan was in UK at the time of their discovery. So why is Andre Geim listed under Netherlands and Venkatraman Ramakrishnan is not listed under USA? Tarikur (talk) 04:29, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

This is part of the problem I described two sections above. I think it will be very difficult to keep the consistency most of us desire. The problem you describe is due to the history of this article.
When the official website still cared about affiliating the awards to countries, the case was clear and we could see that citizenship did not matter, neither did the birth place. In those times, Geim's award would have been affiliated with the UK, and probably Russia would have been mentioned as a birth place (only). Today however, when the official site does not care to make such clear statements anymore, all of what I just said is pure speculation, and I do not see a rationale to enforce this. But for Kao, it was enforced and apparently is still in place.
Similarly, see all the nonesense (in my opinion it is nonesense) that has been added to the list in the past months: people make statements about heritage, parents, grown up in, etc. It is difficult to revert such additions. This article currently has a strong issue in that people understand its subject differently. Some think that the country named should be decided based on (1) the cultural background/ blood/ ethnicity of the laureate; (2) the birthplace of the laureate; (3) the citizenship of the laureate; (4) the residence/ work place of the laureate. All four definitions may come to different conclusion. On top of this, during laureate's lifetime, the countries referred to under definitions 2,3,4 can change multiple times.
Anyone, who has an idea to solve this major issue - please comment. This is not just an issue of Geim versus Kao. Their inconsistent treatment on our list is just the symptom of a general diseas. Tomeasy T C 07:22, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Prize fractions

Most laureates get just a fraction of a Nobel Prize. Remarkably, in the early 1900s each laureate on average got much more of a prize than today. Probably that's because nowadays there is more team work or parallel work, and so prizes are frequently shared, which causes a "laureate inflation", according to a study by Jürgen Schmidhuber (2010): Evolution of National Nobel Prize Shares in the 20th Century, ArXiv: http://arxiv.org/abs/1009.2634 , web site http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/nobelshare.html . The study says: "Counting just laureates instead of their prizes would exhibit a strong bias towards more recent decades."

Ornithologician (talk) 18:15, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Why are some places listed more than once?

Taiwan is listed as Taiwan and Republic of China, perhaps they should be one category? Misosoup7 (talk) 22:25, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Ranking: Types of Bias

The article counts laureates per country and thus implies a ranking. This ranking is misleading. The sources of bias are as follows:

  • Bias against literature and towards the sciences (physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine). Most literature laureates get a full prize, most science laureates get a fraction of a prize (because they are parts of a Nobel Prize winning team, or have to share the prize with competitors). That is, there are disproportionately few literature laureates, and disproportionately many science laureates, as nicely illustrated in the List of Nobel laureates. As a consequence, we also get a bias against countries that were especially successful in literature, such as Ireland and France.
  • Bias towards recent laureates. In the first half of the 20th century the Nobel laureates on average got larger prize fractions than today, especially in the sciences. Thus there are disproportionately few old laureates, and disproportionately many recent laureates, especially in the sciences.
  • Bias towards laureates who changed their citizenship. They currently get counted twice.

Most problems stem from counting laureates, not prizes. It's like counting the Olympic gold medal in soccer 11-fold, because the team has 11 members.

To illustrate this by concrete numbers from the reference above: the 326 laureates associated with the USA got 149.3 Nobel Prizes. US-born laureates got 115.3 Nobel Prizes. The table below is based on the correct prize fractions. Per capita rankings yield a very different table though.

Science Nobel Prizes 1901-2010
by country of birth by citizenship
1 USA 86.8 USA 116.8
2 Ger 53.7 Ger 46.7
3 UK 38.1 UK 45.2

If we keep the ranking, the comments above should become part of a section on criticism. Ornithologician (talk) 19:58, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

