The human-rights activist Liu Xiaobo languishes in a Chinese jail, the only Nobel Peace Prize laureate behind bars.
He is the only Nobel laureate to appear in an advertisement for Apple and guest-edit French Vogue.
Dr. Lipscomb may also be the only Nobel laureate featured in a YouTube video offering instructions on how to tie a string tie.
Ted Hughes is nearly always regarded as a great poet of nature, the only poet laureate since Wordsworth to animate the spirits of bird and beast, river and moor.
Nor his astonishing range, from his major contribution to music criticism to his being the only Nobel laureate to also bag an Oscar.
For much of that time, Aung San Suu Kyi, the heroic and inspiring leader of Myanmar's democracy movement, has enjoyed the dubious distinction of being the only Nobel laureate to be under arrest.
Nor will it be likely that Prime Minister will be vocal in raising the case of Liu Xiaobo, the only Nobel Laureate in the world to be under house arrest.
Pamuk is not the only Nobel laureate to have won the Impac: Herta Müller took the prize for her novel The Land of Green Plums, translated from German by Michael Hofmann.
Her confirmation would mean that Akerlof may be the only Economics Laureate who is the lesser known half in their household.
Beckett, who wrote Waiting for Godot and Happy Days, is the only Nobel literature laureate to have made it into cricketing almanack Wisden – regarded as the sport's bible – for playing in a first class match.
