When you think of Nobel laureates, you probably picture scholars with flawless academic resumes. Yet history shows that a surprising number of these celebrated minds actually quit school early, proving that curiosity and determination can outshine formal credentials.

Why These Nobel Laureates Succeeded Without Formal Schooling

10 Joseph Brodsky

Joseph Brodsky entered the world on May 24, 1940, in Leningrad. By the age of 15 he had already walked out of the classroom, taking on a string of odd jobs while teaching himself Polish and English and beginning to write poetry.

He later spent time under the guidance of the legendary Russian poet Anna Akhmatova, but his outspoken verses earned him exile from the Soviet Union in 1972.

After landing in the United States, Brodsky published nine poetry collections, taught at Columbia University and Mount Holyoke College, and in 1987 received the Nobel Prize in Literature. He also co‑founded the American Poetry & Literacy Project with Andrew Carroll. A heart attack on January 28, 1996 ended his remarkable journey.

9 Arthur Henderson

Arthur Henderson was born on September 13, 1863, in Glasgow, Scotland. After his father died, his family fell into poverty, prompting him to drop out of school. He returned for three years following his mother’s remarriage, only to quit again.

He gleaned knowledge from the foundry where he apprenticed and from newspapers, joining the Ironfounders’ Union at 18 and quickly becoming secretary of the Newcastle lodge. His political career launched in 1892.

Henderson co‑founded the Labour Party in 1906 and served as its secretary for 23 years, later becoming foreign secretary in 1929. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1934.

8 Leon Jouhaux

Leon Jouhaux was born on July 1, 1879, in Paris. His father worked in a match factory, but a strike halted earnings, leading Jouhaux to be taken out of school. He transferred to another institution for a year before dropping out again to support his family.

He took a job at the match factory, then joined the army, only to be called back when his father was blinded by white phosphorus exposure. After participating in his first strike, he was fired and later reinstated.

Jouhaux rose to secretary‑general of his local CGT union, toured the world delivering speeches urging unions to unite for peace, and became vice president of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions. In 1949 he presided over the European Movement. Arrested in December 1941 when France fell, he was liberated after 25 months. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1951.

7 Harry Martinson

Harry Edmund Martinson was born in 1904 in Jamshog, Sweden. Orphaned at a young age, he ran away from the institution that cared for him at 16 and went to sea, spending six years aboard various ships and working abroad.

Those seafaring adventures fueled his literary voice, with themes ranging from a harsh childhood to a deep love for nature and a fascination with science. Martinson shared the Nobel Prize in Literature with Eyvind Johnson in 1974.

6 George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw entered the world on July 26, 1856, in Dublin. After early tutoring from his clerical uncle, he bounced between local schools but despised structured learning, leaving school at 15 to start work.

In 1876 he moved to London to pursue a writing career, enduring a decade of rejection and relying on his mother and sister for support. Shaw later joined the Fabian Society, embracing socialism.

His early plays tackled social problems with sharp wit, gaining popularity for their comic relief. Shaw won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1925, and thirteen years later earned an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for the film version of his play Pygmalion.

5 Herbert C. Brown

Herbert C. Brown was born on May 22, 1912, in London and moved to the United States at age two. He excelled academically but dropped out after his father’s death. Realizing business wasn’t his path, he returned to school, eventually studying chemistry.

After a college closure, he transferred again before landing at the University of Chicago, where he earned his doctorate in 1938. As a research assistant at his alma mater, Brown helped synthesize volatile uranium (IV) borohydride and made numerous other groundbreaking discoveries.

Brown taught at several universities, became an honorary member of the International Academy of Science, and shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1979 with George Wittig. He suffered a heart attack and died in 2004.

4 Albert Camus

Albert Camus was born on November 7, 1913, in Algeria. Less than a year later his father was killed in World War I, and he grew up with his maternal grandmother and a paralyzed uncle in a cramped two‑room apartment.

He earned a scholarship to a prestigious high school but had to drop out because of tuberculosis. Undeterred, Camus moved out on his own, supporting himself while studying philosophy at the University of Algiers.

Passionate about theater—though his plays remain underrated—Camus became a journalist in France and rose to prominence as a literary figure. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature at age 44 in 1957 and died in a car accident less than three years later.

