Chapter 9. The Nobel Prize

"...You realize that all along there was something tremendous within you,

and you did not know it."

Paramahansa Yogananda

Helen and Peter were just sitting down for a late lunch at about 2:00, tired after a long morning of work, when Stephanie Key, the Glynn Foundation secretary, came rushing in, quite out of breath, and exclaimed, "There's someone on the phone who wants to talk with you. He says you've won the Nobel Prize!" Peter went to the phone and heard a voice at the other end say "Congratulations, Dr. Mitchell. Would you please tell me what your reactions are?"

"To what?" was the reply.

"To being the sole winner of the 1978 Nobel Prize in Chemistry."

"Why, astonishment," answered Peter.

Later that day Peter received the official telegram from Stockholm informing him of the decision of the Nobel Committee. The Prize really did come as a total surprise to Peter. When questioned about it he responded saying, "Of course I had been told of the possibility, but I merely dismissed it. I had no ambitions of this sort. Even now, I just want to get on with my work." Peter claimed never to have been in science for social recognition or an award.

From then on for over a month the phone was constantly ringing. Most calls were from friends and acquaintances, but many were from people Peter had never heard of. Some of these people expected that he knew or knew of them, others merely called to pass on congratulations or to ask a question or two. The most frequent question was, "What are you going to do with the money?"

Peter wasn't quite sure how to answer this question, but then he received a congratulatory call from Professor Hans Krebs at Oxford who had received the Prize in Chemistry years before, and Peter asked him what his answer had been. "I told zem I vould buy myself a new fountain pen," replied the Professor. Krebs then went on to tell the following delightful story. Professor Krebs had a son to whom he wanted to give the best possible education, so he sent him to a very good private school in Oxford called the Dragon School. It was, of course, not only good, but also expensive, and the parents of the children generally drove up to the school entrance in their Rolls Royces, Jaguars and Mercedes. Krebs, on the other hand, drove an old, dilapidated automobile, and his son was a bit ashamed to be seen in it. He would tell his father, "It's OK to drop me off here on the corner, Dad" as they approached the school. However, the day after the announcement had appeared in the Oxford papers that Krebs had been awarded the Nobel Prize, his son said to him, "Don't worry, Dad. You can drive up to the main entrance today."

At the time the Nobel Prize was awarded, the Mitchells had an enormous bank overdraft as a result of the cost of laboratory and farm maintenance, and the £80,000 prize was just sufficient to bail them out. After paying back the bank, Peter was pleased to once again be solvent.

The desire for social recognition is something which motivates many people, but to come to expect or demand such recognition can lead to tremendous personal disappointments. Scientists who have felt that they deserved a Nobel Prize for their work have led bitter lives after coming to the realization that they were not likely to receive one. Since happiness is the ratio of realization to expectation, the key to happiness may be to minimize one's expectation so that the realization of one's ambition is sufficient to at least match expectation. Unfortunately, it is sometimes just as difficult to limit one's expectations as to achieve.

Following announcement of the decision of the Nobel Committee everyone in the laboratory at Glynn stopped work, and a great jamboree ensued. It was clear that the world had finally recognized their efforts in the most meaningful way possible, by conferring upon their research director the highest honor available to a scientist. Peter's only regret was that his mum and brother Bill had already died, so that they could not partake in the Nobel ceremonies. They would have enjoyed them tremendously!

Tons of mail was delivered at Glynn House, most of it congratulatory, and to Peter, dull as lead. However, one letter Peter particularly enjoyed. It was from Rufus Lumry, a protein chemist who, like Boyer, pushed the notion that protein conformational changes were the secret to energy coupling. He still didn't believe in the Mitchell hypotheses! He must have nevertheless felt an obligation to correspond. This is what he wrote:

"Dear Peter,

Congratulations!

I think you will probably agree with me, that now you have received wide public acclaim, you must be wrong!

