Things you must not say

[rubato]

The medal was the first Nobel Prize to be put on sale by a living recipient.

Why do they keep repeating that mistake? Neil's Bohr sold his to support the Finns against Hitler.


Yrs,
Rubato

[MajGenl.Meade]

Technically (and very narrowly) he didn't "sell it", if this information is correct. He donated it and so did August Krogh.

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/about/medals/

(D)ocuments in the Niels Bohr Archive in Copenhagen show that Niels Bohr's Nobel medal, as well as the Nobel medal of the 1920 Danish Laureate in Physiology or Medicine, August Krogh, had already been donated to an auction held on March 12, 1940 for the benefit of the Fund for Finnish Relief

http://crescentok.com/staff/jaskew/ISR/ ... aregia.htm

The same is documented in the book Nobel Prize Winners in Physics By Arun Agarwal

[rubato]

so you are saying that donating it to be sold and the proceeds to go to Finnish relief is different from selling it and giving the proceeds to Finnish relief?


In what universe?


“There are no differences but differences of degree between different degrees of difference and no difference.”

― William James




yrs,
rubato

[MajGenl.Meade]

It's an English language thing. Do you agree that "too cheap" is the same as "should be more expensive"?

Bohrs didn't "sell" it. He donated it. Someone else sold it. As I stated, it was a technically narrow point. It is also not the main one - which is that TWO people donated their medals, not one as you stated.

What? Surely you don't criticize other people for what you believe to be a factual omission without expectation of being held to the same standard?

[Big RR]

the actual quote was

The medal was the first Nobel Prize to be put on sale by a living recipient. (emphasis added)

Bohr's medal, regardless of how it got to them, was put on sale by the Fund, an organization and not the recipient of the medal. A silly distinction, IMHO, but one the writers likely chose to make.

[Lord Jim]

What? Surely you don't criticize other people for what you believe to be a factual omission without expectation of being held to the same standard?

[MajGenl.Meade]

the actual quote was

The medal was the first Nobel Prize to be put on sale by a living recipient. (emphasis added)

Bohr's medal, regardless of how it got to them, was put on sale by the Fund, an organization and not the recipient of the medal. A silly distinction, IMHO, but one the writers likely chose to make.

Exactly Big RR. But again, that wasn't the main point. rubato criticizes the media for failing to say that Bohrs' medal was the first to be put on sale (no matter by whom) when he himself failed to say that August Krogh's medal was also put on sale at the exact same time. In fact, it may have been sold first - who knows?

To save anyone the bother, Krogh died in 1949.

[Big RR]

True, and if I recall correctly, Francis Crick's (one of Watson's 2 partners in the Prize) medal was sold by his estate after his death (I'm sure there are others). Watson's was the first to be sold by a living recipient; Bohr's and Kroh's were the first to be sold (by an organization) during their lifetimes; other medals (including apparently Crick's) were sold after the recipient's death.

[rubato]

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No, I did not say that Bohr was the first I said that Watson was not the first because (at least) Bohr preceded him.

If Krogh and Bohr both sold their medals that is just as well. (Claiming that giving them to another entity who sold them is different than selling them is inane.)

yrs,
rubato

[MajGenl.Meade]

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No, I did not say that Bohr was the first I said that Watson was not the first because (at least) Bohr preceded him. If Krogh and Bohr both sold their medals that is just as well. (Claiming that giving them to another entity who sold them is different than selling them is inane.)

yrs,
rubato

Watson isn't the first living person to sell his prize medal; Neils Bohr sold his to send support to the Finns.

(a) Gosh! I said all that, did I?
(2) The implication of your post (quoted above) is clearly that Bohr was first, given that Watson isn’t. However, it is granted you probably did not mean to imply that and the sentence can be interpreted your (new) way. Bohr and Krogh didn’t sell their medals though, and you hate the fact.
(iii) No, it's not inane - it's accurate. Your effort to pretend that" Bohr sold his" is the same thing as "Bohr gave his away to be sold" - that's hardly surprising.

[Lord Jim]

The next time you tell me to "get a room" with poison dwarf, I'm afraid I'm going to have to respond by saying that the only way I can do that is if you lend me your room key-card...

[MajGenl.Meade]

The next time you tell me to "get a room" with poison dwarf, I'm afraid I'm going to have to respond by saying that the only way I can do that is if you lend me your room key-card...

But I'm not just calling him names (that's why he lets me in.. )

[rubato]

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No, I did not say that Bohr was the first I said that Watson was not the first because (at least) Bohr preceded him. If Krogh and Bohr both sold their medals that is just as well. (Claiming that giving them to another entity who sold them is different than selling them is inane.)

yrs,
rubato

Watson isn't the first living person to sell his prize medal; Neils Bohr sold his to send support to the Finns.

