In his new book “Losing the Nobel Prize: A Story of Cosmology, Ambition, and the Perils of Science’s Highest Honor,” cosmologist and inventor of the BICEP (Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization) experiment, Dr. Brian Keating, an astrophysicist with UC San Diego’s Department of Physics and a member of the San Diego Air & Space Museum's Board of Directors, tells the inside story of BICEP2’s mesmerizing discovery and the scientific drama that ensued.

In “Losing the Nobel Prize,” an adventure story that spans the globe from Rhode Island to the South Pole, from California to Chile, Dr. Keating takes the reader on a personal journey of revelation and discovery, bringing to vivid life the highly competitive, take-no-prisoners, publish-or-perish world of modern science. Along the way, he provocatively argues that the Nobel Prize, instead of advancing scientific progress, may actually hamper it, encouraging speed and greed while punishing collaboration and bold innovation. In a thoughtful reappraisal of the wishes of Alfred Nobel, Keating offers practical solutions for reforming the prize, providing a vision of a scientific future in which cosmologists may, finally, be able to see all the way back to the very beginning.

Dr. Keating, who will be speaking at the Dove Library in Carlsbad, California, on June 7, recently shared his thoughts on “Losing the Nobel Prize.”

What was the impetus behind “Losing the Nobel Prize: A Story of Cosmology, Ambition, and the Perils of Science's Highest Honor?”
“It was written as a ‘How To” guide. Not how to lose the Nobel Prize, but how to handle adversity in the face of striving greatly. Anyone who has ever tried to win a Nobel Prize or an Oscar or something like that and came up short of the ultimate golden ring or brass ring, is really who my audience is selected to be. People who aspire to great things often don’t achieve them. So how do you handle the emotion, the let-down of not getting into the promised land, so to speak.”

What do you think Alfred Nobel would think of how the Nobel Prizes are decided today?
“I think he would be pretty much aghast of what’s become of it. He really intended...the Will he wrote that endowed the Nobel Prize...was sort of like the Constitution of the United States. It was meant to be a living document, ironically, for a Will. But nevertheless it was meant to have the ability to be updated and modified as the pace of science and research changed. Yet it’s barely really been updated for the 20^th Century, let alone the 21^st Century. So I think he would quite startled, and I assume he would not be in favor of what has become of it. Some of the evidence I have of that is his great grand-nephew – Alfred had no children and he wasn’t married – so his next of kin was really the Will. But his biological next of kin, his brother’s great grandson, Peter, ended up suing the Nobel Committees for misappropriating the name of Alfred Nobel for what used to be called the Nobel Prize for Economics and is now called the Swedish Central Bank Prize in Honor of Alfred Nobel. The rebranding of that prize was meant to be a rebuke to the committee for abusing the name of Alfred Nobel in a way to suit their political and ideological agendas. All of the Nobel Prizes have seen some form of controversy that nobody has really written about. The hard science prizes, the chemistry prize and the physics prize, my specialty, that nobody has written about until this book. I hope this will have an impact on the prize and the process, and most importantly on young people interested in science and engineering.”

What are one or two practical solutions for reforming the Nobel Prizes?
“So one thing it doesn’t allow is for groups of people to win it. There was nothing about the original Nobel Prizes that prevented groups of many, many people from winning it. So right now, at most three people can win it. Just as a point of reference, last year’s Nobel Prize in Physics went to three people who led an experiment of 1,048 experimentalists detecting waves of gravity from a distant collision of two Black Holes. I think it was significant because it really left out a thousand-plus people, any of which who may have deserved the prize.

“Worst of all, the Prize now also neglects the contribution of people who pass away, even if it is hours before the ceremony. Technically they are not allowed to win it posthumously. That’s a big problem because it causes them to rewrite the way science history played out, because they won’t give it to someone who is dead, even if that person was the sole person who is responsible for enabling the experiment or theory that won the prize.

“So those are two very practical kinds of suggestions for reform that the committee could take into consideration, if they chose to.”

In layman’s terms, what is Cosmology?
“Cosmology is the study of the origin of the universe. Everything that has come after the Big Bang. And in theory, it could actually extend to what happened before the Big Bang. So what happened to cause our universe that we see now that unfurls around us to come into existence. Whether there was a universe that pre-dated our universe, and whether there is a universe in addition to our universe that we can’t directly access currently. These are very, very important topics to cosmologists such as myself who build telescopes to look for the imprint of what the early universe was like and to see what the future universe might be like. What will happen in the distant future?”

Do you believe scientists have glimpsed physical evidence of the Big Bang?
“So we believe that there was at least one Big Bang, and we believe, my colleagues and I, the data in our field is very persuasive -- that the universe has an origin, at least one point in time, when it began expanding extremely rapidly. The question is, ‘What caused that expansion? ’The roiling debate in our field right now is, ‘Is the universe that we inhabit the only universe, or are there other universes? And if there are other universes, how we might go into their existence?’ It might be that our universe is not the only universe. This is a theory called the Multiverse that I discuss in the book. Because the implications for everything from philosophy, to religion and theology, really hang in the balance of this question as to whether our universe is the only unique universe that ever was, will be, or has been.”

What would you say to someone who is skeptical about the Big Bang Theory?
“I would say there is very little evidence to suggest that the Big Bang did not occur, and that any skepticism would not be driven from a place of scientific data. It would be an emotional reaction at this point. Just because we call it a theory; we call many things a theory, but it doesn’t mean they are not proven in fact. Pythagorean Theorem is very well proven. Einstein’s Theory of Relativity is among the most precisely tested theories in the world. Those same theories allow you to navigate using your smart phone’s GPS. Because if those theories that describe the physics of space time, which is the domain in which cosmology takes place, if those were to change even by a few parts per billion, your smart phone wouldn’t work and you wouldn’t be able to get to where you needed to go on your GPS. The very fact that we have aircraft and all sorts of things that navigate using these satellite systems is a real testament of the non-malleability of what we call the ‘theory.’ Just because we call it a theory doesn’t mean that it has not been proven.

“On the other hand, there are other things that are called theories that have less evidence for them. I think sometimes people conflate the words ‘theory’ as ‘disproven,’ and I think that’s incorrect.”

What do you hope people get out of “Losing the Nobel Prize”?
“I hope people will understand that it is okay to strive greatly and attempt to achieve great things. Even if you don’t succeed, enjoy the journey and DON’T have ‘get-there-itis,’ as we pilot’s say. The destination, whether it be your flight’s destination, or whether it's going to Stockholm to collect a golden medallion with Alfred Nobel’s picture on it, is less important than the journey .”

For more, visit www.briankeating.com

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