3 William Faulkner

William Faulkner was born on September 25, 1897, in Mississippi to a middle‑class family. He dropped out of high school but devoted himself to reading and self‑study, later receiving guidance from a family friend.

In 1918 he enlisted in the British military, returning home a few months later. Faulkner took a few university courses while publishing poems in campus newsletters, eventually producing a prolific body of novels written often in near isolation.

Renowned as one of the 20th century’s greatest writers, his work explored fundamental, sometimes violent, issues. Faulkner was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1949.

2 Jose Saramago

Jose Saramago was born in 1922 in a small Portuguese town. Although academically gifted, he left school for financial reasons, beginning work as a translator and journalist for Diario de Noticias.

His literary breakthrough arrived in his mid‑fifties with the novel Baltasar and Blimunda. He joined the Communist Party in 1969, was openly atheist, and famously avoided proper nouns, giving his characters nameless identities.

Saramago earned the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1988.

1 Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein was born on March 14, 1879, in Germany. An average student with a keen interest in science and mathematics, he left school at 15. To catch up, he later attended a Swiss school for his A‑levels before enrolling at the University of Zurich.

After moving to Bern, Einstein worked at the Patent Office while pursuing theoretical physics in his spare time. He published seminal papers on the special and general theories of relativity, among other breakthroughs.

Einstein received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921, later emigrating to the United States due to the rise of Nazi Germany. He spent his final years in Princeton and died in 1955.

The Nobel Prize is steeped in controversy, and this year’s roster of laureates adds fresh fuel to the fire. From accusations of genocide denial to sexual‑abuse scandals and glaring Eurocentric bias, the awards continue to split opinion. In this rundown we’ll unpack the ten most startling revelations that surround the Nobel’s storied history.

10 Shocking Facts About the Nobel Prize

10 Fritz Haber, the “Father of Chemical Warfare”

Fritz Haber stands among the most divisive Nobel recipients. To some, he is a brilliant chemist who revolutionised ammonia production; to others, he is the reviled architect behind Germany’s chemical‑warfare programme during the First World War.

Born into a Jewish family in Breslau – now Wrocław, Poland – Haber teamed up with Carl Bosch around the turn of the twentieth century to perfect a method for synthesising ammonia gas. This breakthrough underpins modern fertiliser manufacturing, feeding roughly half of the world’s population and saving billions from starvation. For this monumental achievement he received the 1918 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, while Bosch was honoured in 1931.

When the Great War erupted, Haber redirected his talents toward weapons development, heading the Chemistry Section of the German Ministry of War. He spearheaded the deployment of chlorine gas on the Western Front, earning the grim moniker “father of chemical warfare.” The lethal gas drifted across no‑man’s land, sinking into enemy trenches and suffocating soldiers. Estimates suggest over a million lives were claimed by chemical attacks during WWI. Haber also demonstrated how ammonia could be oxidised into nitric acid, a key ingredient for explosives.

9 Peter Handke, an Accused Genocide Apologist

The Nobel Prize in Literature frequently sparks heated debate, often framed as a clash of aesthetic preferences. Yet the controversy surrounding Peter Handke plunges far deeper, touching on matters of historical truth and moral responsibility.

Handke, an Austrian playwright, has been accused of championing Slobodan Milošević’s genocidal regime during the Bosnian wars. He publicly denied the Srebrenica massacre, the largest mass killing in Europe since WWII, in which more than 7,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were executed in 1995. Handke further inflamed the debate by suggesting that the atrocities in Sarajevo were self‑inflicted by the Bosnian Muslims to vilify Serbian forces.

The 2019 award ignited outrage among writers and activists worldwide. Figures such as Salman Rushdie, Slavoj Žižek and Jennifer Egan condemned the decision, with Egan describing herself as “dumbfounded” by a laureate who “uses his public voice to undercut historical truth and offer succor to perpetrators of genocide.” The literary community continues to wrestle with the implications of his selection.

8 Kary Mullis, the Narcotic Astrologer

Kary Mullis, a 1993 Nobel laureate in Chemistry, is as famous for his scientific breakthroughs as for his eccentric personal beliefs. He co‑developed the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), a technique that can amplify tiny amounts of DNA into millions of copies, revolutionising fields from forensic science to archaeology.

