This sheds some light on why Einstein didn't get a Nobel for relativity, at least during the 1920's. Not sure why he never got it after emigrating to the U.S. --Dan On Aug 27, 2014, at 2:28 PM, meekerdb <meekerdb@verizon.net> wrote [re Einstein's work on the photoelectric effect]:
It really unified the particle/wave nature of matter, but I don't see it as being as important as relativity. Relativity has also played big role in developing the Standard Model of matter.
Another interesting Nobel selection was for Heisenberg, excluding Born and Jordan; even though the latter two had really worked out Heisenberg's idea and published the first coherent formulation of matrix-mechanics. It's thought that the committee didn't want to include Jordan because he had been an enthusiastic Nazi and even joined the SS. And they didn't see how to include Born without Jordan since they were joint authors. So they just left them both off. Born received the prize years later for his work on quantum field theory.