Nobel Medal obverse

one of the fathers of the A-bomb, for discovering the neutron in 1932. This award is one of the most significant imaginable 20th Century historical objects. It is not only of museum quality, but is of the quality that museums are built around, and is of a magnitude that could warrant the creation of a museum with this as the collection's central object. Chadwick's discovery is generally considered one of the greatest discoveries ever, and was listed by Time Magazine as one of the 100 milestones of the 20th Century.

Normally, Nobel medals and diplomas of this magnitude are considered national treasures and remain in the hands of the recipient's family or are displayed prominently in a national museum. A good example of the treatment accorded to Nobel Prizes of this magnitude is the story of the George Marshall 1953 Nobel Peace Prize at the George C. Marshall Museum on the campus of the Virginia Military Institute. In this case, the Marshall family has temporarily lent this Nobel Prize to the H.S. Truman Presidential Museum, where this object became the most important piece around which the museum exhibit revolves, as is reflected on its web site .

The Chadwick Nobel is the only Nobel medal for sale on the world-wide web, and would be appropriate as the backbone of a museum illustrating the history and destiny of cutting-edge science, just as the Marshall Nobel is the focal point of the Marshall WWII museum. We at Awards of Outstanding International Importance would be interested in hearing of any example of an available 20th Century object to equal this Nobel Prize in its combination of: historical importance, long-term value, name-recognition, (as a household word) rarity, (deserved) prestige, and physical and aesthetic impressiveness, (see Chadwick page for letter from Dr. B. Feldman on diploma's splendid quality) save for Master works of art selling for tens of millions of dollars. It should go without saying that this Nobel set is more significant than the Mark McGuire home run record baseball, which brought $2.7 million at auction, despite this ball's obvious lack of world-treasure status. (A good day for our culture it will be when a Nobel Prize is known to have sold for more than this baseball.)

All experts on Chadwick's era in physics regard him as having lived an exemplary, interesting, and historically important life. Without Chadwick's discovery in 1932, nuclear fission, and thus the A-bomb, would have been achieved too late to be used against Japan to decide the end of WWII; thus the U.S. and U.S.S.R. would probably have ended up undeterred from later waging nuclear war against each other. Until recently, Chadwick's major contribution to the success of the Manhattan Project, including in his role as Senior British Advisor, had been obscured by his tendency to shun the limelight. He has since been described as having been Project chief Gen. Groves' viceroy among the scientists, and he wrote the decisive MAUD Report, which persuaded FDR to launch the Manhattan Project, in 1941.

