Counting on a Nobel

It has been known for many years that Nobel prize-winners have a higher citation count than those who do not win a prize, and this fact has been used from time to time to predict future winners.

Raymond Damadian's claim ("Overlooked Nobel advertises his plight", THES , December 12) that he un-fairly missed out on the Nobel prize for physiology or medicine is not supported by his citation count, which although a respectable 1,828, is less than half the citation count of the winner, Paul Lauterbur, who has 4,415.

Charles Oppenheim
Department of information science
Loughborough University