Which Nobel-Prize Winning Scientist Are You Most Closely Connected To?

Question

This week's Example Profile of the Week is Alfred Nobel, whose birthday is October 21st, and is known as the namesake of the Nobel prize.

Featured alongside him are some scientists who have been honored with a Nobel prize in science:

• Albert Szent-Györgyi
• Niels Bohr
• Wilhelm Roentgen
• Marie Curie
• Sir Alexander Fleming
• Howard Florey
• Henri Becquerel
• Barbara McClintock

Who are you most closely connected to? If you're one of the 20,687,000 of us who are connected to each other on our big tree you can check with the Connection Finder.

You can also check for shared ancestors with the Relationship Finder. Are you a cousin to any of them?

Let us know below!

P.S. Help us choose and improve profiles for next week's feature: Dracula!

Comments

I'm 22 to Barbara Mcclintock

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Stephen Binkley my uncle

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I've added a second connection for Henri Becquerel which may shorten the connection path for some members (a little).

Answer 1

I am most closely connected to Barbara, Howard and Marie at 26 degrees.

• 26 degrees from Marie Curie
• 26 degrees from Howard Florey
• 26 degrees from Barbara McClintock
• 28 degrees from Niels Bohr
• 31 degrees from Alec Fleming
• 31 degrees from Albert Imre Szent-Györgyi
• 33 degrees from Alfred Nobel
• 36 degrees from Wilhelm Roentgen
• 42 degrees from Henri Becquerel

Answer 2

I am most connected to Howard Florey at 26 degrees.

Answer 3

I'm 12 degrees from Alfred Nobel.

Answer 4

My connections:

Henri Becquerel - 38

Wilhelm Roentgen - 33

Alfred Nobel - 31

Sir Alexander Fleming - 29

Albert Szent-Gyorgyi - 26

Marie Curie - 23

Niels Bohr - 22

Howard Florey - 21

Barbara McClintock - 20 (also 18th cousins)

Answer 5

I'll take the women.

18 degrees from Marie Curie

18 degrees from Barbara McClintock

Comments

I'm related to Kay Knight, which means I'm 17 degrees from Barbara McClintock (my 9th cousin) and 21 degrees from Marie Curie (connected through her son-in-law's first wife).  The men are all more distant, but the farthest is Henri Becquerel, whose uncle's wife's sister's daughter's husband's brother's grandson's wife is my first cousin, six generations removed.  No risk of shared DNA (or genius) there.

Answer 6

Marie Curie, Barbara McClintock, and Howard Florey are all at 21 for me.  McClintock is an 11th cousin twice removed.

Many scientists have profiles but are not connected yet.  Anyone looking for a project might want to look at this list of Nobel-winning physicists where you can see which have profiles and which are connected.  The page is not automatically updated, but I try to check it occasionally.  You can probably ignore the text at the top and just go to the table.

Some of the more famous names who are not connected include Chandrasekhara Raman (spectral lines), Erwin Schrödinger (of the cat), Enrico Fermi (nuclear reactor), Wolfgang Pauli (exclusion principle), and Richard Feynman (Feynman diagrams, a little of everything, space shuttle o-ring diagnosis, and amusing behavior).  Of course all of them did more that I could mention here.

Extra credit for Raman, because you'll get his nephew Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar in the package.

Comments

I totally adored Richard Feynman and read his work when I was in grad school. I have no doubt he was a fab teacher. I also recall seeing a video, likely PBS, where he casually showed what happened with the O-rings on the space shuttle! Manufacturer issue! Books got me into some critical thinking...'Surely You're Joking..." and 'QED.'

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Friends would describe the "Feynman effect".  After an hour of inspiring lecture you would feel ready to conquer physics.  Then you would sit down with a homework set and find it as baffling as ever.

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Hahahahahahahahaha! Surely your joking!

(Just joking a la Feynman)

Answer 7

First (and likely only) time I'm in single digits with anyone: I'm 5 degrees from Albert Szent-Györgyi. (He was my father-in-law's first cousin.)

Everyone else is the usual 30- or 40-something steps, except Henri Becquerel, who's all the way at 50. The irony is that they're all through Albert's third (and shortest) marriage.

