Nobel Week: Why did the medal become a prize for scientific achievements?

Medal of the Royal Society, made for D.I. Mendeleev

The idea of ​​a prize in the form of a medal received for outstanding scientific work is so familiar that we no longer think about it. But this method was not always obvious when it came to awards for achievement. Once it was innovative, and its history can tell us not only about the enthusiasm of a certain group of gentlemen of the XVIII century, but also about the new world of experimental science, which they honored.

Although I am always suspicious of statements that something was " first " (almost always other examples and precedents can be found), with a high degree of confidence we can consider the Copley Medal, the highest award of the Royal Society of Great Britain, a prize. Since 1736, it has been awarded for scientific work recognized as worthy. Over time, these concepts have changed, but the medal has always been presented as an honorary annual award for services to science.

Cash prizes and awards for scientific work were awarded earlier - for example, according to the Law on the Reward of Longitude of 1714 or the French Academy of Sciences - but there were no open and obvious competitions for a medal in any scientific field. In Britain, medals of merit began to be awarded relatively recently. So why did the Royal Society decide to issue medals in the 1730s?
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The answer is twofold. Firstly, a certain amount of money suddenly appeared at the disposal of the Company's Advisory Board. One of its members, Godfrey Copley , who died in 1709, left her advice to her council. As a result, there remained "the sum of one hundred pounds for the foundation of the Royal Society of London for the improvement of the natural sciences, carried out through experiments or other means." Copley's idea was that the money would help organize demonstrations of experiments, often conducted at meetings. He did not mention medals and competitions.

The company received £ 100 in 1717, and it was decided to use only interest from this amount for payments in order to “forever” pay for experiments conducted annually. For several years thereafter, interest in the amount of £ 5 was paid to John Theophilus Dezagulier , who traditionally conducted demonstrations of experiments for the Society, the cost of which greatly exceeded £ 5.

In the 1720s, it was proposed to use this money for public advertising and stimulating public interest in new experiments. But, although £ 5 for ordinary people was a large amount in the 1720s, they apparently were not particularly interested in members of the Royal Society, and could not compensate for the profits lost by people who stopped working and engaged in scientific research.

Therefore, in 1736 it was proposed that a £ 5 interest would be better converted into a medal or other honorary prize. It was hoped that "among the eminent minds there will be a rivalry in the field of their inventions, which would not arise only from one material benefit."

Thus, it was decided that making the medal would be more meaningful than issuing a simple £ 5 cash prize. And the Society achieved success in this undertaking, casting medals with its emblem and Athena with a laurel wreath at the Royal Mint, annually announcing the winner, and gradually creating a list of honorary prize recipients .

The second part of the answer to the question “why the medal?” Consists in the fact that the Council of the Society included a group of numismatic fans. They studied and collected historical and modern coins and medals, so they often discussed this topic at Society meetings.

The group included Martin Foulkes [Martin Folkes], who made a proposal for a medal in 1736. Foulkes, although a little-known figure today, was at one time president of the Royal Society, astronomer and protégé of Isaac Newton. He was also a numismatist, the author of works on the weights and meanings of English coins, and the president of the society of antiquaries.

Another significant member of the Society who published works on coins and medals was John Evelyn. In his book "The Numismatist " of 1697, he praised these historical artifacts as "the longest eloquent monuments of antiquity". He offered his contemporaries to communicate information to the historians of the future, issuing new medals in honor of honorable and famous people, noting that people known for “experimental learning” were just as worthy of wearing gold medals as any Greek or Roman heroes.

The creation of medals as an art quickly developed in Britain at the end of the 18th century, where they first began to produce high-quality medals on a commercial basis. The idea of ​​the prize medal was born thanks to the Copley medal. The current exhibition at the Oxford Museum of Art and Archeology is devoted to this phenomenon — awards from societies, schools, universities, agricultural exhibitions, etc. - from the 1750s to the 1850s.

Medals as prizes spread rather quickly. The Rumford Medal , the Royal Medal, and many others that emerged over the next 150 years, made the medals generally accepted for scientific work. The Nobel Prize medals secured the concept, especially in science, and the Olympic medals in sports. But couldn’t history go the other way if the Royal Society did not have wide scientific interests in the 18th century and didn’t have them at the disposal of this amount?