You are building up a problem here which, according to me, just does not exist. The list does not imply a ranking of countries. We are not producing a table that summarizes the numbers of laureates per country with a ranking. In order to mitigate your self-proposed problem, you introduce a long elaborate section with lots of your opinion. It is just not encyclopedic.
Besides, a criticism section usually criticizes a subject that exists outside Wikipedia and is described by a Wikipedia article. You are criticizing the article only. If anything, this is to be done here on the talk page with the intention to improve the article so that the criticism gets obsolete. Tomeasy T C 20:47, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
I see your point, and actually agree with much of what you said. However, I still think the list implies a ranking of countries, simply because the laureates are counted by country. In my opinion, the politically correct solution would be to list laureates without counting them. So let me suggest to simply remove the numbers.
The more informative solution would require more work: add for each laureate how much of a prize he or she got, just like in the Olympic tables which also distinguish between gold, silver, and bronze :-) The values range from 0.25 prizes (for many of the science laureates) to 2.5 prizes (for the Red Cross). In fact, one person got 2.0 prizes, two got 1.25, many got 1.0, one got 0.66, many got 0.5, many got 0.33, many got 0.25. Ornithologician (talk) 18:06, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
I feel one should at least add the following statement: The prize fractions received by the Nobel Prize winners vary widely. Most got 0.25, 0.33, or 0.5 of a Nobel Prize. One got 0.66, some 1.0, two 1.25, one 2.0, one 2.5. Ornithologician (talk) 17:52, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
You are right about the numbers. Perhaps, it is really better to use a bullet list only. Many laureates are also counted multiple times, because of the different rationales that put them on the listings. For this reason I also do not see much sense in adding the fraction, but if you really want to do this for every list item, you may go ahead. This is verifiable information, so I would not have a problem, if you make this big effort.
The information about fractions recently added to the lead, makes no sense as long as the list does not even show this data. And even if, I think it is uninteresting trivia to list what kind of fractions have been given to individuals. Tomeasy T C 18:27, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

List problems

This list has some serious issues. For starters it claims that the inclusion criteria is to list laureates by "country" based on information found on the official Nobel website. Country of birth is listed with an asterisk (*), while presumable country of citizenship is listed normally. The only problem is that 'country of citizenship is not listed on the Nobel website. Country of birth is listed along with the institutional affiliation of the laureate, but that is it. Let's take Andre Geim as an example. Geim is on three separate country lists. 1) Russia - birth place, 2) England - institutional affiliation and 3) Netherlands - nationality. As I mentioned generally already, his bio on the Nobel website says nothing about his Dutch citizenship. Ironically, that aspect seems like it would be the most essential to a list of "Nobel laureates by country", especially as this list is the main entry for Category:Nobel laureates by nationality. "Nationality" refers to citizenship in a nation-state and not country of birth, or country in which one works as a legal resident. Does anyone have a suggestion as to how we might solve these problems?Griswaldo (talk) 13:42, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Yuo can look at various talk sections above, where I addressed this. Please read them. Unfortunately, I do not really see how to implement a stable rationale at this website. Tomeasy T C 19:32, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Gobind Khorana

Please read the nobelprize.org official history on Gobind Khorana and his birth in Pakistan and his early education in Multan and Lahore, two Pakistani cities. Gobind Khorana was born and educated in Pakistan.

I checked his bio and it seems you are correct. He was born and educated in what is now Pakistan and left the country before partition. So far, I don't see any connection with Republic of India.
I removed him from India section and added to Pakistan section. --Iball (talk) 09:57, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

John Hume and Seamus Heaney

The two previous Ireland debates fail to note a key issue regarding these two individuals. Under the Good Friday Agreement individuals from Northern Ireland may claim British or Irish citizenship or both. Therefore what the individual from Northern Ireland views as his nationality, is the nationality he should be listed under. Seamus Heaney was born into a Catholic, nationalist family in Northern Ireland. He once objected to inclusion in a book of British poets with the warning lines: 'Be advised, my passport's green/ No glass of ours was ever raised/ To toast the Queen'. Why therefore he also listed under the British list, when he has made it clear that he does not agree with himself being listed as British. John Hume was a former leader of the SDLP a nationalist party. He is considered internationally as Irish, not British. I propose therefore that due to the Good Friday Agreement and the wishes of the two individual people, that we remove them from the UK list. Tribunicia (talk) 18:12, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Peter Medawar is not a brazilian´s Nobel Prize

Please see your biography, he born in Brasil but was registered in England´s embassy, he lived in Brazil in a short time, and never do any studies or discoveries in Brasil, your father was a english´s citizen and your mother was a lebanon´s citizen. Brazil is a most large territory or country in earth´s face who never won a Nobel Prize Porto Felipe (talk) 04:14, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