Sincerely yours,

Rufus"

In fact, the majority view frequently is wrong, and on several occasions the Nobel Prize has been awarded to people for work which was later shown to be at least in part incorrect. For example, Luis LeLoir of Argentina characterized a process which at the time was believed to correspond to the mechanism of complex carbohydrate biosynthesis, and for this work he received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1970. However, the reaction he had studied was, in fact, the reverse, hydrolytic reaction which in intact cells normally results in the breakdown of these carbohydrates. In his early studies, LeLoir had forced the reaction to go in the direction of synthesis merely by using tremendously high concentrations of substrate! A similar situation pertained to work that Severo Ochoa performed on RNA biosynthesis, and Arthur Kornberg who shared with Ochoa the 1959 Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology performed experiments that, as it turns out, correctly reflected the mechanism of DNA synthesis, but the wrong enzyme, a DNA repair enzyme rather than the biosynthetic enzyme, was the subject of his studies! Work conducted with the correct enzyme, performed years later by other investigators including one of Kornberg's sons, provided explanations for certain anomalies that Kornberg had reported in his early publications on DNA synthesis and which remained unexplained at the time he received the Prize.

Some scientists still believe that the Mitchell hypotheses are incorrect. Just after the Prize had been awarded to Peter one scientist wrote a scathing letter to the editor of Nature in which he claimed first, that important features of Mitchell¹s hypotheses were incorrect, and second, that he himself had first proposed them. He seemed to be attacking Peter with a two-edged sword! However, opposition to most features of the chemiosmotic hypotheses continued to fade, and Mitchell¹s theoretical notions together with the experimental achievements of the Glynn research group came to be acknowledged as one of the supreme crowning glories of 20th century British science. The numerous scientific opponents of the Mitchell hypotheses over the earlier years became his friends and supporters as they came to realize the value and veracity of his ideas. Thus, in 1965, Efraim Racker, a prominent American biochemist working on oxidative phosphorylation, had published a highly scholarly volume entitled Mechanisms in Bioenergetics but did not even mention the chemiosmotic hypotheses! After meeting Mitchell and coming to realize the profound implications of his ideas, however, Racker changed his views completely and became an enthusiastic supporter. In Reflections in Biochemistry, Racker in 1976 reflects as a witness to the change in climate which accompanied acceptance of Mitchell's notions. Additionally, Dr. Franklin Harold, an American physiologist and one of the early Mitchell ambassadors, summed up the feelings of many in the scientific community when he wrote: "Ultimately we may come to regard Mitchell's theories as a first step towards understanding how life gives visible form to the flow of matter and energy through space." It became generally recognized that the transmission of force in living cells occurs by the flow of protons, termed "proticity" or "reverse electricity" by Mitchell, and that this phenomenon would have far reaching technological implications.

It is true that the chemiosmotic hypotheses had initially been radically new, representing a departure from the conventional ways of thinking about energy coupling, but there were technical explanations as to why Mitchell¹s ideas were so long in finding acceptance. Peter was very precise in the enunciation of his ideas, and in order to achieve a satisfactory degree of precision, he found it desirable to invent and use terms which were foreign to the scientific community. Thus, terms such as "periplasm", "porters", "group translocation", "uniport", "symport", "antiport", "mobile carrier" and "mobile barrier" were all of his invention. At least initially these foreign terms confused his audience. Other accepted terms such as "pH gradient", "permease" and "chemiosmosis" were ambiguous, imprecise or misleading to Peter, and he avoided them altogether. He consequently used a scientific jargon which was not familiar to his colleagues. Additionally, Peter had a tremendous vocabulary and tended to use this vocabulary within long, complicated sentences which many less versatile scientists had difficulty understanding. It was for these reasons that "middle men" had to rewrite and explain the key concepts of Mitchell¹s ideas in simpler terms. The efforts of these Ambassadors tremendously accelerated the rate at which Mitchell¹s ideas became accepted.

