October is Nobel Prize season, an annual period when scientists in the fields of physics, chemistry , and medicine eagerly await to see who will win a giant gold coin in Stockholm later that year. Even economists get their turn in the spotlight in these. But mathematicians, much to their dismay, are left out in the cold. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.

There is, and never has been, a Nobel Prize for mathematics. And no, despite the urban legend , Alfred Nobel didn’t spitefully snub the field because his love interest, an Austrian woman called Sofie Hess, had an affair with the famed mathematician Gösta Mittag-Leffler. The real reason is far less sensational, though perhaps more telling about Nobel himself.

Alfred

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