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The Nobel Prizes ( ; ; ) are awards administered by the
Nobel Foundation The Nobel Foundation () is a private institution founded on 29 June 1900 to manage the finances and administration of the Nobel Prizes. The foundation is based on the last will of Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite. It also holds Nobel Sym ...
and granted in accordance with the
principle A principle may relate to a fundamental truth or proposition that serves as the foundation for a system of beliefs or behavior or a chain of reasoning. They provide a guide for behavior or evaluation. A principle can make values explicit, so t ...
of "for the greatest benefit to humankind". The prizes were first awarded in 1901, marking the fifth anniversary of Alfred Nobel's death. The original Nobel Prizes covered five fields:
physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...
,
chemistry Chemistry is the scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a physical science within the natural sciences that studies the chemical elements that make up matter and chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules a ...
,
physiology or medicine The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine () is awarded yearly by the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute, Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute for outstanding discoveries in physiology or medicine. The Nobel Prize is not a single ...
,
literature Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially novels, Play (theatre), plays, and poetry, poems. It includes both print and Electroni ...
, and
peace Peace is a state of harmony in the absence of hostility and violence, and everything that discusses achieving human welfare through justice and peaceful conditions. In a societal sense, peace is commonly used to mean a lack of conflict (suc ...
, specified in Nobel's will. A sixth prize, the Prize in Economic Sciences, was established in 1968 by
Sveriges Riksbank Sveriges Riksbank, or simply the Riksbank, is the central bank of Sweden. Founded in 1668, it is the world's oldest surviving central bank, and the third oldest bank in continuous operation. Prior to World War I, it was also the only state- ...
(Sweden's central bank) in memory of Alfred Nobel. The Nobel Prizes are widely regarded as the most prestigious awards available in their respective fields. Shalev, p. 8. Except in extraordinary circumstances, such as war, all six prizes are given annually. Each recipient, known as a
laureate In English, the word laureate has come to signify eminence or association with literary awards or Military awards and decorations, military glory. It is also used for recipients of the Nobel Prize, the Gandhi Peace Award, the Student Peace Pri ...
, receives a green gold
medal A medal or medallion is a small portable artistic object, a thin disc, normally of metal, carrying a design, usually on both sides. They typically have a commemorative purpose of some kind, and many are presented as awards. They may be in ...
plated with
24 karat The fineness of a precious metal object (coin, bar, jewelry, etc.) represents the weight of ''fine metal'' therein, in proportion to the total weight which includes alloying base metals and any impurities. Alloy metals are added to increase hard ...
gold, a
diploma A diploma is a document awarded by an educational institution (such as a college or university) testifying the recipient has graduated by successfully completing their courses of studies. Historically, it has also referred to a charter or offi ...
, and a monetary award. As of 2023, the Nobel Prize monetary award is , equivalent to approximately . The medal shows Nobel in profile with "NAT. MDCCCXXXIII-OB. MDCCCXCVI" which is his year of birth, 1833 (NAT) and year of death, 1896 (OB). No more than three individuals may share a prize, although the Nobel Peace Prize can be awarded to organisations of more than three people. Nobel Prizes are not awarded posthumously, but if a person is awarded a prize and dies before receiving it, the prize is presented. Between 1901 and 2024, the five Nobel Prizes and the Prize in Economic Sciences (since 1969) were awarded 627 times to 1,012 people and organisations. Five individuals and two organisations have received more than one Nobel Prize.


History

Alfred Nobel Alfred Bernhard Nobel ( ; ; 21 October 1833 – 10 December 1896) was a Swedish chemist, inventor, engineer, and businessman. He is known for inventing dynamite, as well as having bequeathed his fortune to establish the Nobel Prizes. He also m ...
was born on 21 October 1833 in
Stockholm Stockholm (; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, most populous city of Sweden, as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in the Nordic countries. Approximately ...
, Sweden, into a family of engineers. Levinovitz, p. 5. He was a
chemist A chemist (from Greek ''chēm(ía)'' alchemy; replacing ''chymist'' from Medieval Latin ''alchemist'') is a graduated scientist trained in the study of chemistry, or an officially enrolled student in the field. Chemists study the composition of ...
,
engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who Invention, invent, design, build, maintain and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials. They aim to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while ...
, and
inventor An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition, idea, or process. An invention may be an improvement upon a machine, product, or process for increasing efficiency or lowering cost. It may also be an entirely new concept. If an ...
. In 1894, Nobel purchased the
Bofors AB Bofors ( , , ) is a former Swedish arms manufacturer which today is part of the British arms manufacturer BAE Systems. The name has been associated with the iron industry and artillery manufacturing for more than 350 years. History Locate ...
iron and steel mill, which he made into a major
armaments A weapon, arm, or armament is any implement or device that is used to deter, threaten, inflict physical damage, harm, or kill. Weapons are used to increase the efficacy and efficiency of activities such as hunting, crime (e.g., murder), law ...
manufacturer Manufacturing is the creation or Production (economics), production of goods with the help of equipment, Work (human activity), labor, machines, tools, and chemical or biological processing or formulation. It is the essence of the secondary se ...