Helen, Jennifer and Peter were invited to Stockholm for the award winning ceremony. Jennifer had been specifically invited to participate in the Nobel jollifications as her important contributions to the verification of the chemiosmotic hypotheses had been recognized by the Nobel Committee. She was afforded special treatment not usually given to mere collaborators of Nobel Laureates. After all, she had played an instrumental role in almost all of the experimental work! The celebration was a truly exciting event, well rehearsed and polished, and it was thoroughly enjoyed by the recipient of the 1978 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, his wife and collaborator.

They set off for London on December 5, 1978 as they had been invited to dine at the Swedish Embassy in London, accompanied by friends before flying to Stockholm the next day. The dinner in the state banqueting room was served on old Copenhagen porcelain with three gilded Crowns, representing Norway, Sweden and Denmark, which once formed a single kingdom. Fabulous candelabras were lit with real candles, and in the drawing room after dinner was displayed a lovely Thai Kuan Yin made of wood, probably from the Ming period. The Swedish Ambassador to England was a delightful man, about 65, tall and imposing, with a marvelous sense of humor. His wife was also tall but rather plump and stolid and given to swigging brandy. After her fourth, Jennifer, Helen and Peter thought it might be best to go!

The plane was late in taking off the next morning -- disputes among the ground staff -- but Jennifer and the Mitchells arrived in Sweden only an hour late. They were met at the Stockholm airport by a Professor Bernhard, President of the Swedish Academy, an absolutely charming man with a friendly, easygoing manner. It was an altogether auspicious opening to Nobel Week as they were spirited away by a stewardess to the VIP lounge without the usual Customs formalities. In the VIP lounge they were introduced to their personal amanuensis -- Rutger Palmstierna -- a young, earnest-looking man of about 35. Helen talked to him in the VIP lounge while cameras were madly clicking away, mostly at Peter. She learned that Rutger was married with three children, that he spoke four languages fluently, among these, Chinese and Indonesian, and that he had spent two years each in China and Indonesia. Rutger was good company and seemed to be unusually modest and wise for his age. He was a Baron and a member of the Swedish House of Nobility, but it apparently wasn't considered proper to use one's title in Sweden. He immediately took charge of the little party of three, delicately and sensitively whisking them away in their special automatic, mile-long, silver-carpeted and -upholstered Volvo, driven by their own Spanish chauffeur, a Jose Aguilera who incidentally spoke five languages and was apt to enthusiastically seize Helen's hand and kiss it whenever she got out of the car.

Jennifer and the Mitchells were shown to their rooms at the Palace Hotel, opposite the Royal Palace, in rooms which overlooked the best of Stockholm with its bronze spires. The ocean waterways, ice breakers and boats providing daily traffic to the Archipelago were just outside their windows. Some of the boats were loaded with fish crates -- others with Christmas trees. In the rooms were elegant bowls of fruit, enormous vases filled with mimosa, pink roses, and yellow tulips, beautifully arranged, and a dozen tins of throat pastilles provided by the manufacturer.

At 6:00 p.m. the three honored visitors were collected by Rutger and taken to another part of the hotel to meet the other Nobel Laureates with their wives and families. Peter and Helen were the only ones without family members. They thought how much Peter's mum and Helen's mother would have enjoyed the splendor, and if only they could have adopted a family of young children for the occasion! Potato crisps, peanuts and orange squash were laid out for the attending children, and some of the children present were enchanting, especially the youngest children of Werner Arber, a Swiss physiologist, and the grandchildren of Pyotr Kapitsa, an 84 year old Russian low temperature physicist. Kapitsa proved to be a grave fellow who looked thoroughly bemused by the entire business. He was accompanied by old Mrs. Kapitsa who proudly wore her best lace shawl, their son, another well-known physicist, and the younger Kapitsa's wife and family. The old woman had a marvellously withdrawn Russian face, reminiscent of Nadezhda Mandestam.

Peter wanted to discuss philosophy with old Kapitsa, but the great man would have none of it, claiming that the world had no need of philosophy! Peter recalled having received a letter from Lord Adrian describing how, when he had been a young man in Cambridge, Kapitsa had absolutely terrified him. Although old Kapitsa was formidable, the political system under which he lived must have rubbed or battered off the sharp edges, for his voice was soft and high-pitched, certainly not likely to elicit the feelings of terror described by Lord Adrian!