Beyond his Nobel‑winning work, Mullis cultivated a reputation for wild behaviour: he openly advocated LSD use, claimed a steadfast belief in astrology, and even alleged an alien raccoon abducted him. He also voiced controversial opinions questioning the link between HIV and AIDS. Despite these quirks, the Nobel Committee still deemed his contributions worthy of the highest honour.

7 Egas Moniz, Inventor of the Lobotomy

By today’s standards, the lobotomy feels more like medieval torture than a legitimate psychiatric treatment. Yet in the early twentieth century it was hailed as a cutting‑edge “cure” for mental illness, with roughly 20,000 patients in the United States undergoing the procedure.

Portuguese neurologist António Egas Moniz introduced the operation in the mid‑1930s, initially describing it as a “simple, always safe” technique. Early patients, however, suffered severe personality changes, some becoming child‑like, while others slipped into vegetative states. The procedure’s high‑risk side effects have since rendered it widely condemned as unethical.

Moniz received the 1949 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for pioneering the lobotomy, despite the limited scientific understanding of its consequences at the time. Some historians argue the award legitimised the practice, bolstering its popularity. Appeals to rescind the prize have been denied, with the committee asserting that the 1940s context offered no better alternatives.

6 Soviet Repression

Boris Pasternak, author of Doctor Zhivago, was announced as the 1958 Nobel Laureate in Literature. His novel, initially rejected by Soviet publishers for “malicious libel of the USSR,” soon gained traction abroad and was seized by the United States as anti‑Soviet propaganda, with the CIA distributing copies globally.

While Pasternak celebrated his accolade, Soviet authorities branded him a “literary weed,” subjecting him to intense press vilification. Under Nikita Khrushchev’s regime, he faced pressure to renounce the prize, ultimately being forced to decline it to avoid exile.

Similarly, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, awarded the 1970 Nobel in Literature, was barred from traveling to Oslo and later expelled from the USSR for treason, illustrating how the Nobel could become a flashpoint for Cold‑War politics.

5 Sexual Assault and Financial Misconduct

In 2018, Swedish cultural figure Jean‑Claude Arnault faced a torrent of allegations involving sexual assault and financial impropriety. The 72‑year‑old was accused of rape, assault, and harassment by eighteen women, while evidence also suggested he and his wife Katarina, a member of the Swedish Academy, leaked the names of several prize winners ahead of announcement.

The scandal escalated to the point where the Nobel Committee was compelled to cancel that year’s Literature Prize. Arnault, who boasted of being the unofficial “nineteenth member” of the Academy, was convicted of rape in October 2018 and sentenced to two years in prison.

4 Alexis Carrel, Surgeon and Eugenicist

Alexis Carrel, a French biologist, earned the 1912 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for pioneering work in transplant surgery. Three years later, amid World War I, he devised an innovative antiseptic treatment for wounds, cementing his reputation as a medical innovator.

However, Carrel’s legacy darkened in the 1930s when he published Man, The Unknown, openly endorsing eugenics. He argued that “desirable” women should exclusively reproduce with “desirable” men, while advocating the sterilisation or even extermination of “undesirable” individuals, including proposals for gas‑chamber disposal of criminals.

3 D. Carleton Gajdusek, Perverse Criminal

Daniel Carleton Gajdusek, an American physician, shared the 1976 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his research on infectious diseases. He famously linked the fatal brain disorder kuru among the Fore tribe of New Guinea to a ritual of cannibalistic consumption of human brains, a groundbreaking discovery in prion disease.

Despite his scientific acclaim and generosity—adopting around fifty impoverished Pacific children and funding their U.S. education—Gajdusek’s reputation collapsed in 1997 when two of his protégés accused him of sexually abusing under‑age boys. He pleaded guilty to molestation and served a one‑year prison sentence.

2 Aung San Suu Kyi, Apologist for Ethnic Cleansing

The Nobel Peace Prize has a long‑standing history of contentious laureates, from Henry Kissinger to the European Union. In recent years, Aung San Suu Kyi, awarded the prize in 1991, has become a focal point of debate.

In 2018, the United Nations released a damning report documenting the Myanmar military’s systematic persecution of the Rohingya Muslim minority. Findings detailed mass killings, gang rapes, and the forced displacement of over 700,000 Rohingya, many seeking refuge in Bangladesh.

