125 Years of the Nobel Prize... The Boundaries of "Discovery" Are Shifting [Capturing 125 Years of the Nobel Era]

Thousands Collaborate, Joined by AI
Criteria for Credit Grow Complex as Validation Takes Even Longer

Over the 125 years that the Nobel Prize has recorded the greatest achievements in science, the meaning of "discovery" has constantly evolved, making the distinction between discovery and contribution increasingly complex.

According to a recent analysis published in the international academic journal Nature, the gap between the main research achievements of Nobel laureates in scientific fields and the time of their award increased from an average of 14 years before 1960 to an average of 29 years in the 2010s—more than doubling. For example, Donna Strickland, who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2018, was honored for her work on Chirped Pulse Amplification (CPA), which was developed in 1985, only 33 years later. This extended period is attributed to the significant time required to confirm the significance and impact of achievements and to verify them through subsequent research.

The gap between the Nobel Prize rule of awarding up to three individuals and the reality of how scientific achievements are made today—by countless researchers, institutions, massive research facilities, and vast amounts of data—is also widening. For instance, large-scale collaborative projects involving thousands of researchers have emerged, such as the discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012 and the first direct observation of gravitational waves in 2015. In 2020, artificial intelligence (AI) was used to predict protein structures, solving a longstanding scientific challenge. However, under Nobel rules, only up to three individuals can be recognized. With AI now entering areas such as hypothesis generation and experimental design, distinguishing the contributions of AI developers, scientists utilizing AI, and researchers validating the results has become a new issue.

The 125-year history of the Nobel Prize is not filled with glory alone. There are numerous cases where the contributions of women, researchers from non-Western regions, and scientists working outside the central academic community have only been recognized belatedly.

Ahead of the announcement of this year's Nobel Prize winners starting on October 5, The Asia Business Daily interviewed scientists directly involved in the Nobel selection process, as well as renowned scholars from institutions such as Yale University, Northwestern University, and Germany's Max Planck Institute, to ask how the meaning of "discovery" in modern science is changing.

Despite working in different fields, their responses revealed a common theme: scientific discovery can no longer be explained by the spark of a single individual's idea alone; it is born from the collaboration of numerous researchers and the accumulation of knowledge over extended periods. The emergence of AI is introducing yet another shift. The time has come to rethink everything—from the criteria for distinguishing between the originator and the contributor of a discovery, to the methods used to verify and recognize scientific achievements.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.