Okay, I'm Al Roth and I'm a professor of economics at Stanford.

For many years Roth had taught economics at Harvard but he and his wife, who is a human

factors engineer, had relocated.

We had just moved into our new apartment.

We had moved to Stanford in September of 2012.

Shortly thereafter on October 15th, something memorable happened.

And my wife woke up around three in the morning and said, the phone's ringing and I woke

up and it wasn't ringing anymore.

We only had one phone at that point and it was in her office which was downstairs so I

said, dear, it's not ringing and I'm back to sleep.

And she went down and got the phone and it started ringing again.

It turns out it's a good thing they call you back, they don't go down their list.

And it was the Nobel Committee.

Roth, half asleep, was informed that he, along with Lloyd Shapley, had won the Bank of

Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel.

Also known as the Nobel Prize in Economics.

Did you think you had a chance?

You know, it's hard to answer that humbly.

So I knew that I was on the big list of people who, if I want a Nobel Prize, it wouldn't

cause the Nobel Committee to be embarrassed.

The newspapers the next day would not say craziness in Stomach.

But there are many, many people in that category.

...