I agree that Medawar shouldn't be counted as a Brazilian Nobel Prize winner. He was a British citizen who merely happened to be born in Brazil, as so many more who are born all over the world but are raised and educated in the UK, having no ties whatsoever with their place of birth. --186.188.184.185 (talk) 23:27, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
Brazil, today and by the time of Peter Medawar’s birth, has jus soli: all persons born in Brazilian territory are automatically full Brazilian citizens, even if both parents are foreigners, as the same way that happens in the United States. And Medawar was in Brazil up until he was a teenager (14 years old), and was educated at a Brazilian school (medium of instruction: Brazilian Portuguese) in Petrópolis. See [7], [8], and [9] (pt-BR)--MaGioZal (talk) 13:37, 29 September 2013 (UTC)
That's just factually wrong. He was registered at the English consulate, and he expressly renounced his Brazilian citizenship. He also left the country before the end of the war, which ended in 1918, so correct me if I'm wrong but 18-15 isn't 14. All sources are in the Wikipedia page of him: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Medawar. But most importantly, he is NOT a notable Brazilian. Brazilians (and sympathizers) have to stop trying to 'earn' that Nobel prize by making up this story about Peter Medawar, there's no place for that in Wikipedia, only facts matter here. There are notable Brazilians who could have earned a Nobel prize, and rightfully so. An example would be Osvaldo Cruz. But the Nobel prize is all but fair. It's a political prize. It's no coincidence that Sweden and its close allies have the most prizes per capita. One thing doesn't justify the other though, and attributing the prize Peter Medawar won to Brazil is (as the user below puts it) nothing but "radiculous". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.76.27.1 (talk) 00:02, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

Peter Medawar is not a Brazilian!!! No science museum in Brazil celebrates him as a Brazilian, makes me wonder why. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Linda Martens (talkcontribs) 10:01, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

I am a 46 years old Brazilian science journalist and i have NEVER heard about Peter Medawar. He was only born in Brazil and left. He should never count as a "Brazilian Nobel laureate". That is radiculous. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 179.209.118.224 (talk) 16:17, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

This is a pathetic effort and it's outrageous that Wikipedia seem to support it. We in Brazil know we do NOT have a Nobel prize, and nobody here knows Medawar. It's quite the opposite, the lack of Nobel prize is popular culture in Brazil, used in jokes and other references. This is just wrong information. There were great brazilians, Medawar isn't one of them simply because he was born in Brazil therefore *could* have been brazilian. By that logic most other Nobel prizes are brazilian too because anybody could ask for asylum and then naturalization. It makes no sense and is simply wrong. This is an absurd evidence on how wrong information thrives in Wikipedia provided people are determined enough to twist the facts. We have the word of Medawar himself who said he went to UK as a baby and we have a random blog on the internet who made up a story and Wikipedia decides to trust the latter. There really is no other word for it than simply ridiculous and it's a proof that Wikipedia isn't a reliable source of information at all. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.92.78.231 (talk) 15:44, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

China?

Walter Houser Brattain, Edmond H. Fischer and Ei-ichi Negishi, they were born in China. Sinophone (talk) 03:03, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

How many Nobels in Poland?

Hey! In Poland we have got 6 persons who got nobel:

-Lech Wałęsa -Maria Skłodowska Curie -Wisława Szymborska -Czesław Miłosz -Henryk Sienkiewicz -Stanisław Reymont

Thank you! And goodbye! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sebcza2200 (talkcontribs) 17:16, 2 December 2013 (UTC)


There were no "Austro-Hungarian" citizenship

See Austria-Hungary article.


There was no common citizenship, their birth certificates contained "Austrian Empire" or Kingdom of Hungary.

It was regnum independens, a separate Monarchy as Article X of 1790 stipulated.[1] According to the Constitutional law and public law, the Empire of Austria had never lawfully included the Kingdom of Hungary.[2] After the cessation of the Holy Roman Empire (of which the Kingdom of Hungary had not been part), the new title of the Habsburg rulers - Emperor of Austria - did not in any sense affect the laws and the constitution of Hungary according to the Hungarian Diet and the proclamation of Francis I in a rescript,[3] thus the country was part of the other Lands of the empire largely through the common monarch.[1]

The administration and government of the Kingdom of Hungary were not united with the common administrative and governmental structure of the Austrian Empire. The central governmental structures remained well separated from the imperial government, and they were linked largely by the person of the common monarch. The country was governed by the Council of Lieutenancy of Hungary (the Gubernium) - located in Pressburg (Pozsony, now Bratislava) and later in Pest - and by the Hungarian Royal Court Chancellery in Vienna.[4]

