Sommerfeld’s 84 nominations

Arnold Sommerfeld was indeed nominated for the Nobel Prize in Physics many times, but never became a laureate. The Nobel archive currently lists 84 nominations, from 1917 through 1951, the year he died. The American Institute of Physics likewise calls this the highest number of nominations for a physicist who did not receive the prize. The figure counts nomination records, not 84 different years; nomination data are released by the archive after a confidentiality period. The illustration is AI-generated.