Statement of Values,

and Their Relationship to Getting a Nobel Prize

Donald J. Cram

A decade before I received the Nobel Prize, a fellow scientist whose research accomplishments in some ways resembled mine, was so honored. At that time, it did occur to me that our work might also be so honored, although the chance seemed remote. However, shortly after this, scientists from various parts of the world started asking me to send them my bibliography and reprints of our publications because they wished to nominate me for a Nobel Prize in Chemistry. I obliged them, but continued to feel the chances of my being selected were small, given the large and growing number of excellent scientists who were good candidates. As our research prospered, we thrust further and further into the new field of "structural recognition in complexation of organic compounds." The external requests for bibliography and biographical materials for nominating purposes continued to come in, and grew in numbers, until in l987, I along with two others was honored with the Prize, an outcome which continues to surprise me. I really had not expected the nominations to be successful, particularly because our work involved pioneering a new field of basic research (host-guest complexation chemistry) rather than inventing something of immediate and obvious use to mankind.

My view of the Nobel Prizes in the Sciences is that they are an ongoing international celebration of the contributions that chemistry, physics, physiology, and medicine have made and are continuing to make to world culture and civilization. Much of the harshness and many of the fears have been removed from the human experience in many parts of the world as a direct result of scientific research. The direct personal impact the Prize had on me was to extend my research career into a sixth decade. Our research results of the last five years are the best we have obtained. Getting the Prize was the stimulant which smoothed the way for our latest efforts. It has also thrust me into interesting new situations involving challenges outside of the sciences.
By the time my undergraduate education was complete, I had developed a core of values. These were a synthesis of what my mother had taught me as a child, the messages passed on to me by the authors of the classics I had read as an adolescent, and four courses in philosophy that I took in college. The challenges of supporting myself from the age of 16 years added a dimension of practicality to what otherwise might have been a highly romanticized view of life. I learned very early by experience and from bad examples what to avoid, but most importantly, I learned the importance and satisfaction in fully submerging myself in the idea and practice of research. My mature life has been almost fully invested in research - the best research I am capable of doing - and of sharing these inquiries into "what is possible" with my co-workers and students. Carrying out our research requires a great deal of faith, since we are only about 20% successful. To me, the meaning of life is and has been a positive response to the challenge of making some tiny contribution to the knowledge of mankind and of our environment. Receiving a Nobel Prize has been very gratifying, but this satisfaction pales in comparison to that associated with beautiful results obtained from beautifully designed experiments.