This is the time of year that the Nobel Foundation in Sweden starts announcing the latest group of Nobel Prize winners.
For most of these laureates, the Nobel is the honor of a lifetime, even if getting a hold of some fo them to tell them about the award is a whole extra effort.
To back up a little: the Nobel Prizes are named for Alfred Nobel, who was best known as the inventor of dynamite.
In his will, Nobel said most of his fortune should be put into a trust to be used for “prizes to those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind.”
That’s what the Foundation has done every year since 1901.
They choose winners in the six categories, and then they let the world and the winners know that they’re winners.
In modern times, the Foundation often reaches out through a phone call, but sometimes that works better than at other times.
Today in 2020, the Nobel people were trying to reach Stanford professor Paul Milgrom to let him know that he was one of the winners of that year’s Economics Prize.
But Milgrom was asleep and his phone was in Sleep Mode, so he wasn’t getting the calls.
Fortunately his colleague and co-winner, Robert Wilson, did answer.
And since he was also Milgrom’s neighbor, he let the Foundation know that he’d pass along the message.
As captured on a video doorbell, Wilson knocked and rang several times until Milgrom woke up and answered, only to learn that the two of them were Nobel Prize winners.
Milgrom can be forgiven for his sleepy and short reaction of “Wow.”
This weekend in Goffstown, New Hampshire, it’s the Giant Pumpkin Weigh-Off And Regatta.
Locals not only grow huge pumpkins, they then turn them into boats which they race on the river.
I’ve been there and it’s definitely a gourd time.
Doorbell camera captures moment Nobel Prize winner is told he won (NBC News)
