Martin Rees on the 2017 Hay Competition of Literature in Hay on Wye, UK
Alamy Inventory Photograph
The Oscars. The Booker prize. The Nobels. The award ceremonies that punctuate our yr are all inherently backward-looking, celebrating previous achievements. However there may be one other sort of award, one that appears to the long run – the problem prize. Such prizes don’t recognise previous successes, slightly incentivise future ones.
The concept is easy: a problem is chosen – with a clear-cut goal – and a jackpot is obtainable to whoever first reaches that objective. Examples embody the Longitude Prize on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR), which has…
