COLUMN ONE : Is Quest Tarnishing the Nobel? : Today begins announcements of the most prestigious prize in science, arts and efforts toward peace. Debate centers on whether the storied gold medallion has become too seductive.

One month after his 31st birthday, Carl David Anderson was teaching physics at Caltech when someone came knocking on the classroom door. It was a colleague bearing news: Anderson had won the Nobel Prize for his discovery of a subatomic particle known as the positron.

“I thanked him and went back to teaching the class,” recalled Anderson, now 85 and a Caltech professor emeritus. He did not mention the Nobel to his students. He remembers feeling “stunned.”

Fifty-one years later, when UCLA’s Donald Cram learned that he had won the Nobel Prize for chemistry, he was thrilled, but not stunned. The prize, he acknowledged, had become a serious ambition 11 years earlier when a rival organic chemist was honored for work that, to Cram, seemed the same caliber of his own. If he could do it, Cram figured, so can I.

“We all go for glory because, basically, we’re all romantics,” Cram, 71, said in a recent interview. “Glory has to play a big role in the pursuits of romantics.”

Today, the 1990 Nobel Prize for medical research will be awarded, the first in a monthlong series of six announcements for categories encompassing the sciences, literature, economics and efforts toward peace.

Widely considered civilization’s ultimate meritocracy, the prestige and mystique of the 90-year-old Nobel is unrivaled. It has the power to influence science and scientists. The public regards Nobel laureates with awe, political causes court their support, and an Escondido sperm bank might ask for deposits. Some people, Cram said, “expect us to be prophets.”

Today, a measure of the Nobel debate dwells on whether the storied gold medallion and attendant prize money--totaling $700,000 for each category--has become too seductive, too alluring. When Alfred Bernhard Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, died in 1895 and left an estate of $9 million to create the prizes, his intent was to promote science. In an age in which ethical sins have been committed in the pursuit of grant money, profits and prestige, some scientists are worried that the Nobel might indirectly tarnish, as one writer put it, “the white-coated realm of truth-seeking.”

Such concerns were probed in Carl Djerassi’s 1988 novel “Cantor’s Dilemma,” a cautionary tale about a pair of medical researchers who cut corners in their rush for the prize. Djerassi, a Stanford University chemist known as the synthesizer of the birth control pill, is a foreign member of the Swedish Academy of Sciences, which selects the honorees for physics and chemistry. The notion that science is done for science’s sake is partly a myth, he said.

“The fuel for real important research is ambition, personal ambition. It’s ambition that makes people work 80 hours a week for 40 years,” said Djerassi, who has not won a Nobel. “But one pays a price. At times that type of ambition can jeopardize trust.”

While fraud is not a big worry in Nobel circles--the scientific method of relying on each advance as a steppingstone to the next tends to expose any bogus breakthrough--Nobel politics have created a prickly ethical environment.

Scientists tell of colleagues who become obsessive in their quest for the Nobel. Not only do they set themselves up for annual doses of disappointment and snickering, they also run the risk of becoming fixated on ideas that should be abandoned.

“If you really start worrying about getting it, you go nuts,” said Stanford physicist William E. Spicer, who has not won one, but is considered a Nobel candidate for his photoelectric emission studies of various metals.

Would-be Nobelists who get passed by sometimes “become sort of aggressive about work, obsessed with proving to the world they should have gotten it even though they didn’t,” Spicer said. “It becomes hard for them to live with themselves.”

Scientists who do win the prize face a second challenge: The so-called “Nobel Effect.” A 1977 study of Nobel scientists found that most published fewer papers after winning the prize.

There is no question Nobels can make for a life-changing experience. The chosen few have their names and reputations forever wed to the Nobel. They are not mere prizewinners, after all, they are “laureates,” they are “Nobelists.” No other award--not an Olympic gold medal, not an Oscar, goodness knows not a Pulitzer--rivals the Nobel.

But why?

For one thing, there is the money.

“Maybe it’s the name, just because it sounds like the word noble,” suggested Angela Martello, associate editor for The Scientist, a weekly professional publication that has begun to prognosticate Nobel candidates.

Perhaps most important is the long heritage with its glittering names. The lofty wording of Nobel’s will called for the prizes to be awarded to those “who, during the preceding year, conferred the greatest benefit on mankind.”

“It was a hit from the beginning,” said Diana Barkan, a Caltech assistant professor in history of science who has done extensive research in Nobel Foundation archives. Even before the first Nobels were awarded in 1901, “all of the scientists and the public, at least in Europe, knew this would be the biggest prize,” she said.

“People try to say that scientists today are bad--that they are fighting for the prize, that they hurry into publication, that the prize puts pressure on them,” Barkan said. “What I’m trying to say is that it’s true, but it’s not that new.”

