JBS Haldane Lecture - Massimiano Bucchi: Geniuses, Heroes and Saints

In 1996, a committee of British experts rejected the application for funding submitted by Prof. Harold Kroto for his research. Two hours later, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences issued its own verdict, awarding the Nobel Prize for chemistry to Robert Curl Jr, Richard Smalley and Harold Kroto ‘for their discovery of fullerenes’. The British committee hurriedly reconvened and reversed its decision, this time granting the funding to Kroto. The British chemist, in fact, had now entered the narrow circle of so-called ‘visible scientists’, that elite of researchers on whom awards like the Nobel Prize confer almost unassailable prestige and a reputation able to open every door.

Prof. Bucchi - Professor of Science in Society and Science Communication at the University of Trento, has written about this conference of prestige in his book 'Come vincere un Nobel', to be published in English by MIT later in 2019. Prior to this publication, Prof. Bucchi visited STS to give his talk on the subject, and to answer questions from the assembled audience.

Following brief introductions from Head of Department Prof. Joe Cain, and Associate Professor Emily Dawson, Prof. Bucchi began with the Kroto story above, and progressed through the history of the Nobel Prize and its effect on the public image of science and scientists. Covering James Watson, Abba, Einstein and Sophia Loren, Prof. Bucchi's talk was both concise and fascinating.

A video recording of the event should be made available in the coming weeks. Future STS talks can be found on the STS Events page - or sign up to our Mailchimp list.