Peter and Helen spoke with his son, a thickset, insensitive looking man with appallingly sour breath, who spoke about his childhood and how the family had had a Nanushka who had been in the family for 25 years. "Nowadays," he said, "all the girls have to be educated whether they want to or not, and this makes them unfit for being Nanushkas!" Helen thought he couldn't have been as insensitive as he seemed! He reminded her of Chekov who had noted that if one succeeds in removing suffering through the use of pills and drops, then he may completely ignore the religion and philosophy which had previously provided him with happiness and relief from affliction and had kept him in touch with humanity.

Later Jennifer, Helen and Peter, together with the other awardees and their families, watched a film of the Nobel proceedings made eight years earlier, shown them to give the participants a taste of what was to come. They saw the striding autocratic figure of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1970, haranguing the audience. What arrogance, what pride the man had, and yet what a prophetic face and figure! Peter suggested that his demeanor and conduct resulted from the fact that he neglected the Tao -- talking more than listening -- but Helen thought he resembled the towering religious people who like Blake should be considered to be dogmatically visionary rather than arrogant.

In the morning the three of them went in their silver, velvet-lined limousine to join the other Nobel Prize recipients at a Press Conference at the Swedish Academy of Science. The rather ornate room in which the conference took place had a gilded ceiling and walls smothered with portraits of famous members of the Academy, one of whom was Linnaeus. During the somewhat labored press conference, Kapitsa initially dominated the discussion, but Peter publically expressed his disagreement with Herbert Simon an economist who seemed to believe that people could be used like computers to solve social and economic problems. Peter branded him a collectivist, and felt him personally to resemble the computers he so admired, being somewhat automatic and humorless.

After the press conference Peter, Helen and Jennifer felt they deserved something special, so at their request, Rutger took them to what was purported to be the best restaurant in Stockholm, the Opera Restaurant, where they had a lunch of raw salmon cured with dill, sugar and salt, marinated for three days, and then served with a mustardy dill sauce. Partridge was then served with a bottle of Puligny Montrachet, and coffee followed. The bill came to £85.00, much to the embarrassment of poor Rutger, but Peter managed to keep cool while paying. The fact that he continued to joke about it for days thereafter clearly indicated his displeasure.

After lunch they rested and in the evening attended another reception given by Prof. Bernhard and his wife. They sat at round tables set for eight with Helen and Peter sitting next to a Professor of Economics at Uppsala who had a delightful twinkle in his eye and in some strange way reminded them of Noel Coward. The Bernhards had once lived in the antiquated gardener's cottage of Linnaeus' house in Uppsala, but as they had been continually burgled, they gave it up. His wife, an artist, was going blind with glaucoma, so they spent much of their time travelling and enjoying life. In accordance with his passionate hobby which was house building, an advocation he shared with Peter, he had built several small detached houses for himself, his wife, and their guests, all within the same garden. The dinner was over at about 11 p.m., and feeling somewhat limp after projecting themselves so much, the three Britains retired to their hotel.

In the morning while Peter prepared himself for the afternoon ceremonies, Rutger took Jennifer and Helen on a tour of some of the local museums, one exhibiting Swedish national costumes and providing an illustration of various weaving styles, another describing pictorally the lifestyles of the Lapps and their unusual methods of ice fishing, and still another displaying superbly painted furniture and various extraordinary forms of Swedish folk art. They then inspected the Wasa, a vast old warship with its marvellously caligraphed bronze cannons, poking through trap doors, which were decorated with fierce but quite unbelievable lions glowering at the supposed enemy. The ship sank while leaving the harbour on its maiden voyage, presumably due to the weight of the cannons.