As Myanmar’s de facto leader, Suu Kyi faced global criticism for defending the regime’s actions. Nevertheless, the Nobel Committee has refused to rescind her award, sparking ongoing controversy.

1 William Shockley, White Supremacist

William Shockley, a pioneering American physicist, launched the first silicon‑semiconductor laboratory in Mountain View, California, in 1956—a cornerstone of today’s Silicon Valley. That same year he received the Nobel Prize for his pivotal role in inventing the transistor, a device essential to computers, smartphones and the modern Internet.

Beyond his scientific triumphs, Shockley harboured extremist views. He became an outspoken white supremacist, promoting the notion of racial IQ disparity and advocating eugenic policies that would financially incentivise the sterilisation of “genetically disadvantaged” (i.e., Black) populations.

To win a Nobel Prize is one of the greatest honors in the academic world. Scientists, writers, politicians, journalists, and more are nominated each year to receive the coveted award at the Nobel Prize Ceremony, held in Stockholm. While the Nobel Prize Foundation’s committee is busy deciding who will be recognized for their outstanding contributions to society that year, another group is making selections of a different type.

The Annals of Improbable Research is a satirical magazine that publishes news of real but peculiar goings-on in the world of science. Each year, they celebrate individuals who have made a mark with their strange and humorous scientific research. This lighthearted award is designed to “honor achievements that make people laugh, then think,” and its ceremony is held at Harvard University every September.

Here are ten hilariously weird winners of the Ig Nobel award.

10 Researcher Lives as a Goat

In 2016, the Ig Nobel Biology Prize was awarded jointly to Charles Foster and Thomas Thwaites. Throughout his career, Foster, who is an Oxford University graduate, lived in the wild as a bird, a badger, a deer, an otter, and a fox. He explains that his motivation in all his research is to discover “who or what are we?” and “what on earth are we doing here?”

Thomas Thwaites, however, had his own reasons for building prosthetic leg extensions and traveling to the Alps to live among a herd of goats. He explains, “I tried to become a goat to escape the angst inherent in being a human. The project became an exploration of how close modern technology can take us in fulfilling an ancient human dream: to take on characteristics from other animals.”^[1]

9 Levitating Frogs

Andre Geim of the University of Nijmegen, the Netherlands, and Sir Michael Berry of Bristol University, England, won the prize in physics for their research into levitation. Using a Levitron, a device consisting of opposing magnets that interact to create a magnetic field, the researchers managed to levitate a living frog six feet (1.82 meters) into the air.

Frogs weren’t the only species to have a turn floating in mid-air, however. The researchers also caused a fish to levitate, as well as a mouse and some vegetables. Geim’s brilliant mind and out-of-the-box thinking have earned him the distinction of being the first person ever to be awarded the Nobel Prize, as well as the Ig Nobel Prize.^[2]

8 Management vs. Voodoo

In 2017, the Ig Nobel Economics prize was taken home by six researchers for their joint effort in discovering whether voodoo dolls could be used to help employees deal with their abusive bosses. The team states that it is natural for people to want to retaliate against mean management but also that direct retaliation may do more harm than good. The solution? Round up a large group of employees, give them access to voodoo dolls, ask the participants to name the doll with the initials of their boss, and go to town!

Using pins, pliers, and flame, the group was encouraged to punish the little playthings while thinking of a time they were wronged by their doll’s namesake. The results speak for themselves. After beating up their voodoo dolls, the participants experienced a reduction in their internal sense of injustice. Not to worry, though. None of the ills inflicted on the voodoo dolls affected management… we think.^[3]

7 Insect Stings on the Penis for Science

Justin Schmidt was jointly awarded the Physiology and Entomology prize for his mission to rank over 83 insects based on the painfulness of their sting. Outrageously, Schmidt took it upon himself to personally experience each and every sting. With the results of his research, he created the Schmidt Sting Pain Index, which sorted each creature on a scale of 1 to 4. Schmidt rated one of the most painful stings as coming from the bullet ant. He ranked its sting as a 4 and described it as “pure, intense, brilliant pain. Like walking over flaming charcoal with a 3-inch nail embedded in your heel.”