(a) Gosh! I said all that, did I?
(2) The implication of your post (quoted above) is clearly that Bohr was first, given that Watson isn’t. However, it is granted you probably did not mean to imply that and the sentence can be interpreted your (new) way. Bohr and Krogh didn’t sell their medals though, and you hate the fact.
(iii) No, it's not inane - it's accurate. Your effort to pretend that" Bohr sold his" is the same thing as "Bohr gave his away to be sold" - that's hardly surprising.

No, that is not the implication. The implication is that Watson was not the first.

And by any rational use of language Bohr and Krogh did sell their medals even if through an intermediary.
"Bohr gave his medal to someone to sell for him" is the same as "he sold it" to any reasonable person.


yrs,
rubato

[BoSoxGal]

Wow, some of you have a real hard on for rubato!

[Gob]

And by any rational use of language Bohr and Krogh did sell their medals even if through an intermediary.
"Bohr gave his medal to someone to sell for him" is the same as "he sold it" to any reasonable person.


yrs,
rubato

No, they did not.

There are many rumors of what happened to the Nobel medals of three Nobel Laureates in Physics during World War II: the medals of the Germans Max von Laue (1914) and James Franck (1925), and of the Dane Niels Bohr (1922). Professor Bohr's Institute of Theoretical Physics in Copenhagen had been a refuge for German Jewish physists since 1933. Max von Laue and James Franck had deposited their medals there to keep them from being confiscated by the German authorities.

After the occupation of Denmark in April 1940, the medals were Bohr's first concern, according to the Hungarian chemist George de Hevesy (also of Jewish origin and a 1943 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry), who worked at the institute. In Hitler's Germany it was almost a capital offense to send gold out of the country. Since the names of the Laureates were engraved on the medals, their discovery by the invading forces would have had very serious consequences. To quote George de Hevesy (Adventures in Radioisotope Research, Vol. 1, p. 27, Pergamon, New York, 1962), who talks about von Laue's medal: "I suggested that we should bury the medal, but Bohr did not like this idea as the medal might be unearthed. I decided to dissolve it.

While the invading forces marched in the streets of Copenhagen, I was busy dissolving Laue's and also James Franck's medals. After the war, the gold was recovered and the Nobel Foundation generously presented Laue and Frank with new Nobel medals." de Hevesy wrote to von Laue after the war that the task of dissolving the medals had not been easy, as gold is "exceedingly unreactive and difficult to dissolve." The Nazis occupied Bohr's institute and searched it very carefully but they did not find anything.

The medals quietly waited out the war in a solution of aqua regia. de Hevesy did not mention Niels Bohr's own Nobel medal but documents in the Niels Bohr Archive in Copenhagen show that Niels Bohr's Nobel medal, as well as the Nobel medal of the 1920 Danish Laureate in Physiology or Medicine, August Krogh, had already been donated to an auction held on March 12, 1940 for the benefit of the Fund for Finnish Relief (Finlandshjälpen). The medals were bought by an anonymous buyer and donated to the Danish Historical Museum in Fredriksborg, where they are still kept. Regarding the Nobel medals of von Laue and Franck, the Niels Bohr Archive has a letter from Niels Bohr dated January 24, 1950, about the delivery of gold to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm relating to these two medals. The proceedings of the Nobel Foundation on February 28, 1952, mention that Professor Franck received his recoined medal at a ceremony at the University of Chicago on January 31, 1952.

They donated their medals they did not sell them.

The medal was the first Nobel Prize to be put on sale by a living recipient.

"Put on sale by", do you understand English Aspergers boy.

[MajGenl.Meade]

And by any rational use of language Bohr and Krogh did sell their medals even if through an intermediary.
"Bohr gave his medal to someone to sell for him" is the same as "he sold it" to any reasonable person.

No, you remain 100% wrong. A foolish consistency is the poison dwarf of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. I encourage you dear rubato to speak hard words today and tomorrow speak other hard words, even at the risk of contradicting yourself.

Case (A)
If I sell a good through a third party, I get the money, less commission/fee if any. I may then choose to give my proceeds to some other person or organization. I sell the good - I donate the proceeds

Case (B)
If I give my good to another person, free of any obligation to myself, I have given the good away gratis. When that person trades the good for a medium of exchange known as "money", it is they who have "sold" the good that was donated. I donate the good - someone else sells it.

Astute readers will note that Case A and Case B are contradictory - A is not equal to B and B is not equal to A.

Therefore, Watson is the first living recipient of a Nobel to sell or to "put on sale" his medal. Note that he did this through a third party, an auction house charging commission. Watson has declared that he will retain most of the remaining proceeds and donate the balance to a good cause. This is case (A) above.

What Neils (no apostrophe, rube) Bohr did conforms to Case (B). He neither sold the medal nor did he "put (it) on sale."

If one chooses to regard A and B as a form of thesis/antithesis, then of course the synthesis is that the medal was sold and the money went to a good cause, courtesy of Messrs. Bohr and Krogh.

Since this larnin' rubato his letters is both tiresome to me and to the readers, he is sent to the corner. We declare victory and cease this Bohring (and fruitless) endeavor