The women returned to the hotel for a late lunch and brief relaxation, for Peter was to give his Nobel lecture at 3 p.m. There was a packed audience of over a thousand people who attended the event, but few of them probably understood the significance of the lectures. Lars Ernster, one of Peter's colleagues and a biochemist in the Swedish Academy, presented Peter. Afterwards, Lars and his wife Edit, a violinist who played in the Stockholm Opera Company, planned a dinner in Peter's honor. The couple was delightfully hospitable and gregarious, and afterwards, hordes of young people came for champagne and to express their adoration of the Magi!

The next day, Peter toured Lars' laboratory and discussed science while Rutger and Helen went sight-seeing in the old town. Helen discovered and bought an antique spinning winder as well as some superb handwoven linen in an antique shop which also displayed the characteristic painted furniture of the area. The old town was beautiful with its narrow streets lined with houses painted in lovely pale colors -- green, yellow, orange, pink and brown, usually with white trim -- and old shop fronts with bow windows. They watched the amateurish changing of the guard in front of the Royal Palace, amateurish because the soldiers retain their posts only for a few weeks. How different from Buckingham Palace!

Lunch followed at the British Embassy with Sir Jeffrey Petersen, the British Ambassador to Sweden, a typically goodlooking, well-dressed, extroverted man of about 50. A good wine-pudding called Drunken Raisins was served and enjoyed by all. The afternoon was occupied with a boring reception, and Peter and Helen then escaped to join Rutger and his wife Eva for supper at their home with their three delightfully rampaging children. Moulded Kedgeree with mussels, shrimp and crabmeat, Remoulade sauce salad, and a strange biscuity pudding were featured. The relaxing evening was concluded when the chauffeur, Jose, arrived at 10:30 to collect and return them to the hotel.

The next day, Sunday, was the day planned for the banquet and ceremony. Peter spent the morning at rehearsal and noted that Bashevis Singer who received the prize in Literature was unattentive during the rehearsal and just looked out of the window dreaming! After a light lunch in their room, Peter and Helen decked themselves out in full evening dress, and at 3:30 they were collected and assigned to their places at the Nobel Banquet, just before the Royal Highnesses swept onto the stage to take their places opposite the Laureates. The banquet took place in the main city hall of Stockholm and was attended by 1140 people.

The young Queen was dark and stunning with a sweet smile, and although pregnant with her second child, she was slim and lovely. She wore soft violet chiffon with an incredible tiara of diamonds and sapphires, some of the stones being nearly a centimeter in diameter. These were matched by a double necklace of similar stones, long drop earrings, and incomparable jeweled broaches. Helen praised the Queen's jewelry and was told that it wasn't really hers; it was only lent her for special occasions! The King, handsomely dressed, appeared shy and diffident.

The cameras never stopped clicking, and the Queen remained radiant and smiling throughout. She seemed to be the idol of the Swedes who in their adoration had happily gone Royalist. Presentations made by the King to the awardees, once again accompanied by a continual barrage of photographic activity, was followed by short speeches by the Laureates, all of which were carefully prepared. In Bashivis Singer's little speech, he modestly claimed that he merely tells stories to children, and the world calls it literature!

In the Eulogy for a Nobel Prize, a succession of collaborators are usually discussed. However, in Peter's case, only Jennifer was mentioned, and at that point, the TV camera swung to Jennifer who was near the front of the hall in the audience. Jennifer, who could not tell she was being filmed, noted afterwards that she was glad she hadn't been picking her nose or doing something embarrassing at the time!

In Peter's short talk, reproduced below, he enunciated many of his feelings regarding the tremendous heritage he had received from artists, philosophers and scientists alike, and he expounded briefly on the scientific process.

"Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Emile Zola described a work of art as a corner of nature seen through a temperament. The philosopher Karl Popper, the economist F.A. Hayek, and the art historian E.H. Gombrich have shown that the creative process in science and art consists of two main activities: an imaginative jumping forward to a new abstraction or simplified representation, followed by a critical looking back to see how nature appears in the light of the new vision. The imaginative leap forward is a hazardous, unreasonable activity. Reason can be used only when looking critically back. Moreover, in the experimental sciences, the scientific fraternity must test a new theory to destruction, if possible. Meanwhile, the originator of a theory may have a very lonely time, especially if his colleagues find his views of nature unfamiliar and difficult to appreciate.

