nobel prize | Matthew Dicks

I was stupid when I was young.

By Matthew Dicks | February 24, 2017 |

My daughter Clara – age 8 – in the midst of eating breakfast and watching Blues Clues, just asked me who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2016. “Are they talking about The Nobel Prize on Blues Clues?” I asked. “No,” she said. “I was reading something about inspirational people in the world yesterday. And…

Novelist Jose Saramago quit writing in 1953. Part of me wants to reach back in time and hug him. The other part wants to smack him.

By Matthew Dicks | February 14, 2015 |

Nobel Prize winning novelist José Saramago submitted the manuscript of Skylight – his first – to a Lisbon publisher in 1953. Receiving no response, Saramago gave up fiction altogether. His wife says that her husband fell into a “into a painful, indelible silence that lasted decades.” Saramago returned to fiction in 1977 and would eventually write…

Posthumous vindication sucks.

By Matthew Dicks | July 8, 2014 |

On this date in 1456, Joan of Arc was declared innocent for heresy. Unfortunately, she was declared innocent 25 years after she was burned at the stake. Being incorrectly burned to death is certainly worse than losing your bout with cancer and dying just hours before being announced as the winner of the Nobel Prize…

I did not like Doris Lessing’s response to winning the Nobel Prize

By Matthew Dicks | November 18, 2013 |

I was saddened to hear about the death of Doris Lessing. I read a lot of her work while in college and some of her short stories since then. I like her work a lot. That said, I wasn’t a fan of her response to winning to Nobel Prize back in 2007. While nonchalance can…

Spite is right

By Matthew Dicks | October 12, 2012 |

I’ve often said that spite is the best reason to do anything. Here is further evidence of this fact: British scientist John Gurdon is told by his high school teacher that there was no hope of him ever studying science, and that doing so would be a complete waste of time for him and anyone…