The winner(s) of the Nobel Prize in physics will be announced this morning. Now, since this is being written yesterday, I don’t know who’s going to win. Still, I can say with some certainty, it’s not me. Damn.

It may well be the case that at some unspecified point in an undefined future my brilliance will be realised by the wider Physics community and the appropriate accolades awarded. Or not.

Actually “not” is probably a shade more likely. “Brilliance” is not really my thing. I’m more, well, “lazy” — doing things is terribly crass, you know. Plus, I don’t like to give people unreasonable expectations by showing any achievement and/or progress.

The future failure of a Nobel Prize to land on my mantelpiece is not a recent discovery — I’ve been aware of my numerous limitations/inadequacies/nervous tics for a while. However, given the events of the wider world, it seemed appropriate to air this particular neurosis today.

What is the point of academic endeavour? In some ideal world (which is to say, not this one) we pursue abstract thought for no other purpose than its own. We seek knowledge for the sake of knowledge, for sake of curiosity.

In such a world, the reward for hard work is understanding. There is a peculiar pleasure in seeing the world and its contents through progressively sharper lenses, a pleasure that is, I suppose, without compare.

For some that feeling is enough. No other recompense is needed. To know is sufficient.

In my more wistful (and less honest) moments I like to pretend that all that drives me is this quest for wisdom, that all I wish is for the world to be explained and for me to understand the explanation. In reality, though, I want glory.

I don’t just want to know stuff. I want other people to know that I know stuff. And for them to know that because I know more than they know, I’m better.

Even leaving aside the notion of being worshipped (see my summer column “Small Gods,” Aug. 17) by the hoi polloi, one would still like to be placed on a pedestal by one’s peers.

And it’s not just being placed above. There’s also fear to think about. Apparently (by which I mean, someone once told me in a bar), there’s a phenomenon called the “impostor syndrome.” The idea is (and again, person in bar is the source), many academic folk live in constant fear of failure, of being exposed for the fakes that they believe they are.

I figure this sort of attitude applies to well over half the people I know, and if I restrict myself to Ph.D. students in theoretical physics, it’s probably upwards of 80 percent. That’s scary. And it really is at the heart of the terror of grad school.

Your humble columnist (wow, that’s a lame cliche), and many wiser people, have observed that graduate school is ultimately a journey to know less and less about more and more: You undergo ridiculous levels of specialization along with gaining a gradual awareness of just how much you are unaware of.

But that shrinking/growing is not enough to destroy your soul by itself. No, what really brings you down is the floundering feeling of inadequacy that couples itself to your academic career.

And so we crave reassurance — sure, knowledge, understanding and enlightenment are the goals, but without something to cheer you on, it’s damn hard not to collapse along the way.

With that in mind, the realisation that the chances of being recognised, of being acknowledged, of being praised are basically non-existent is a particularly nasty blow. And one that is hard to recover from.

Ultimately I suppose that if you’re not an Albert Einstein, a Cornel West or a Howard Bloom, you are probably doomed to both feel inadequate and never to be told otherwise.

I’m sad now. Cheer me up with your funniest Nobel Prize jokes. Send them and any other comments to navins@stanford.edu.