The final outcome cannot be known, either to the originator of a new theory, or to his colleagues and critics, who are bent on falsifying it. Thus, the scientific innovator may feel all the more lonely and uncertain.

On the other hand, faced with a new theory, the members of the scientific establishment are often more vulnerable than the lonely innovator. For, if the innovator should happen to be right, the ensuing upheaval of the established order may be very painful and uncongenial to those who have long committed themselves to develop and serve it. Such, I believe, has been the case in the field of knowledge with which my work has been involved.

Naturally, I have been deeply moved, and not a little astonished, by the accidents of fortune that have brought me to this point; and I have counted myself lucky that I have been greatly encouraged by the love and example of the late David Keilin, and that my research associate, Dr. Moyle, has skillfully helped to mitigate my intellectual loneliness at the most difficult times. Now, I am indeed a witness of the benevolent spirit of Alfred Nobel.

Last, but not least, I would like to pay a most heartfelt tribute to my helpers and colleagues generally, and especially to those who were formerly my strongest critics, without whose altruistic and generous impulses, I feel sure that I would not be at this banquet today."

In the evening, there was dinner at the Palace with just the King and Queen, some ambassadors, and the Laureates, a very formal affair. When the King and Queen rose, everyone was expected to follow suit for further presentations. These presentations were followed by coffee and brandy in the Grand Salon, and Peter presented the King with a silver Glynn piece. On their way out they noticed the King's blue Porsche parked under the staircase, the most convenient spot for a quick getaway!

On the last morning of the Nobel festivities, a round table discussion took place on Swedish television in which all the Laureates participated. The next few days were occupied by visits to Swedish Universities where Peter gave lectures. At Lund the lecture was followed by a boisterous supper at a huge table laden with cold food and lots of heady schnapps and beer with students and professors seated randomly. Upon leaving Sweden, the Mitchells flew to magical Copenhagen by hovercraft, past old wharves, marvellously restored, into the city where they stayed at the Copenhagen Palace Hotel, near the central canal with its enormous old barges and schooners, their masts towering above the flat Dutch gables of the houses which line each side of the street. The next day they flew back to London and then returned home, out of this memorable fairyland of Nobel Week.

"We used to think that if we knew one, we knew two, because one and one

are two. We are finding that we must learn a great deal more

about 'and'."

Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington

References

Kornberg, A. (editor). 1976. Reflections in Biochemistry, Pergamon Press, Elmsford, NY.

Mitchell, P. 1974. The Ninth CIBA Medal Lecture. Vectorial chemistry and the molecular mechanics of chemiosmotic coupling: Power transmission by proticity. Biochem. Soc. Trans. 4:399-430.

Mitchell, P. 1978. Nobel Prize Lecture. David Keilin¹s respiratory chain concept and its chemiosmotic consequences.

Mitchell, P. 1979. Keilin¹s respiratory chain concept and its chemiosmotic conse-quences. Science 206:1148-1159.

Mitchell, P. 1979. The Ninth Sir Hans Krebs Lecture. Compartmentation and com-munication in living systems. Ligand conduction: a general catalytic principle in chemical, osmotic and chemiosmotic reaction systems. Eur. J. Biochem. 95:1-20.

Mitchell, P. 1981. Davy¹s electrochemistry: Nature¹s protochemistry. Chemistry in Britain 17:14-23.

Mitchell, P. 1982. Science and humanity: An essay on analytic and appreciative communication. Cell Function and Differentiation, Part A, Alan R. Liss, New York, NY, pp. 1-10.

Racker, E. 1965. Mechanisms in Bioenergetics, Academic Press, New York, NY.

Quin, Jennifer, Peter, Mitch, and Stephanie

The Board of Directors