Ответ от Zmicer

"The Prize's Rite

Claim: No Nobel Prize is awarded for mathematics because a mathematician was
carrying on an affair with Alfred Nobel's wife.

Status: False.

Origins: The renowned Nobel Prize is the legacy of Swedish chemist, inventor,
and industrialist Alfred Nobel, whose 1895 will specified that most of his
fortune be set aside to establish a fund for the awarding of five annual prizes
"to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest
benefit on mankind." The first Nobel Prizes were distributed on 10 December 1901,
the fifth anniversary of Nobel's death, for achievements in the fields specified
by Nobel: physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, and peace. (A prize for a
sixth category, economics, was added by the Bank of Sweden beginning in 1969.)

In the century since the Nobel Foundation was established, many have speculated
on the reasons why Alfred Nobel did not provide for a prize to be awarded for
achievement in the field of mathematics. Surely an eminent man of science such
as Alfred Nobel could not simply have forgotten about mathematics, so he must
have had a good reason for omitting it. With no obvious reason at hand, people
invented one, and as usual the invented tale had a bit of salaciousness to it:
Alfred Nobel deliberately avoided establishing a prize for mathematics out of
vindictiveness because a prominent Swedish mathematician was carrying on an
affair with his wife.

The "wife" theory is easily discounted, since Nobel was never married. Some
variations of the legend claim it was Nobel's fiancйe or mistress who was
carrying on the affair, with her partner in infidelity identified as the eminent
Swedish mathematician Gosta Mittag-Leffler. Nobel reportedly did have a mistress,
a Viennese woman named Sophie Hess, but there is no evidence she ever had
anything to do with Mittag-Leffler. Another version of the legend maintains that
Nobel bore animosity towards Mittag-Leffler for some other reason, and he
therefore avoided establishing a mathematics prize because Mittag-Leffler would
almost certainly have been one of its first recipients. However, this version
also has little factual evidence to support it, as:

It is difficult to establish a plausible reason why Nobel would have borne
resentment towards Mittag-Leffler, or even to demonstrate that Nobel had much of
any contact with the mathematician at all. True, they were both members of "Stockholm
educated society," but Nobel emigrated from Sweden in 1865 (when Mittag-Leffler
was still a student), only returned to Sweden about once a year (for his mother's
birthday), and established residence in Paris in the mid-1870s. An earlier will
of Nobel's had left 5% of his estate to Stockholm Hцgskola (later the University
of Stockholm), but a revision of the will a few years later eliminated this
bequest. Some have speculated that an internal feud between two factions at
Stockholm Hцgskola (one of which was led by Mittag-Leffler) or Nobel's dislike
for Mittag-Leffler resulted in Nobel's dropping the school as one of his
beneficiaries and passing over mathematics as one of the designated categories
for his prize, but the revision to Nobel's will eliminated similar bequests to
other educational institutions as well. Most likely Nobel simply changed his
mind after refining his ideas about the prizes he wanted to endow and decided to
put more of his fortune into that effort instead.

There was no guarantee that Mittag-Leffler would have been a recipient of a
Nobel Prize in mathematics. He was a gifted mathematician, and he had the
advantage of being a man of some influence with the Royal Swedish Academy of
Science (the institution designated to confer the prizes for physics and
chemistry, and presumably mathematics had there been such a prize), but there
were other highly regarded candidates as well, such as Jules Henri Poincarй and
David Hilbert.

The whole point of Alfred Nobel's benevolent legacy was to encourage and benefit
those who "have done mankind the greatest good," an altruistic effort which
would have been forever tainted if he had allowed a personal grudge to eradicate
any award for an important scientific category.
Okay then, so why did Alfred Nobel give mathematics a pass? There is no
definitive answer since Nobel didn't explain his reasons, but there are several
plausible possibilities:

Alfred Nobel established prizes for fields of endeavor that interested him, and
mathematics simply wasn't among them. Nobel had performed some excellent
development work in physics and chemistry, he had wide-ranging literary
interests, and ? most importantly ? he was an idealist who wanted to reward
those who did "most or best for the fraternization of peoples or abolition or
diminishing of standing armies, and for creation or propagation of peace
congresses." (In fact, Nobel's original will had provided for only a single
prize, which he especially desired would be given to those "who through writing
and actions can succeed in fighting the strange prejudices which both nations
and governments still have against the creation of a European peace tribunal.")
But other than as a necessary foundation for chemistry and physics, mathematics
was not a particular interest of Nobel's.

Sweden's monarch Oscar II, at the urging of Mittag-Leffler himself, had already
endowed a prize for mathematics. As Cooke wrote:

As professor ordinarius in Stockholm, Mittag-Leffler began a 30-year career of
vigorous mathematical activity. In 1882 he founded the Acta Mathematica, which a
century later is still one of the world's leading mathematical journals. Through
his influence in Stockholm he persuaded King Oscar II to endow prize
competitions and honor various distinguished mathematicians all over Europe.
Hermite, Bertrand, Weierstrass, and Poincare were among those honored by the
King.
Nobel may have been hesitant to compete with this established prize by creating
one of his own.

Nobel was interested in development work and specified that his prizes should be
awarded for "important discoveries and inventions." Mathematics was a field he
may have considered too theoretical to produce the direct practical benefits to
mankind whose discoverers he sought to reward.
Whenever a man's motivations for a course of action aren't clear, attributing
them to something sexual usually creates a tale both plausible and entertaining.
Which is what urban legends are about, after all."

Это ответ от пользователя Zmicer на вопрос: Правда ли, что Нобелевскую премию не даю по математике, т.к его возлюбленная предпочла математика ?

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