When Nobel Prize season arrives, scientists considered strong contenders often anticipate a call from the Swedish Nobel Committee. Among this year's Nobel laureates, however, some were caught completely by surprise while swamped with their daily lives, and one was even unreachable for a full day.
French-born Michel Devoret, Professor Emeritus at Yale University, who co-won the Nobel Prize in Physics for establishing the fundamental principles of quantum computing—a key future technology—received the news amidst his busy schedule. "I didn't even know it was Nobel season," he said in an interview with the French daily Le Monde on the 8th (local time). "When I heard the news, I thought it was a prank."
He continues his research at Yale while also working as a quantum technology advisor for Google. He explained that he has been leading a hectic life, which includes forming a new research team in Santa Barbara.
"Quantum computers have not yet been commercialized, so I am honored that the committee highly valued our fundamental research," Professor Devoret said.
The incident of a laureate being 'out of touch' and other modest reactions also drew attention.
Fred Ramsdell, an advisor at Sonoma Biotherapeutics and co-winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering the operating principles of the human immune system and proposing a cancer therapy, became a topic of conversation for being unreachable on the day of the announcement. This was because he was hiking in the Rocky Mountains with his cell phone on airplane mode. He was finally reached 20 hours after the Nobel Committee's first attempt and reportedly had 200 missed messages congratulating him.
Due to the nature of the Nobel science prizes being announced during the daytime in Sweden, laureates in places with significant time differences, such as the United States, are often not reached in real-time.
Richard Robson, an 88-year-old professor at the University of Melbourne in Australia and a co-winner of the Chemistry Prize, told Reuters, "I recently quit drinking for health reasons, but I had a glass of very cheap wine (to celebrate)."