The division between Austria and Hungary was so marked that there was no common citizenship: one was either an Austrian citizen or a Hungarian citizen, never both.[12][13] This also meant that there were always separate Austrian and Hungarian passports, never a common one.[14][15]

The Empire of Austria and the Kingdom of Hungary had always maintained separate parliaments: the Imperial Council (Austria) and the Diet of Hungary. Except for the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713, common laws never existed in the Empire of Austria and the Kingdom of Hungary.[citation needed] All laws, even those with identical content such as the compromise of 1867, had to pass the parliaments of both Vienna and Budapest. They were published in the respective official media: in the Austrian part it was called Reichsgesetzblatt, and was issued in eight languages.[citation needed]

The administration and government of the Kingdom of Hungary (between 1527 and 1848) were not united with the administration and government structure of the Austrian Empire. Hungary's central government structures remained well separated from the imperial government: the two were linked largely in the person of the common monarch. The country was governed by the Council of Lieutenancy of Hungary (the Gubernium) - located in Pressburg and later in Pest - and by the Hungarian Royal Court Chancellery in Vienna.[16] The Hungarian government and Hungarian parliament were suspended after the Hungarian revolution of 1848, and they regained their former status after the Austro-Hungarian Compromise in 1867.

Despite Austria and Hungary sharing a common currency, they were fiscally sovereign and independent entities.[17] Since the beginnings of the personal union (from 1527), the government of the Kingdom of Hungary could preserve its separated and independent budget. After the revolution of 1848–1849, the Hungarian budget was amalgamated with the Austrian, and it was only after the Compromise of 1867 that Hungary obtained a separate budget.[18] From 1527 (the creation of the monarchic personal union) to 1851, the Kingdom of Hungary maintained its own customs controls, which separated her from the other parts of the Habsburg-ruled territories.[19] After 1867, the Austrian and Hungarian customs union agreement had to be renegotiated and stipulated every ten years. The agreements were renewed and signed by Vienna and Budapest at the end of every decade because both countries hoped to derive mutual economic benefit from the customs union. The Austrian Empire and Kingdom of Hungary contracted their foreign commercial treaties independently of each other.[5] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 145.236.98.45 (talk) 19:42, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

Entries for India

This has been going on for quite a while now. Unknown IPs are editing the India section and adding a few names. Unknown IP guy/gal, if you are reading this, here are a few things I would like to suggest -

Do not add birth place details next to the Indian laureates' names. It's redundant. Each of them has their own article. Anyone can check those articles for additional details.

Dalai Lama is not an Indian citizen. He is from Tibet which is recognized by most countries as part of China. Mother Teresa accepted Indian citizenship and hence is listed here. But Dalai Lama never did.

Regarding Ronald Ross, he was born in India to British parents. Completed his education in Britain. Bulk of his life was spent in Britain. Guy's British.

For Rudyard Kipling, I doubt anyone even vaguely aware of his life and work would even think of him as 'Indian'. A reasoanably racist chap (by the standard of his day), by accident was born in India. No thanks, we don't want to own this guy.

If you keep on adding these, I will have to request a soft edit block on the article.

