Most people recognize that the Nobel Peace Prize is political in nature. But few people are aware that the same is true for the Nobel Prize in physics. Politics, economic interests, and scientific research are more intertwined than they have every been – huge funding grants being a prerequisite for scientific research. Having the right connections or the right politics seem to have become just as important criteria as one’s actual scientific merit. The prize has become a tool for promoting the personal careers of certain well-funded, well-connected scientists, rather than the advancement of science, indicating that we are entering the twilight of the scientific age, writes  Martín López Corredoira.

Alfred Nobel’s will was to endow “prizes to those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind”. Nobel Prizes were then created with the idea of giving recognition to some of the best developments or discoveries with