Above: 2010 chemistry winner Richard Heck and his chair.
Congratulations to American scientists Robert J. Lefkowitz and Brian K. Kobilka for winning the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2012. You’re truly the Phelps and Lochte of studying G protein-coupled receptors.
In addition to achieving fame, however fleetingly, outside of their chosen field, Lefkowitz and Kobilka have a lot of other goodies coming their way. Well known are the gold medals bearing Alfred Nobel’s noble visage, a personal diploma handed out by the King of Sweden himself, and all that sweet, sweet cash money. Less popularly known are the fringe benefits, like the freedom to vandalize. You heard that right: At the Nobel Museum in Stockholm, any Nobel winner is allowed — nay, encouraged — to slap their John Hancock on the underside of the museum cafe’s chairs. How’s that for recognition?
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2011 Nobel Prize for Economic Sciences winner
Christopher Sims hams it up while his co-winner,
Thomas Sargent, looks on. Photo via
The Nobel Museum celebrates the achievements of all 826 individuals and 20 organizations who have won Nobel Prizes, which is both impressive and totally overwhelming. No matter how worldly you think you are, and even if you assume that you’ll spend your entire day’s visit sharing insights on Toni Morrison, everywhere you look in the museum there’s information on some obscure genius like Walther Nernst whose work makes you look like an idiot.
So after hours of having your mind blown/humbled by legions of smart people, you retire to the cafe, Bistro Nobel, where simpleton and scholar alike can enjoy Nobel Ice Cream. But the desserts for the Nobel laureate are much sweeter: When they finish with their vittles, they’re encouraged to sign their chairs.
Yes, visiting Nobel Prize winners actually do this—and from the most cursory of research it looks like the chemistry winners do this the most often. Visiting No Prize winners get to flip the chairs and see who signed them, although when this reporter visited, the cafe was pretty full of Austrian tourists and he didn’t get to flip anything.
World-famous writer Mario Vargas Llosa, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature 2010, seen at the Bistro Nobel writing his name. Photo via
According to a possibly-apocryphal Trip Advisor post, only once was this elite circle breached, by a man who knows something about having a lot but going for a little bit more: Bill Clinton. No one asked him to sign a chair, but it seems he just wanted to, and then did.
Which goes to show that charm gets you pretty much everywhere, even if it doesn’t get you a diploma from a king (depending on your politics, maybe it does). In any case, here’s to you Drs. Lefkowtiz and Kobilka. We raise our chairs to you.
Ei-ichi Negishi won the chemistry prize in 2010 along with heck. Now he holds chairs. via