Iball (talk) 15:51, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

Iball, I'm sorry it isn't for you to decide if you want to "own" it or not. For every single Nobel Laureate, if birthplace was in a different country, that country is also listed. You needn't be an Indian citizen be accept a prize for India. I'm guessing you don't know how this article works.
It is: 1. Country of birth and 2. Country of residence at time of award.
Top of the article clearly says: "Some laureates are listed under more than one country, because the official website mentions multiple countries in relation to the laureate."
I can provide you with official Nobel sources that list India and their other country in relation to the laureate.
According to BBC: http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-11500373
Spreadsheet: http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl/hi/world/10/nobel_prize/xls/prizes_by_country.xls
It clearly lists that India has a total of 9 Nobel Prizes as of 2010. According the number of recipents you listed it would be 7. Who would we trust, your personal opinion or BBC?76.71.73.39 (talk) 18:48, 5 July 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for reply. So I take it that you agree to me that adding birthplace is redundant. Now on the rest of it, I don't consider any of these three Indian. But you want to rigorously follow the rules of this article, I accept that you have a point. However in that case Subramanyan Chandrasekhar will be added under Pakistan and not India. Har Gobind Khorana will be too. You find that rational? Iball (talk) 05:30, 7 July 2015 (UTC)
I see your point but why exactly would those two have to be under Pakistan? I know that they were born in what is now Pakistan but back then it was only British India and I don't even think that the Pakistan Movement had started yet.76.71.73.39 (talk) 06:51, 7 July 2015 (UTC)
I agree to you! They certainly should not be placed under Pakistan. But that's what it will have to be as per the rules of this article isn't it. Kipling was born in Simla in British India. British India is not the same state as the present day state known as India. It included Pakistan, India and Bangladesh, also the port city of Aden in what is present day Yemen. You certainly know that right. Just because today's India shares the name with British India, doesn't mean it is the sole successor. Now, if you want to strictly follow the rules, and include Kipling under India, Chandrashekhar and Khorana goes under Pakistan's entry.Iball (talk) 12:40, 7 July 2015 (UTC)
Well after the Partition, India did retain their seat at the United Nations and all other international organizations while Pakistan had to reapply as a new member. It was Pakistan that succeeded from India. The Republic we know today is the just a political continuation of British India. Heck, the 1860 Indian Penal Code enacted by the GoI at the time is still enforced by the Supreme Court of India today. When the British left it was just a matter of handing sovereignty over to the Indians. If Quebec were to succeed from Canada, could Quebec claim to be a successor state of Canada? I found this article quite interesting: http://www.legalserviceindia.com/articles/indo_pak.htm
According to the article, "India could easily be characterized as the continuation of British India because it retained seventy-five percent of the territory and eighty percent of the population of British India, it kept the name India, and it kept the seat of the government and virtually the same governmental machinery. Moreover, on its face, the devolution agreement between India and Pakistan seemed to clarify that the two States regarded India as solely entitled to succeed to the British India seat [at the UN]."
A similar case was presented to the League of Nations when Burma was created into separated into a separate colony. After 1937, "Burma continued to be bound by a ratification or accession to various multilateral treaties recorded on behalf of India."https://treaties.un.org/pages/HistoricalInfo.aspx#Myanmar" (Scroll down to Myanmar)
Dalai Lama would have to be under India as he was a resident of India at the time of receiving his award. Ross and Kipling would also have to listed under India as they were born in India. A common misconception is that India didn't exist as a nation state before 1947 but that is false as India existed ever since the British Raj came in to power in 1858 and it was the official name for the country. I believe that Chandrasekhar and Khorana would also have to remain under India. As per the UN, India wasn't really a successor state but a continuing one. However Pakistan was a succeeding one. See Succession of states. Successor states only apply in some cases and in this one, doesn't apply to India nor Pakistan. According to Nobel, Subramanyan Chandrasekhar was born in Lahore, India http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1983/chandrasekhar-facts.html and H. Gobind Khorana was born in Raipur, India<http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1968/khorana-facts.html. For Chandrasekhar, it does say in brackets (now Pakistan) for modern day usage but officially he was awarded the prize for India and you can't award someone a prize for a state that didn't even exist at the time. From the spreadsheet that BBC provided, Pakistan and Bangladesh are listed to only have one laureate each. The case for the other nations on this article are like Latvia, Ukraine etc., which have existed before their modern date republic as they were originally incorporated into Soviet Union and even within the Soviet Union they had their own republic (SSR). This is not such a case for Pakistan or Bangladesh.76.71.73.39 (talk) 19:58, 7 July 2015 (UTC)
Dalai Lama, I think can be included. That won't be too off the mark; I give you that. So you can add him. Don't forget to add an asterisk next to him under China (Tenzin Gyatso). That is one consistent rule of this article. But understand that this might be challenged, so keep an eye on this change.
Regarding Ross and Kipling, if they are considered under India, Khorana and Chandrashekhar goes under Pakistan. Period. The situations are identical. Nobel Committee website doesn't say Pakistan for Khorana, but you know and I know, Khorana was born in what is now Pakistan. Check his bio page. But even if I give you Khorana on that 'technicality', Chandrashekhar still goes under Pakistan.
See, here is the problem. This article doesn't have an entry on British India (or rather British Empire). But it doesn't have an article on India (the nation/civilization) either. What it has is Republic of India. You understand the important difference between a nation and a state right? You can have all sorts of discussion on the nature of the present day state known as India. What you have written about the relationship between British India and Republic of India is certainly interesting to any student of history. But nothing would change fact that the sole reason you are including Ross and Kipling is because they were born on a piece of land that is in Republic of India. If that wasn't the case then you also would have included Abdus Salam under India as well. He was born in British India which, according to you, can be considered as the same thing as Republic of India. Same with Muhammad Yunus!. The only reason you didn't consider these two is because the places where they were born are not in Republic of India. What other explanation do you have?
I only want you to apply your own rules thoroughly. Abdus Salam, by birth, according to you, comes under India. By residence he comes under UK. So he certainly can't come under Pakistan. Try touching his entry and you will soon find out what 'owning' someone means :). Remember, Salam, Khorana and Chadrashekhar are identical in this regard.
Why not create a userid? Your IP is fairly 'stable' but a userid will help keep track of things. Cheers. Iball (talk) 07:18, 8 July 2015 (UTC)
There shouldn't be a separate entry on British India. I don't see one on the Soviet Union. Germany has one section, whereas according to your way there should be one on the German Empire, Weimar Republic, and FRG. Germany's entry isn't just on the modern day Federal Republic of Germany. It includes the preceding entities too. Russia also includes those laureates from the Soviet Union who were born in then i.e. Azerbaijan SSR but that person has a listing in both Russia and Azerbaijan. The one in the Russia section has the asterisk.
Konrad Bloch was born in Nysa, German Empire. The city today is now located in Poland. Yet he is listed under only Germany and the United States although clearly also belong in the Poland entry too. Clearly the Germany entry isn't only about the Federal Republic of Germany only and includes the boundaries of its preceding states. There are many other examples of this. When it says (now in ...) what ever state is in the brackets may as well be included.
Actually I didn't even know that Abdus Salam and Muhammad Yunus were born in British India. By the standards of this article they also should also be listed under India alongside Pakistan (for Salam) and Bangladesh for (Yunus). Of course and asterisk would have to apply when put under India, indicating that they were merely born there. Ross, Kipling, Khorana, and Chandrasekhar should be included because they were born in British India and the entry for India in this article isn't only for the modern day Republic of India just as how entries such as Russia and Germany are.
Salam and Yunus can continue to be under Pakistan and Bangladesh too because on their official Nobel page it list three states. For Salam it shows born in ..., India (now Pakistan). While his residency at the time of receiving the award was in the UK.
So under the standards of this article and how it functions, we should include Ross, Kipling, Khorana, Chandrasekhar, as well as Salam and Yunus under India as well.76.71.73.39 (talk) 19:25, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