The Nobel’s mystique has proven especially powerful in the hard sciences, with good reason. Literature is a matter of aesthetic judgment. Economics can be more murky and the benefits less evident. The peace prize is overtly political and often controversial. Mother Teresa may have been a popular choice in 1976, but what about Henry A. Kissinger and North Vietnam’s Le Duc Tho in 1973? (Kissinger accepted the prize; Tho declined. The Vietnam War did not end until Saigon’s fall in 1975.)

The exact sciences are thought to be different. Anderson’s position is not a matter of opinion or ideology, it is fact. In the white-coated realm, the goal is the advancement of pure human knowledge, and that image of purity carries over to the Nobels.

But there have been flat-out mistakes. The 1926 Nobel for physiology and medicine went to a researcher who “established” that a certain cancer was caused by a parasite. He was wrong.

And science can be a political game. Politics are played on many levels, from the order of authors’ names on research papers to lobbying for multimillion-dollar grants. In an era of “big science”--50-mile-long super colliders and big, collaborative laboratories--a scientist who cannot wrangle the funding will have a hard time winning a Nobel.

Breakthrough research is no guarantee of a Nobel, either. Many scientists do Nobel-caliber work, the laureates say, but few are chosen. Some say that baseball’s Hall of Fame does a far better job ranking ballplayers than the Nobel does of ranking scientists. For one thing, Nobel forbade the awarding of posthumous prizes.

The political structure for the prizes was largely established by Nobel himself. A few institutions were designated to handle the chores--the Swedish Academy of Sciences selects the winners for physics and chemistry; the Karolinska Institute, Sweden’s principal medical school, for physiology and medicine; the Swedish Academy, an arts organization, for literature; and a committee selected by the Norwegian Legislature for peace.

Whether Nobel would have approved of the economics prize is anyone’s guess. He did not establish such a prize in his will. That award, actually known as the Nobel Memorial Prize for Economics, was added in 1969 and funded by a donation from the Bank of Sweden. A committee appointed by the bank selects the honoree.

Members of these institutions all have the power to nominate candidates for the prizes, as do laureates. The groups sometimes also solicit nominations from prominent scientists or institutions.

The process is painstaking and candidates are thoroughly investigated as the groups try to reach a consensus. The selections are made in secret, and the proceedings are sealed for 50 years.

Although Nobel dictated that the previous year’s most significant work be honored, laureates tend to come in two categories: Those, such as Anderson, who won for a remarkable breakthrough, and those, such as Cram, who are honored for years of high-quality science.

Controversies are something to be avoided. After the 1926 award proved to be an embarrassment, the Karolinska Institute avoided cancer research for decades. It is widely suspected that the controversy surrounding whether U.S. AIDS researcher Robert C. Gallo improperly used samples from French researcher Luc Montagnier may serve to disqualify both from Nobel consideration.

Theoretical work also tends to be shunned because even brilliant theories can prove incorrect. Einstein did not get recognized for the special or general theory of relativity, but for experiments concerning the photoelectric effect. In any case, Einstein’s prize was hardly a shock. In a divorce settlement a few years earlier, Einstein agreed to give his anticipated Nobel winnings to his wife.

Barkan found that the early Nobel politics could be bitterly personal. The archives, she said, make it clear that Swedish chemist Svante Arrenhius, winner of the 1903 prize and a powerful figure in the Swedish Academy of Science, blackballed Germany’s Walther Nernst for 15 years.

At one time friends, Arrenhius and Nernst had fallen out years earlier. When Arrenhius proposed using part of Nobel’s estate to finance a research institute, Nernst suggested that that would be thievery.

Under the Nobel committee procedures, academy members would be assigned to write detailed evaluations of candidates. Year after year, Nernst would receive several nominations--but Arrenhius always made sure he did the evaluation.

After World War I, Nernst finally got his prize. The committee took the report away from Arrenhius. Even so, Barkan said, Arrenhius’ attitude had mellowed. Perhaps sympathy was a factor--Nernst’s two sons had been killed in the war.

Overt lobbying is frowned on by Nobel committees, but it happens. Cram said that two chemists have, rather sheepishly, asked him to nominate them. Someday, Cram may submit their names--”they’re good candidates”--but for now they are not at the top of his list, he said. When they broached the subject, “they were embarrassed as hell,” Cram said.

The UCLA professor, who specializes in what he calls “host-guest” chemistry, acknowledged that he engaged in his own quiet campaign in quest of the prize. Cram’s name started receiving serious mention after a longtime Yugoslav competitor in organic chemistry won the prize. Cram heard the whispers and liked them.