   His Nobel set is the most important one likely to appear for sale for the foreseeable future; those more important are where they should be, in museums or other major institutional archives. All knowledgeable persons consulted by us agree that the only Nobel up for sale since WWII, which perhaps compares to Chadwick's, was Fleming's, (medal only, for discovering penicillin) which was withdrawn from a 1988 Sotheby's sale, and is now held as a state treasure in a British museum.
    Chadwick's key role is aptly portrayed by: (1) the title of a major biography by Dr. Andrew Brown, The Neutron and the Bomb; (2) a chapter therein, "The scientist-diplomat" (Chadwick was the first, and greatest, as a novice); (3) a U.K. review thereof ("How the Bomb's creator learned to love the United States"); (4) a U.S. review thereof ending with "like the neutron he discovered, Chadwick moved unnoticed - but with awesome power;" and (5) numerous comments about his role in the birth of atomic power by American statesman McGeorge Bundy, in his book Danger and Survival: Choices about the Bomb in the First Fifty Years.    Chadwick always wanted his discovery of the neutron to contribute to cancer treatments.    His preference for anonymity led him to concede iconic status as the Bomb's creator to the limelight-addicts Oppenheimer (not a Nobel Laureate, and unknown until his role at Los Alamos) and Einstein, (barred from the Manhattan Project as a security risk) despite the length and depth of Chadwick's involvement and contribution, which at minimum matched those of anyone.   That Einstein, not Chadwick, is seen as the Bomb's grandfather owes to Einstein's 1939 letter to FDR (warning that a Bomb was possible) being more famous, but less influential, than Chadwick's research. (Britons resent Americans' bent to ignore Britain's indispensable role in one of the mega-events of human history, the birth of atomic power.)
    Chadwick worked from a shoestring budget, using a cyclotron bought partly with his Nobel Prize money, while the Nazis were bombing his U. of Liverpool physics dept. and the rest of the city, in Spring 1941; conditions for Oppenheimer, etc., at Los Alamos were utterly blissful compared to those in 1941 Liverpool.    Few stories, esp. in the history of science, exceed this in its combination of high stakes and dramatic appeal.   U.S. officials delayed expenditure on a Bomb, until Chadwick, whose judgement as an important Nobel Laureate they most respected, had personally verified this investment's viability.   As supervisor of all atomic researchers in Britain since June 1940, he was designated to write the final draft of the vital MAUD Report, which held that a Bomb was "not only possible, but inevitable;" presentation of MAUD to Roosevelt in Fall 1941 led FDR to order launching of the Manhattan Project, which more than any other factor would define the U.S. to be a superpower.   Respected Bomb scholar R. Rhodes notes that Allied statesmen's real doubts, regarding this unprecedentedly-costly proposal's viability, required them to have unprecedented trust in their scientists' judgement; thus Chadwick was one of the decisive movers of the 20th Century.
    It was the expenditure of Chadwick's Nobel Prize money, toward the cyclotron used in his historic 1940-41 experiments, which probably put his daughters in the financial position which led to them selling their father's Nobel Prize medal and diploma, rather than their donating it to a museum, as is usually done with such Nobel sets; this Nobel Prize . is . unique . in . the circumstances . leading to its appearance on the world market .    Chadwick's Nobel is a world treasure, worthy of being the focus of a museum. As gilt Best-Picture Oscars bring $15,000- $1.5 million, what might the best gold & hand-painted Nobel set be worth?

    We are very interested in any information anyone might be willing to provide as to the history of transactions involving any Nobel Prize medals or diplomas, eg. in private sales or obscure auctions.

Those with information or questions can telephone J. Schramek in the U.S. at 773-539-5751; the e-mail is: buynobel@sbcglobal.net.

We have passed the centennial year of the Nobel Prize, the world's most prestigious award almost from its inception, and the first to aim to not discriminate on the basis of nationality; 2001 saw pertinent celebrations and related exhibits around the world. Already completed, or under construction, are Nobel museums in both Stockholm and Athens. In this 100 year period, 719 Prizes were awarded, 162 to physicists. The other categories are peace, physiology or medicine, literature, economics, and chemistry. Each Laureate receives a medal, a diploma, and, today, over $1 million if one person is the sole winner in a category; as many as three persons can split this money if, unlike Chadwick, it is decided to honor more than one person in a category. The results for each category are determined by a separate committee of five persons, subject to ratification by a relevant Swedish institution; in the case of physics, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, some 300 strong, have this final say.

As Dr. B. Feldman has pointed out, (in his comprehensive critical history, The Nobel Prize: a History of Genius, Controversey, and Prestige) the prestige of the Nobel Prize is in large measure due to its emphasis on science, which, after all, has accomplished so many dramatic results in the last 100 years. Since physics is the science which has had the most stupendous achievements in this period, the Physics Prizes have particularly brought fame to the Nobel institution. Thus the Physics Prizes are the most highly regarded; the decisions as to who should become Literature laureates have been much more critically received by serious students of these issues.

Locations of Nobel Prize Medals of the most significant Laureates

Neils Bohr......................Danish Historical Museum, Fredriksborg , Denmark
Jimmy Carter.................(still living) Carter Library ,................ Atlanta, USA
Sir Winston Churchill.....Chartwell (Churchill's home) ........... ......... ........ UK
Marie Curie.....................(both at) Curie Museum ,............... Warsaw, Poland
Dalai Lama, XIV.............(still living)
Albert Einstein.................Hebrew University ,....................... Jerusalem, Israel
Enrico Fermi.....................University of Chicago ..................................... USA
Sir Alexander Fleming.....National War Museum of Scotland, Edinburg, UK
Mikhail Gorbachev..........(still living)
Martin Luther King Jr......M.L. King Center ............................. Atlanta, USA
Mother Teresa..................Mother House ................................. Calcutta, India
George C. Marshall..........Virginia Military Institute .............................. USA
Theodore Roosevelt.........The White House ............................................ USA
Earl Bertrand Russell.......McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada Lord Ernest Rutherford....Nelson Museum ..................... Nelson, New Zealand
George Bernard Shaw......National Museum of Ireland ,........... Dublin, Ireland
Woodrow Wilson...............Woodrow Wilson House, Washington, D.C., . USA