..Indent back

Actually you for Salam you can't include him under Pakistan as per the 'rules'. Only India and UK will be there. Or else, like Salam, Khorana and Chandrashekhar too will be under both India and Pakistan.

When did I say we should have entries on past political states! I was only using it just as an argument. God forbid that would be one serious mess.

I know exactly how this article does not work. Look closely what you suggested the rules are, at the beginning of our discussion. The other examples you gave are violating that as well. Let's take Konrad Bloch. He is listed under US (resident) and Germany (birth). But he was born in what is now Poland. He is not included under Poland because he was not ethnically polish. Marie Curie on the other hand was born in the Russian Empire. She is under Poland but not under Russia. Because she was not ethnically russian. This article, in reality, works depending on ethnicity and country that represents them and not as per the rules mentioned at the intro.

You cannot have it both ways. For Ross and Kipling, ethnically non Indians, if they come under India, Chandrashekhar and Khorana, both born and educated in Lahore, go out. British India had two successor states; India and (pre-71 breakup) Pakistan. That's what the Indian independence act says; Two dominions. No matter of wordplay will change that. If you leave Ross and Kipling out, you can have Salam and Yunus with asterisks. But then Pakistan will also gain Khorana and Chandrashekhar, alongside India, with asterisks. --Iball (talk) 07:04, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

Okay, I think we may have finally come close to a decision. As you said last, we should keep Ross and Kipling out as they were not ethnic Indians while Khorana will Chandrasekhar and stay with India (and US) only while Pakistan keeps Salam and Bangladesh keeps Yunus - not shared with India because you mentioned that this article in reality works depending on ethnicity and the country that best represents them. I say we leave the laureates for Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan intact as they currently are.76.71.73.39 (talk) 19:10, 9 July 2015 (UTC)
Thank you. That's settled then. --Iball (talk) 05:46, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

World map, problem with colors

Despite France having 60+ Nobel Prizes, its color is wrong. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.234.239.24 (talk) 20:14, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

Henry Kissinger

I'm in an edit war with user N0n3up who keeps removing Germany as Henry Kissinger's place of birth: Kissinger was important in US politics, and by adding "born in Germany" would make him less American. (N0n3up (talk) 21:09, 9 October 2015 (UTC))

I don't see why Kissinger needs an exception. Someone want to help me here? Czolgolz (talk) 21:14, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

The way I see this it does not make him any less an American. I do see others under United states that states born elsewhere. Its done throughout the article infact. I have to agree with Czolgolz in this case. Reb1981 (talk) 21:42, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

Is this too controversial an article to continue?

