100 Years of the Nobel Prize Comes to the Valley

05.08.08 | Category: Simplicity, Valley History


Nobel Laureate Martin Perl, Smithsonian Institution's Arthur Molella, Drue Kataoka, and TECH Museum President Peter Friess

“This exhibit was carried around by Indian elephants,” said Peter Friess, President of The TECH Museum of Innovation, on a gala evening celebrating “100 Years of the Nobel Prize” and its installation at The TECH. Traveling through India, China, Egypt, and now Silicon Valley, the exhibit was conceived in the spirit of the Nobel Prize as an international project. Watch video of Friess talking here (or embedded below).

How it Began – A Treasure Hunt

Nobel Laureates, TECH board members, and media listened as Friess explained the genesis of the exhibit. Arthur Molella, Director of the Smithsonian Institution’s Lemelson Center in Washington D.C. and Friess, then at the Deutsches Museum Bonn, collaborated as “key leadership team members” to launch the exhibit. Friess and Molella developed a unique concept for their two institutions. They distributed treasure hunt maps for museum visitors. Visitors were invited to discover the Smithsonian and the Deutsches Museum by searching for Nobel related objects. Interestingly, added Friess “[t]hose two institutions – the Smithsonian and Deutsches Museum combined probably held more Nobel objects than anywhere else in the world.”

10 Years Later

10 years later Friess and Molella realized their vision for the “100 Years exhibit.” Currently on display at the TECH (until May 23), it includes life-size Avedonesque photos of Nobel Laureates by German photographer Volker Steger and video displays.

1995 Nobel Laureate in Physics Martin Perl and 1980 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry Paul Berg spoke eloquently about “100 Years.”

Zen Wisdom from a Nobel Laureate

I’ll take away a conversation with Martin Perl as a highlight of the evening. His eyes sparkled as he shared this Zen wisdom:

“I like to make something simple, or make the results simple. I don’t like complicated stuff.”

View photos from the evening here

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6 Comments so far

  1. Anonymous Coward 05.08.08 at 5:01 pm

    Fun video. I don’t know if your text overlays qualify as zen, but they’re definitely amusing. Which makes me wonder about the relationship about zen and humor: do they naturally co-exist? Are certain types of raucous humor innately un-zen? Or does a meta-zen require a certain balance of non-zen elements in one’s life?

  2. Elena Danielson 05.09.08 at 12:23 pm

    Hi Drue, I went to a Nobel centennial exhibition in Stockhom at the Nobel Museum
    in 2001. It emphasized the concept that certain cultures incubate
    creativity, such as one school in inter-war Budapest that produced a
    disproportionate number of genius-level scientists. I talked with one of them,
    who said they were not born geniuses, the school cultivated science and math the
    way some American schools cultivate football. Malcolm Gladwell has a piece on
    scientific innovation in the current issue of the New Yorker, the one with the
    robot on the cover. A certain creative magic works in Silicon Valley, but here
    the task is to be open to new ideas and positive connections without becoming
    swamped with superfluous or negative notions. Kind of like pruning.- Elena

  3. Aliya 05.09.08 at 4:35 pm

    Great video; love the quote as interesting to see Zen principles applied to the Nobel Prize, and indeed simplicity lies at the heart of most innovation.

    The best form of innovation is the simple idea that makes you wonder why no-one came up with it before!

    Best,
    Aliya

  4. sandra 05.09.08 at 10:39 pm

    Collaboration and History:mmm. they are made for each other.

    Gathering historical facts is made a lot easier through collaboration.

    Just think if you could go to a website: enter a subject and then meet up with everyone in the world who wants to collaborate and design joint ventures. Design it. You know who you are: the world is waiting.

    Thank you Drue

  5. Bill Fenwick 05.12.08 at 12:38 pm

    Elena,

    Your comment is most appreciated. Your published contributions and efforts to reconcile privacy and freedom of information have helped to enlighten many of us that have been struggling to find and implement, either the balance or integration, of those precious rights. Zen’s emphasis on collaboration and positive attitudes hopefully will assist in creating an altrustic atmosphere which is nurtured by the innovative hi-tech accomplishments of the Valley.

    Publication of your thoughts on the impact, negative or positive, of the market system in supporting such innovation would make for a wonderful post on ValleyZen or any other medium you might choose.

    I hope we can foster a free flowing dialogue on principles that will assist us all in working our way through the tensions between privacy, freedom of information and innovation that concern many of us.

  6. Drue Kataoka 05.15.08 at 10:53 pm

    @ AC – Humor is Zen because it breaks your expectations!

    @ Elena – Great perspective. Here is the US, a football game is an intergenerational experience with teens, kids and even babies in the stands absorbing the sports ideals at an impressionable age. There’s a nerf football in every other backyard waiting at home for instant replays. However, sadly museum and concert audiences are not as intergenerational. Exposing young people to the fine arts at such a frequency is not as valued, and the infrastructure to provide that exposure is non-existent compared to the sports infrastructure.

    I agree that the product should not be a surprise upon closer examination of the soil from which it has sprung.

    @ Aliya – wondering why no one came up with it before, yes!

    @ Sandra – Yes…Collaboration is a creative dialogue that can lead to new breakthroughs.

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