The Nobel Prize is probably the top recognition in the fields of Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature and Peace. Certainly a tremendous amount of attention and prestige are associated with an award of the Prize. Very few people - limited by a maximum of three a year in any discipline - receive a Nobel. The club of Nobel laureates is therefore quite exclusive.
In this post I will discuss a club which is even more exclusive - the collection of individuals who have been awarded two Nobel prizes. There are just five of them. These are such high achievers that even a Nobel prize could not stop them!
Marie Curie was the first person to win two Nobel prizes. So far she is the only scientist to win the Nobel for two different sciences. She received a quarter of the first one, in Physics, shared with her husband Pierre Curie (the two of them got half the Prize; Henri Becquerel got the other half), for her studies of radioactivity, in 1903. The second one, in Chemistry, she was the sole winner of, for the discovery of the elements Radium and Polonium. This was awarded in 1911. There are several biographies of her; and also a recent biographical drama film.
John Bardeen is the only person to have won two Nobel prizes for physics. The first one he shared with William Shockley and Walter Brattain, for the invention of the transistor, in 1956. The second he shared with Leon Cooper and Robert Schrieffer for their ('BCS') theory of superconductivity, in 1972. I have downloaded his biography and will probably post a blog on it once I finish reading.
I have read two interesting stories about Bardeen's prizes, both unconfirmed (if anyone has a definitive source, please let me know; I will, of course, look for them in the book). The first one is that he was apprehensive about receiving the prize for the transistor in 1956 as he had solved superconductivity - along with Cooper and Schrieffer - recently, and wanted to receive the Prize for that accomplishment. He accepted after he was reassured that the first Nobel would not interfere with the second.
The second story was that he brought only one of his three children to the ceremony in Stockholm in 1956. The Swedish king reproached Bardeen for this, and Bardeen replied he would bring all three children with him the next time. He did.
Frederick Sanger won the Nobel prize for Chemistry twice. The first time he was the sole winner, for his work on insulin, in 1958. The second time he won half the Prize (Paul Berg and Walter Gilbert shared the other half), for studies of nucleic acids, in 1980. His obituary in Science provides a cover of his contributions; the one in PNAS is also quite good. A fairly extensive interview, with interesting comments on his playing fullback in soccer, is available here.
Karl Barry Sharpless won the Nobel prize in chemistry twice. The first time he shared it with Ryoji Noyori and William. S. Knowles for "chirally catalysed hydrogenation reactions", in 2001. The second time he shared it with Carolyn Bertozzi and Morten Meldal for "the development of click chemistry and bioorthogonal chemistry", in 2022. Sharpless talks about how he works, here.
Linus Pauling was the only person to win two unshared Nobels. The first one was in Chemistry awarded for his work on the chemical bond, in 1954. The second one was for Peace, in the context of de-escalation of the nuclear arms race, in 1980. Pauling describes his career and experiences in this interview.
Has anyone won the Nobel prize three times? No individual has, only the Red Cross.
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