Comments

Well, good for you at 5 degrees! I wonder who dreams these categories up and why do they always check to make sure i'm at least 20 steps away from anybody? Whatever happened to 6 degrees of separation?

Answer 8

19 degrees from Barbara McClintock.

Answer 9

Barbara McClintock is a 9th cousin. I still find degrees a strange concept given the often quite circuitous route those follow.

Answer 10

The closest connection from that list is Barbara McClintock...

She's my 8th cousin three times removed. :-D

~Brian Kerr

Answer 11

20 degrees from Barbara McClintock, 8th cousins 3x removed, MRCA William Randall b. 1609 (Randall-8)
22 degrees from Howard Florey
24 degrees from Marie Curie
25 degrees from Niels Bohr
28 degrees from Alec Fleming
29 degrees from Albert Imre Szent-Györgyi
31 degrees from Alfred Nobel
33 degrees from Wilhelm Roentgen
38 degrees from Henri Becquerel

Answer 12

Robynne is
30 degrees from Alfred Nobel,
40 degrees from Henri Becquerel,
24 degrees from Niels Bohr,
25 degrees from Marie Curie,
18 degrees from Alec Fleming,
22 degrees from Howard Florey,
33 degrees from Albert Imre Szent-Györgyi,
23 degrees from Barbara McClintock,
32 degrees from Wilhelm Roentgen
13 degrees from Chandra Garrow  (Member of the Week)  We are 6th Cousins

Answer 13

37 degrees from Henri Becquerel
31 degrees from Alfred Nobel
31 degrees from Wilhelm Roentgen
28 degrees from Alec Fleming
28 degrees from Albert Imre Szent-Györgyi
23 degrees from Niels Bohr
22 degrees from Chandra Garrow
22 degrees from Marie Curie
21 degrees from Howard Florey
18 degrees from Barbara McClintock (17th cousins, 2x removed).

History is awesome!  :-)

Answer 14

Patrick Blackett is my second cousin

Answer 15

Not such a connected week for me:

Marie Curie 21 degrees; Barbara McClintock 22 degrees; Howard Florey 24 degrees; Niels Bohr 25 degrees; Alec Fleming 29 degrees; William Roentget 30 degrees; Alfred Nobel 31 degrees; Albert Imri Szent-Gyorgyi 31 degrees;  Henri Becquerel 36 degrees.

Barbara McClintock is a 23rd cousin 2x removed through Thomas Dutton (1214-1272) so far back almost not worth mentioning.

Answer 16

28 degrees from Alfred Nobel

39 degrees from Henri Becquerel

25 degrees from Niels Bohr

22 degrees from Marie Curie

30 degrees from Sir Alexander (Alec) Fleming

21 degrees from Howard Florey

  Howard Florey  Florey-29, his wife, Margaret Augusta Fremantle  Fremantle-44, 14th cousins once removed  Robert Tailboys  Tailboys-39

30 degrees from Albert Imre Szent-Györgyi

18 degrees from Barbara McClintock, 16th cousins once removed  Roger Wentworth  Wentworth-8

30 degrees from Wilhelm Roentgen

22 degrees from Chandra Garrow, 13th cousins twice removed  Thomas Wheeler  Wheeler-39

Answer 17

I picked a nobel prize winner and started their profile - https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Powell-18459

so far he isn't connected to the tree.

His mother was Bisacre - an unusual name  - and her family are from the Cotswolds, so we might be able to find a connection there. His g-grandfather is https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Dauncey-16 - another rare name - anyone here into Dauncey?

His uncle married into a prominent family in Glasgow - the Blackies- I'm adding them, but no connection yet.

His wife's father was Austrian - I don't know those sources well enough....

HELP! anyone with an interest in this - please jump in and add away.

Comments

woot! turns out his grandmother was already here as Hartnup-2

merged and sorted!

Answer 18

18 Degrees from Barbara McClintock

Answer 19

21 from Howard Florey and 22 from Marie Currie. 

26 from Chandra (for all of them the colour changes a lot of times)  

Answer 20

I am 15 degrees from Henri Becquerel. The next are Marie Curie, Niels Bohr and Howard Florey at 23 degrees.