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Sources include:
English, James, The Economy of Prestige: Prizes, Awards, and the Circulation of Cultural Value (Harvard, 2005)

Feldman, Burton, The Nobel Prize: a History of Genius, Controversey, and Prestige (Arcade, 2000)

Marcou, Giorgio, Alfred Nobel: His life and works ( Hellenic Nobel Museum, Athens, 2003)

ManadsJournalen, Alfred Nobel (Bonniers Specialtidningsforlag AB, 1998) color illus.

Nobel Foundation, Nobel Foundation Directory, published each year by Sturytreckeriet-AB, Stockholm
.
Nobel Prize Annual, 1988- (various publishers)

Ohlmarks, Åke, Nobel-pristagarna (Stureforlaget Aktiebolag, 1969) # 746 of 999, inscr. to Agda Berglund

Royal Coin Cabinet, Nobel Medals (Stockholm, 2001)

Shalev, Baruch H., 100 Years of Nobel Prizes (Americas Group, 2002)

Other books included (about Chadwick and his milieu):

Atomic Heritage Foundation, Symposium on the Manhattan Project: Preliminary Proceedings -- . April 27, 2002 (also incl. is VHS tape of C-SPAN coverage)

Biographical Memoirs of the Fellows of the Royal Society 22 (1976) including:
Massie, Harrie, & Feather, Norman, "James Chadwick," 66 pages

Brown, Andrew, The Neutron and the Bomb (Oxford, 1997)

Brown, Anthony Cave, etc., ed. The Secret History of the Atomic Bomb (Dial Press, 1977) incl. Smyth, Henry DeWolf, Atomic Energy for Military Purposes, (Official U.S. Govt. report, 1945)

Bundy, McGeorge, Danger and Survival: Choices About the Bomb in the First Fifty Years (Random . House, 1988)

Cathcart, Brian, The Fly in the Cathedral: How a Group of Cambridge Scientists Won the International Race to Split the Atom (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005)

Chadwick, James, Radiativity and Radioactive Substances (Pitman, 1934)

______________, (with E. Rutherford and C.D. Ellis) Radiations from Radioactive Substances . (Cambridge, 1930)

Clark, Ronald W., The Birth of the Bomb: the revealing history of the international race to develop the weapon that changed the world (Horizon, 1961)

Crawford, Elizabeth, The Nobel Population 1901-1937 (U.C. Berkeley, 1987)

Goldhaber, Maurice, “Reminisces of the Cavendish Lab in the 1930’s”, 16 March 1998 Physics Colloquium, U.C. Berkeley

Gowing, Margaret, Britain and Atomic Energy 1939-1945 (Macmillan, 1965) the official history

Groueff, Stefane, The Manhattan Project: The Untold Story of the Making of the Atomic Bomb (Little Brown, 1967)

Groves, Gen. Leslie, Now It Can Be Told (Harper, 1962)

Hendry, John, Cambridge Physics in the Thirties (Adam Hilger Ltd., 1984)

Nobel Foundation, Les Prix Nobel en 1935 (P.A. Norstedt & Söner, 1937)

Pais, Abraham, Inward Bound: of matter and forces in the physical world (Clarendon, 1986)

Preston, Diana, Before the Fallout: From Marie Curie to Hiroshima (Walker, 2005)

Rhodes, Richard, The Making of the Atomic Bomb ( Simon & Schuster, 1988)

Shamos, Morris H., Great Experiments in Physics (Holt Rinehart & Winston, 1959)

Stocker, Mark, Golden Atoms: The Ernest Rutherford Medals (Canterbury U., 1999)

Szasz, Ferenc, British Scientists and the Manhattan Project, (St. Martin's, 1992)

Weinberg, Steven, The Discovery of Subatomic Particles (Scientific American Library, 1983)