Nobel Chemistry Prize Winners Kagan and Soai Now Required to Personally Autocatalyze Every Reaction in Sweden
Following their Nobel win for nonlinear effects and autocatalysis, chemists Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai have been ordered by the Karolinska Institute to relocate to Stockholm and personally oversee every chemical reaction in the country until further notice.
STOCKHOLM — The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced Tuesday that Nobel laureates Henri B. Kagan and Kenso Soai will immediately relocate to a custom-built laboratory atop the Karolinska Institute, where they are now legally required to personally initiate and supervise every chemical reaction occurring within Sweden's borders.
«The prize committee felt that a medal and a lecture were insufficient recognition of autocatalysis,» said academy spokesperson Dr. Elsa Lindqvist. «So we have amended the national chemical code. From now on, no reaction may proceed without one of the laureates present to confirm it is properly nonlinear.»
The directive, which takes effect at midnight, has already transformed Stockholm. Kagan, 96, and Soai, 76, have been assigned a rotating schedule covering all industrial, pharmaceutical, and educational chemistry across the country. A fleet of electric bicycles, modified to carry portable fume hoods, now shuttles them between facilities. The Swedish Chemical Society has retrained 4,000 lab technicians as personal assistants whose sole duty is to hold the laureates' coffee cups while they adjust reaction flasks.
«We tried to automate the process,» Lindqvist added, «but the algorithm kept producing linear results. The only reliable catalysts are the laureates themselves.»
By Thursday, the academy had extended the requirement to include all cooking, fermentation, and rust prevention. Kagan was last seen in Malmö, patiently explaining chirality to a baker. Soai was in Uppsala, personally ensuring that a batch of aspirin crystallized with the correct handedness. Neither has slept since the announcement.
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