Just my thoughts. A lot of controversy in this article: who was born or brought up where and when and did that country even exist then? Might it not be better to delete the article? Just a thought. Juan Riley (talk) 23:13, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

List authoritative?

What surprises me is that Ernest Rutherford is listed as a Canadian Nobel prize as well as a UK Nobel Prize. We know Rutherford's track record. His reality was British Physics and he ruled it for quite a while. He had studied in Canada but he was a citizen of New-Zealand and the UK, so how can be also be listed as a Canadian Nobel Prize winner? Putting him amongst Canadian Nobel Prize winners strikes me as especially disingenuous. TonyMath (talk) 08:03, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

TonyMath:Welcome to a page guaranteed to cause warring. Try to just be amused and pass on. Juan Riley (talk) 02:21, 13 November 2015 (UTC)

Economics 2.0

The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences is not a Nobel Prize, it was already said here, but an issue remains. The Laureates for economics are not marked in Italics, as I would expect by the introduction, which clearly sais, it is a related prize, but not the nobel itself. Furthermore does the name of the article say "list of Nobel laureates by country" and not "List of Nobel and Nobel Memorial laureates by country". If that is the intention, everything can stay as it is, but a list for Nobel laureates only, changes the situation. Right now, they count just as regular Nobel Prize winners, although they are clearly not. It must be considered to handle or indicate them in a different way than the current one.Mulhollant (talk) 02:12, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

Brasil?

This page doesn't list Brazil. Yet, the page List of countries by Nobel laureates per capita, to which it is linked, attributes one laureate to Brasil. Which one is right?

The country

Read the introduction. People's nationalities are listed, as well as their country of birth, if different. This has grown confusing in several instances, due to ambiguous nationality, immigration, national boarder changes, etc. Czolgolz (talk) 04:21, 6 July 2017 (UTC)
We need some rules and logic here.
  1. OK, as intro tells, the present list ranks laureates under the country/countries that are stated by the Nobel Prize committee on its website (ref). Yes, this is reasonable. For example, this tells: "Affiliation at the time of the award: University of Strasbourg, Strasbourg, France". Should we use that? It also tells: Some laureates are listed under more than one country, because the official website mentions multiple countries in relation to the laureate and it gives this as an example. Well, this is a little confusing because it tells in the head only "Germany". Text below does mention Princeton, so Germany and USA might be reasonable. It also tells if a country is merely mentioned as the place of birth, an asterisk (*) is used in the respective listing to indicate this. Yes, sure, that's how it is currently indicated for Albert A. Michelson in "USA" section.
  2. There can be a slightly different logic, which is more consistent with WP policies. If someone was described in RS as an "American-British-Israeli" scientist, for example, then he should be included for all these countries. But if he was described as an "American scientist" in RS, that would be only USA.
  3. Another approach would be using the country where the awarded work has been actually accomplished. For example, using "Germany" here would be incorrect: the work was done in Switzerland, and he therefore correctly included in the Switzerland section on this page.

I think any of these rules works just fine, however, none of them relies on the place of birth. Yes, the place of birth can be indicated in parentheses, no problem. My very best wishes (talk) 16:09, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

I also removed that [10]. One can not rely on a single source (the website) for a WP page; that would be against WP:NPOV. My very best wishes (talk) 15:54, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

Map is incorrect, (or this page is)

In the maps index it says countries in black have 50+ lauriates but france is shown as part of the 29-49 selection, when on this page it states that France has 60+ lauriates

There are other examples of this

Could some one please update the map (of this page) ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Theo ducos (talkcontribs) 03:40, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

Eritrea?

