Think Like a Nobel Laureate

For many years, he has hosted the Nobel Prize Museum’s podcast Ideas that Change the World, which explores the laureates, their discoveries, and their impact on how we live and think. Gustav Källstrand’s book Think Like a Nobel Laureate was published in Swedish last year and has not yet been translated into other languages.

When people discuss science, they often focus on its practical applications. Gustav Källstrand also emphasises that science is an integral part of our culture and can be appreciated much like literature or art: “It is enriching and rewarding to learn more about evolution, the Big Bang, the butterfly effect, mutants, and much more. There is an incredible world to discover if you, like the Nobel Prize winners, dare to see the world as a place you do not yet fully understand.”

According to the Nobel historian, several characteristics unite many prize winners. Alongside deep knowledge, they share curiosity, perseverance, and courage: “What they have in common is that they have achieved something groundbreaking – and to do that, you must be willing to think in new ways. You need to accept that things do not have to be as they are, or as everyone believes them to be. It begins with being open to the idea that what you think you know is not necessarily true.”

Gustav Källstrand says that working with the Nobel Prize allows him to spend time in a world full of creative people with big ideas: “It is incredibly inspiring and enlightening. I’ve realised that my world grows and expands the more I understand these ideas. And what’s remarkable is that all these stories and ideas are available to everyone.”

Change is a central theme in the book, reflecting the Nobel laureates’ approach to progress and discovery. Gustav Källstrand explains that making discoveries means transforming how we understand the world. Researchers who uncover something new often overturn established ideas in the process, and that requires a mindset grounded in the belief that what we know today is not the ultimate truth. Sometimes, what we consider true now may later prove false.

“There is a kind of scepticism built into science, and it’s shared by Nobel Prize winners and all good researchers. It’s a form of constructive scepticism, grounded in the belief that it’s not only possible to question old explanations but also to create new and better ones.

“This way of looking at change means that, just as what we know can change, we can use that knowledge to drive change – helping us become better at developing the world. For individual laureates, it often involves maintaining an open attitude towards the constant evolution of knowledge and recognising that science, like the world itself, is in perpetual transformation. The goal is not to preserve the status quo, but to advance it in the right direction.”

The first chapter of the book opens with American scientist Frances Arnold, the 2018 Chemistry laureate, whose research focuses on harnessing evolution to develop new chemicals, applying natural processes of change for beneficial purposes. She has pursued a path of her own, achieving remarkable success while also confronting professional and personal setbacks. Yet she maintains an unshakable faith in both humanity’s and her own capacity to adapt, evolve, and change the world. Her story teaches us to reflect on how we come to be what we become.

“It’s fascinating to hear her talk about her work in the laboratory and about the community and collaboration at the heart of science. You can tell she has great integrity and wastes no time on anything she considers unimportant. That could be off-putting to some, but because Frances Arnold is such a generous and warm person, it instead inspires you to do your very best.”

In several passages in the book, Gustav Källstrand highlights a central theme: many Nobel Prize winners have founded or participated in congresses and conferences. Building and developing networks, acquiring new knowledge, and meeting other researchers both within and beyond one’s own field are all vital to scientific progress. We discuss the value of the informal encounters that happen in the margins of such events: during coffee breaks, between sessions, or even on the shuttle bus to the conference centre, where strangers strike up conversations and discover shared interests that spark new insights and collaborations.

To claim that Nobel Prize winners are somehow “special” is to oversimplify; they possess different qualities, just like everyone else. Gustav Källstrand points to two laureates with contrasting approaches to their work. One is the American geneticist Barbara McClintock, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1983. It reportedly took the Nobel Committee three days to reach her with the news, as she preferred working alone, free from interruptions, and had no telephone in her laboratory. The other is Ernest Lawrence, also American, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1939 for inventing the modern particle accelerator. In contrast, his achievements rested largely on collaboration – with other researchers, industry leaders, politicians, and funders. Particle accelerators are more powerful the larger they can be made, which in turn demanded collective efforts to secure the necessary resources.

“There are many different approaches to achieving success. Some researchers may work diligently, alone or in small groups, on problems whose importance may not be on everyone’s radar, while others thrive through collaboration and working in the public eye. Yet for both, it is essential not only that others know what they are doing, but that they in turn know what others are doing. One of the great strengths of science is that it offers conferences and meetings where even independent researchers can come together and engage in person; and that you don’t have to be particularly outgoing, because events like these have clear rules for presentations and discussions.”

Gustav Källstrand goes on to say that most researchers fall somewhere on a spectrum between the extremes of Barbara McClintock and Ernest Lawrence. For introverted individuals, conferences can be invaluable in helping them progress and make contacts – which also benefits extroverted researchers who might not otherwise get to meet individuals from the former group.