For a decade, Cram avoided speaking of his Nobel aspirations, but, he said, “You want people to talk about you as a candidate.” So he went out of his way to “give damn good lectures” at important universities and institutions. “It’s the most dignified way to get your name publicized.”

Cram has experienced his own Nobel Effect. He was the first member of UCLA’s faculty to receive a Nobel for research done at the Westwood campus, and the university has pressed him into service as a fund-raiser and commencement speaker.

As for the Nobel mystique, Cram, who shared his prize with two other organic chemists, is amused when he is introduced in social gatherings as the “winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for chemistry.” New acquaintances sometimes thank him for his service to humankind.

Scientists are more concerned about approval from their peers than approval from the public. Somewhat to his surprise, Cram said, he found himself worrying if he measured up to the honor. He wondered how other scientists might evaluate his post-Nobel grant proposals.

“If there was ever a profession where people hate to see somebody get something for nothing, it’s science,” Cram said. So far, he said, there has been little change in how his grant proposals have been reviewed by his peers.

The impact of the Nobel on its winners was studied by sociologist Harriet Zuckerman. She observed in her 1977 book “Scientific Elite” that winning the Nobel enhances reputations and can attract research grants, as well as tempting offers from industry.

Zuckerman also found that the prize can slow down a scientist’s productivity because of speaking engagements and other social demands.

Some scientists have used the Nobel as a platform to promote causes. After winning the 1954 Nobel for chemistry, Linus Pauling started devoting half his time to activism against the proliferation of nuclear weapons--a crusade that prompted the U.S. government to revoke his passport, but also earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1962. He is the only winner of two unshared Nobels.

Pauling is now 89, and some colleagues suggest he is gunning for a third with his research regarding Vitamin C and health--work that some of his peers consider faddish and eccentric. In the eyes of many scientists, Pauling’s stature declined because he allowed the Nobel to transform him from a truth-seeker to opinion-shaper.

“It’s likely I would have been somewhat more productive in science if I didn’t have to take so much time to working on world peace,” said Pauling, now heading an institute that bears his name in Palo Alto. But of the two Nobels, Pauling says he values the peace prize more.

Conversely, the Nobel is believed to have helped transform William B. Shockley into a pariah. He was the conceptual father of the transistor, but Shockley became better known for a theory that blacks are genetically inferior to whites in terms of intellect.

Stanford’s Spicer, who knew Shockley well, suggested that, if not for the Nobel, history might be a kinder judge on Shockley. “With the Nobel Prize, he could say any kind of crazy thing, and the papers would put it on the front page,” Spicer said. There was no memorial service after Shockley’s death last year.

Shockley was the only one of at least five Nobelists who would acknowledge their participation in the Repository for Germinal Choice in Escondido--the so-called “Nobel sperm bank.” Still in operation, it no longer counts any Nobelists among its donors, but has two sons of Nobelists, an Olympic medalist and “some men we think will win Nobels someday,” a spokeswoman said.

The repository may make the strangest request of Nobelists, but other unusual solicitations are made as well. Francis Crick, co-discoverer of the double helix structure of DNA, ultimately resorted to a form-letter reply: “Dr. Crick thanks you for your letter but regrets that he is unable to accept your kind invitation to . . . “

What followed was a checklist of 16 items, including “send an autograph,” “read your manuscript,” “accept an honorary degree” and “cure your disease.”

One laureate who feels the Nobel did little to alter his life is Anderson. The Caltech physicist, whose cosmic ray research helped prove the existence of antimatter, said the Nobel did not change him or his life in any significant way. He entered Caltech as an 18-year-old freshman and never left.

The Nobel money was certainly welcome, Anderson said. He had to borrow $500 from his mentor, laureate Robert Millikan, for the trip to Stockholm, including second-class passage on the Queen Mary. His Nobel share--the 1936 prize was split between Anderson and cosmic ray discoverer Viktor F. Hess--was $20,000. Anderson used half on medical expenses for his elderly mother, and half he invested in real estate.

Anderson would rather reminisce about the “good old days” of physics than the prize. He wonders if Nobels should not be given to institutions these days, what with their $100-million budgets and 1,000-member staffs. Back then it was just Anderson, his assistant and his “magnet cloud chamber,” a machine he assembled partly from spare parts donated by the power company.

While the Nobel Effect did not visit Anderson’s life in the usual ways, he did receive an interesting job offer six years after his award. It would have meant moving himself and his ailing mother to Chicago. Besides, Anderson was not sure the project would work.

As it turned out, a colleague took the post. And so J. Robert Oppenheimer, not Anderson, would go down in history as the principal creator of the atomic bomb.