Science: Nobelmen

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This year, the five Swedish professors who form the committee that picks the Nobel Prizewinners in physics and chemistry debated long and secretly. One of the leading candidates was a Swede, and the Swedish committee did not want to be accused of favoritism. Last week they announced their decision: Sweden's Professor Arne Tiselius, 46, of Uppsala University, got the $44,371.63* prize in chemistry.

Swedish Molecules. Professor Tiselius, a specialist in protein chemistry, developed a system of "electrophoresis" for making large molecules (such as proteins) move through a solution under the influence of electrical forces. This work is more important than it sounds to laymen. Proteins and other "macro-molecules" are the building blocks of living organisms. Life itself can be described chemically as the exchange of matter and energy among the proteins in living cells.

Tall, strikingly handsome and always immaculately dressed, Professor Tiselius speaks 'English with about the same accent as a Minnesota Swede. Students at Uppsala affectionately call him "the film star professor." His official hobbies are sailing, modern art, music, literature. His unofficial hobby: making model aircraft with Per, his 14-year-old son.

British Atoms. The Nobel Prize for physics went to Britain's Professor Patrick Maynard Stuart Blackett, 50. Blackett, like Tiselius, is less a theoretician than a master of physical technique. In 1924, he took the first photograph of the disintegration of an atomic nucleus. In 1929, he developed an electronic tripping device which made cosmic rays take their own pictures.

At the start of World War II, Blackett became a key man in Britain's scientific war effort. He developed bombsights for the R.A.F. and antiaircraft techniques for the Battle of Britain, became one of Britain's chief contributors to the development of the atomic bomb.

Last year, Blackett advanced a new theory on the magnetic fields of revolving bodies, including the sun and stars (TIME, June 2, 1947). He is now working on radio astronomy with which he hopes to penetrate the Milky Way galaxy.