“One should not underestimate the importance of conferences in developing a community. It can include, for example, learning how to convey one’s message and relate to frames of reference and norms – what is sometimes referred to as tacit knowledge. When attending a conference or congress, it quickly becomes apparent which individuals are accustomed to the context and which are more tentative. In addition, you learn how to behave so that your own research has a better chance of reaching a wider audience.”

Gustav Källstrand notes that congresses and conferences have played a key role in science for as long as modern science has existed, or at least since the late 19th century. A hundred years ago, travel was not as easy as it is today, but it was far easier than it had been half a century earlier. The advent of trains and steamships made it possible for people to travel with relative ease. It was still expensive, though attending a conference and meeting leading researchers in one’s field could ultimately save both time and money. At that time, obtaining the latest publications and scientific findings was often costly and complicated, whereas at a conference you could efficiently update your knowledge and establish contacts that enabled direct correspondence with colleagues.

“The research world was also much smaller back then. In 1900, there were approximately 1,000 professional physicists worldwide and around 3,000 chemists. So if you attended a conference in your own field of research, you would probably meet most of the researchers in that field. This made it worthwhile to attend a conference, even if it meant spending a few nights in a sleeper carriage on the train.”

One of the most important lessons you learn at a scientific conference is that the vital moments do not always take place during the presentations, but during coffee breaks, lunches and dinners – or when you skip a seminar to take a walk with someone who seems to have interesting ideas.

Gustav Källstrand explains that this is how researchers Emmanuelle Charpentier, from France, and Jennifer Doudna, from the United States, first met at a conference in Costa Rica. They left the hotel to have lunch and discuss their shared interest in the bacterial immune system, and specifically the use of CRISPR. As Emmanuelle Charpentier was based in Umeå, Sweden, and Jennifer Doudna in Los Angeles, the likelihood of their having a few hours together would otherwise have been relatively small.

The lunch meeting marked the beginning of a collaboration that was carried out mainly through digital meetings. The fact that the researchers worked in different time zones proved advantageous, as one research group could work during the day and report its progress, while the other continued overnight. Within a few years, the teams had developed CRISPR into a new and revolutionary method for editing DNA. The discovery led to Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna being awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2020.

Gustav Källstrand believes that it is beneficial that much of the scientific exchange can now be conducted remotely, as it makes science more democratic by allowing even researchers who cannot afford to travel to share in new findings. But there are limitations: “The new connections and personal contact are crucial, and you get that when you meet in person. When I interviewed Jennifer Doudna about her and Emmanuelle Charpentier’s work, she emphasised how important it is to be able to trust one another when working together, and that such trust is difficult to create digitally.

“Physical participation in conferences and other scientific meetings is as important as ever. I also believe that all other means of communication make it easier to maintain networks, while in-person meetings remain central to creating them in the first place. Moreover, we need to take a more nuanced view of the new forms of communication. They have great advantages, but I think it is largely a question of increased accessibility for people who might otherwise have difficulty participating.”

When it comes to building networks, researchers have been doing so since at least the 17th century – partly through physical meetings and partly through written correspondence. In the 1920s, for example, when digital meetings were of course not an option, ideas were exchanged through long and carefully composed letters in which many scientific questions were discussed and sometimes even resolved. When Swedish researchers corresponded with one another in the 1920s, mail was delivered four or five times a day in Stockholm and Uppsala, allowing for remarkably quick communication even then.

“Today, there are naturally other and faster options, but my point in offering this perspective is that while different ways of communicating are all important – whether through letters, emails, or digital meetings – the need to still meet in person seems to have been constant throughout history. Good things happen when people meet.

“Another thing that strikes me, however, is that one reason why so much happens in the intervals between research meetings is that researchers are often self-motivated and independent, even at the junior level. They do not work primarily for an organisation, but for a specific project or issue. Their goal in participating in a conference is mainly to advance their understanding of a chosen field or topic, such as the expansion of the universe, gene editing, or new chemical materials.”

In addition to the fact that many prize winners share traits such as excelling in knowledge, curiosity, persistence, and fearlessness, they also have another notable thing in common: a relatively large number of Nobel Prize laureates have had previous prize winners as mentors during their careers. Interestingly, these mentors often received the Nobel Prize only later. In other words, many future Nobel laureates have apparently chosen other future Nobel laureates as their mentors.

“The laureates clearly have a keen sense of which researchers are talented. It means that those who are later awarded Nobel Prizes seem to understand who else is exploring the right topics and working on the most important issues. As a researcher, being able to identify key areas where there is real work to be done – is a crucial trait.”