The other winner that year was Michael L. Smith. He conducted his research into the painfulness of a honey bee’s sting. Not just once but 28 times, all over his body, including the back of his knee, the arch of his foot, and his nipple. He then ranked their painfulness on a scale of 1 to 10. Smith stated that the most painful places to be stung by a bee were on the nostril, the upper lip, and the penis shaft.^[4]

6 Tanks for Solving a Parking Issue

It’s not only scientific researchers who are awarded for their ingenuity when it comes to the Ig Nobels. Arturas Zuokas, the mayor of Vilnius, Lithuania, in 2011, took to the streets to remedy the problem of luxury car owners parking illegally and blocking the city’s bicycle lanes. Using a tank-like armored vehicle, Zuokas was filmed joyfully rolling over an expensive-looking car, completely crushing it.

Available for viewing on YouTube, the narrator in the video states that a tank is the best solution to deal with drivers who think they’re above the law. Whether the action was genuine or a stunt remains to be seen but likely left local drivers wondering if parking illegally is worth the risk.^[5]

5 Narcissists and Their Eyebrows

The 30th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, which was held in 2020, was the first time the ceremony was hosted online due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Miranda Giacomin and Nicholas Rule jointly received the Psychology Prize. Their research was dedicated to discovering whether those with grandiose narcissism can be identified by only the thickness and density of their eyebrows.

The broader aim of the pair’s research was to potentially help others identify narcissists in their everyday lives and thereby know who to avoid. Throughout their experiments, the researchers claim that “distinctive eyebrows reveal narcissists’ personality to others, providing a basic understanding of the mechanism through which people can identify narcissistic personality traits with potential application to daily life.”^[6]

4 Do I Smell Bacon?

In 2014, a group of four researchers from the Detroit Medical Center in Michigan discovered that sometimes old treatments are just what the doctor ordered. For those who suffer from serious recurring nosebleeds, all manner of remedies have been tested over the years, mainly in the form of packing the nose with different materials.

In this particular case, the four researchers decided to give an old wives’ tale a try. And it worked. A patient’s serious nosebleed disorder was treated like this: “cured salted pork crafted as a nasal tampon and packed within the nasal vaults successfully stopped nasal hemorrhage promptly, effectively, and without sequelae.” If it works, it works!^[7]

3 Wombat Mystery Poop

Bare-nosed wombats are chubby, cuddly-looking marsupials that are endemic to Australia. Their closest living relative is the koala, with which they share their herbivorous diet. Unlike koalas, however, they have cube-shaped poop. In fact, wombats are the only known animals to have this unusual dung. And in 2019, a group of seven researchers came together to get to the bottom of it.

Wombats who had previously fallen victim to South Australian drivers were collected and dissected by the team who examined them. It was established that wombats have circular bottoms, not square and that the molding actually takes place inside the intestines. Some parts of the intestine turned out to be firm, while other sections were soft. This, combined with the way the insides contract during digestion, was what turned out to produce the poop that had previously been a mystery to us all.^[8]

2 Beards for Self Defense

Beards—what are they good for? Catching crumbs? Attracting mates? How about dampening punches to the face? In 2021, Ethan Beseris, Steven Naleway, and David Carrier completed their research into the topic and won an Ig Nobel Peace prize as a result. Instead of having volunteers struck in the face for science, prosthetic bones were created for the experiment and covered in sheepskin. Some of these samples had wool intact, while some had been shorn. They were then struck, and the pressure was measured.

The results did indeed show that hair (or wool) absorbs a significant amount of blunt force. Some researchers have hypothesized that, like male lions, male humans may have developed longer hair around the neck and jaw to protect these delicate areas from attack.^[9]

1 Decongestants or Orgasms?

In 2016, a small team of researchers from Germany, Turkey, and the UK worked together to discover whether sexual orgasms can compete with decongestants when it comes to clearing the airways. The group states that “a physiological connection between the nose and the genitals has long been proposed.” One of the men who once delved into this area of research was an ear, nose, and throat doctor and a close friend of Sigmund Freud.

Instead of a strange Freudian link, however, the relation between sex and clearing a blocked nose may be down to the combination of physical exercise along with the hormonal changes that occur during intercourse. Both of these things have previously been shown to have decongestant properties. Either way, the results were clear. Sexual climax can improve nasal breathing to the same degree as a nasal decongestant for up to 60 minutes in those with a blocked nose. Good to know for the cold and flu season!^[10]