Eritrea appears on the table at the start of this article, but there is no section on Eritrea's nobel laureate. Could this be rectified and this individual be named? --HighFlyingFish (talk) 05:00, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

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Wrong number in Summary part

I see a source [11]. The number of this source is totally different with current version of this article. For example, the number of Russian winner should be 23 not 26, the number of UK should be 132 not 130. I was really confused how you guys get the summary, by your own calculation? All figure of wikipedia should have source, you guys cannot just list number by your own calculation. I suggest use the number of this source https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/top-30-countries-with-nobel-prize-winners.html to replace current version.


New list & new article is needed about real sciences (Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicin,)

New list is needed about real sciences (Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicin, since economics is not entirelly science, it has parts which are mathematically theoretically provable, but the vast majority is mixture of philosophy and various political beliefs. I also suggest, we must ignore the second citizenships (adopted citizens). Yes, I know, in this strict way, the USA, UK, Germany and France wouldn't be in the top 10 nations.--Dwirm (talk) 16:28, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

Well I see your concern, but Nobel-prize is a Nobel-Prize, even if you can get it for your efforts on peace, thus even all fields - shall it be "real" science or not - could have a separate article. In my opinion, we should only make ignoration if citizenship & notability together does not hold for a person. I.e. Harsanyi is undoubtedly can be counted to Hungary and USA, but I doubt to Australia, as you could see in my edit.(KIENGIR (talk) 18:38, 15 November 2018 (UTC))

I must state: My concern is not against the existence of this article, just to create an other article with different criterias, with the usage of the existing references in this article, it wouldn't be hard to build up quickly.--Dwirm (talk) 10:20, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

Well, you'll need to establish a consensus for that, as well for the criterias.(KIENGIR (talk) 10:36, 16 November 2018 (UTC))

What will be the criterias of the new article? 1st: Only the country of birth and the country of the first university degree (which related to the field of the Nobel Prize) must be recorded, the fields are clear real (natural) sciences (Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicin) can be recorded there. No semi and pseudo sciences or debatable so-called "science" like economics can be recorded on that list. Yes, of course it is obvious for me, that US UK Germany France will be the great loosers of these very strict criterias, therefore there will be a huge resistance against it on the Wiki. What will be its title? List of Nobel laureates in natural sciences by country --Dwirm (talk) 18:57, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

I see. With your "1st" criteria I don't agree, but citizenship of a country & notability of a country. In case if there would be a support for splitting under the title you proposed, still we would have nobel prizes that would not be part of "real (natural) sciences"...what would you do with those, creating a separate article?(KIENGIR (talk) 22:43, 16 November 2018 (UTC))

What is the problem with the first criteria? It can filter out the countries where the scientists were not born not raised or not educated. Economics is not considered as a real science, since only small part of it had proveable mathematical formulas or only small part of it logically provable. A large part of it based political viewpoints ideologies and various fashion trends. It has nothing common with natural sciences.--Dwirm (talk) 14:41, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

The problem is that "first unversity degree" has no nationality, but citizenship has, as well notability of belonging to a nation reinforced by reliable sources. On the other, regardless who and what considers, you cannot eliminate officially that also Nobel Prize is given on those categories that you don't like, after all you did not really answer my question.(KIENGIR (talk) 22:06, 17 November 2018 (UTC))
This thread lost any sense when Economics were not considered a science... FkpCascais (talk) 22:54, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

First: I did not speak about this article, but a new separate article which is concentrate for real natural sciences. So this article will and can remain 100% untouched. However this article is good to copy references to the other new different article, which can function as a catalizatior thus it will make the new article easier to create. Second: Economics is a mixed knowledge, and it is only partially scientific (which part also contain mathematical formulas and logically proveable conclusions), however a large part of it follow political ideologies various belief systems (psychological factor of beliefs feelings) and often change by fashion trends.--Dwirm (talk) 09:59, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

I see, however FkpCascais made a good point. If you wish to create another article, you have to build consensus first for that and you should not alter anything based on any personal opinion or OR shall it be any criteria.(KIENGIR (talk) 10:53, 18 November 2018 (UTC))

IP edits

Dear IPs,

please stop recurrently adding/modifying content without consensus. Thank You(KIENGIR (talk) 15:26, 20 October 2019 (UTC))

Semi-protected edit request on 30 October 2019

Germany have 109 Nobels, France 70 177.54.76.225 (talk) 06:31, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. NiciVampireHeart 11:26, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Creating a table?

Potentially create a table with the laureates, year, prize won, and country of birth, nationality, and residence ~~