Nobel Prize Winners’ Unforgettable Moments: When Life-Changing Calls Go Unanswered
As the 2025 Nobel Prize announcements rolled out last week, one of this year’s new laureates was blissfully unaware that his life had just changed. American immunologist Fred Ramsdell didn’t learn he had won the Nobel Prize in Medicine until several days after the announcement because he was camping off the grid, with no cell signal and his phone on airplane mode. In an interview with the Nobel Committee afterward, Ramsdell recounted that he had been camping in the wilds of Wyoming with his wife when the news broke.
As they drove through a small town, his wife’s phone suddenly lit up with notifications, prompting her to scream. At first, he thought a grizzly bear was nearby. Instead, she was reacting to the news that he had just won the Nobel Prize. It would still take an hour before Ramsdell could confirm the news. “We had to drive another hour to get to where I could get cell service and WiFi,” he said. “We checked into a little hotel in southern Montana, and I got online and started making phone calls.”
Missed Calls and Unexpected Notifications
Ramsdell’s co-winner, Mary E. Brunkow, also missed her moment—though for a more modern reason. She ignored the call from Sweden, assuming it was spam. “My phone rang, and I saw a number from Sweden and thought, well, that’s just spam of some sort, so I disabled the phone and went back to sleep,” Brunkow told the committee. She only learned of her award hours later when an Associated Press reporter showed up at her door asking for an interview.
The Nobel Committee’s strict confidentiality rules—and the time difference between Stockholm and the rest of the world—have long made reaching winners a logistical headache. Each year, the committee scrambles to deliver the news before the announcement goes public, but as history shows, success is hardly guaranteed. In 2021, David MacMillan, one of the Chemistry laureates, also brushed off his first contact from Stockholm. “I got a text from someone in Stockholm where my name was wrong, and I assumed it was a prank,” he said.
Unconventional Notifications: A Look Back
In 2021, Literature laureate Abdulrazak Gurnah hung up on the Nobel Committee, assuming it was a cold call. He wasn’t fully convinced until he read the announcement on The Swedish Academy’s website. In his conversation with the Nobel Committee afterward, Gurnah admitted he was completely unprepared for the news. “I was just thinking, ‘I wonder who’ll get it. I thought it was a prank, I really did,” he said.
In 2016, Bob Dylan didn’t return the Nobel Committee’s calls for days. Emails went unanswered, calls weren’t returned, and even his representatives couldn’t immediately confirm he was aware of the news. When he finally did respond, he described the award as “amazing, incredible,” and said the news had left him “speechless.” In 2013, Physics laureate Peter Higgs deliberately avoided the spotlight, going for a walk in Edinburgh and avoiding his home phone to evade the attention that came with the award.
These stories highlight the unpredictable nature of notifying Nobel Prize winners. Despite the committee’s best efforts, some laureates remain unreachable, while others are caught off guard by the news. As the Nobel Prizes continue to recognize outstanding contributions in various fields, these anecdotes serve as a reminder of the human side of these prestigious awards.
Image Source: observer.com
