Prizes

More than a decade ago, when theoretical computer scientists romped on to Computational Biology (now Bioinformatics?), a questions was, will a computer scientist eventually get a Nobel Prize via Biology? Maybe there is a Nobel prize for having sequenced the human genome, or may be, the work is still something out there, yet to be done.

The past few years have seen theoretical computer scientists rummage through mechanism design and internet economics. Will one of the computer scientists eventually get a Nobel prize, this time via Economics? May be there is a Nobel prize for having created and sustaining an entirely new market, eg. sponsored search, or maybe the work is still something out there., yet to be done.

Personally I am not focused on prizes, but sometimes questions like the ones above sustain a research activity, a funding goal or quite simply, dinner conversations.