. Nobel also invented
ballistite Ballistite is a smokeless propellant made from two high explosives, nitrocellulose and nitroglycerine. It was developed and patented by Alfred Nobel in the late 19th century. Military adoption Alfred Nobel patented Ballistite in 1887 while li ...
. This invention was a precursor to many smokeless military explosives, especially the British smokeless powder
cordite Cordite is a family of smokeless propellants developed and produced in Britain since 1889 to replace black powder as a military firearm propellant. Like modern gunpowder, cordite is classified as a low explosive because of its slow burni ...
. As a consequence of his patent claims, Nobel was eventually involved in a
patent infringement A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A ...
lawsuit A lawsuit is a proceeding by one or more parties (the plaintiff or claimant) against one or more parties (the defendant) in a civil court of law. The archaic term "suit in law" is found in only a small number of laws still in effect today ...
over cordite. Nobel amassed a fortune during his lifetime, with most of his wealth coming from his 355 inventions, of which
dynamite Dynamite is an explosive made of nitroglycerin, sorbents (such as powdered shells or clay), and Stabilizer (chemistry), stabilizers. It was invented by the Swedish people, Swedish chemist and engineer Alfred Nobel in Geesthacht, Northern German ...
is the most famous. Levinovitz, p. 11. There is a popular story about how, in 1888, Nobel was astonished to read his own
obituary An obituary (wikt:obit#Etymology 2, obit for short) is an Article (publishing), article about a recently death, deceased person. Newspapers often publish obituaries as Article (publishing), news articles. Although obituaries tend to focus on p ...
, titled "The Merchant of Death Is Dead", in a French newspaper. It was Alfred's brother
Ludvig Ludvig is a Scandinavia Scandinavia is a subregion#Europe, subregion of northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, Norway, and Swed ...
who had died; the obituary was eight years premature. The article disconcerted Nobel and made him apprehensive about how he would be remembered. This inspired him to change his
will Will may refer to: Common meanings * Will and testament, instructions for the disposition of one's property after death * Will (philosophy), or willpower * Will (sociology) * Will, volition (psychology) * Will, a modal verb - see Shall and will ...
. Historians have been unable to verify this story and some dismiss the story as a myth. On 10 December 1896, Alfred Nobel died in his villa in San Remo, Italy, from a cerebral haemorrhage. He was 63 years old. Sohlman, p. 13. Nobel wrote several wills during his lifetime. He composed the last over a year before he died, signing it at the Swedish–Norwegian Club in Paris on 27 November 1895. Sohlman, p. 7. To widespread astonishment, Nobel's last will specified that his fortune be used to create a series of prizes for those who confer the "greatest benefit on mankind" in
physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...
,
chemistry Chemistry is the scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a physical science within the natural sciences that studies the chemical elements that make up matter and chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules a ...
,
physiology Physiology (; ) is the science, scientific study of function (biology), functions and mechanism (biology), mechanisms in a life, living system. As a branches of science, subdiscipline of biology, physiology focuses on how organisms, organ syst ...
or
medicine Medicine is the science and Praxis (process), practice of caring for patients, managing the Medical diagnosis, diagnosis, prognosis, Preventive medicine, prevention, therapy, treatment, Palliative care, palliation of their injury or disease, ...
,
literature Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially novels, Play (theatre), plays, and poetry, poems. It includes both print and Electroni ...
, and
peace Peace is a state of harmony in the absence of hostility and violence, and everything that discusses achieving human welfare through justice and peaceful conditions. In a societal sense, peace is commonly used to mean a lack of conflict (suc ...
. Nobel bequeathed 94% of his total assets, 31 million SEK (c. US$186 million, €150 million in 2008), to establish the five Nobel Prizes. Abrams, p. 7. Owing to skepticism surrounding the will, it was not approved by the
Storting The Storting ( ; ) is the supreme legislature of Norway, established in 1814 by the Constitution of Norway. It is located in Oslo. The Unicameralism, unicameral parliament has 169 members and is elected every four years based on party-list propo ...
in
Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...
until 26 April 1897. Levinovitz, pp. 13–25. The executors of the will,
Ragnar Sohlman Ragnar Sohlman (February 26, 1870 – July 9, 1948) was a Swedish chemical engineer, manager, civil servant, and creator of the Nobel Foundation. Biography Ragnar Sohlman was born in Stockholm to August Sohlman, a well-known newspaper man, ...
and Rudolf Lilljequist, formed the
Nobel Foundation The Nobel Foundation () is a private institution founded on 29 June 1900 to manage the finances and administration of the Nobel Prizes. The foundation is based on the last will of Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite. It also holds Nobel Sym ...
to take care of the fortune and to organise the awarding of prizes. Abrams, pp. 7–8 Nobel's instructions named a
Norwegian Nobel Committee The Norwegian Nobel Committee () selects the recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize each year on behalf of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel's estate, based on instructions of Nobel's will. Five members are appointed by the Norwegian Parliament. ...
to award the Peace Prize, the members of which were appointed shortly after the will was approved in April 1897. Soon thereafter, the other prize-awarding organisations were designated. These were the
Karolinska Institute The Karolinska Institute (KI; ; sometimes known as the (Royal) Caroline Institute in English) is a research-led medical university in Solna within the Stockholm urban area of Sweden and one of the foremost medical research institutes globally ...
on 7 June, the Swedish Academy on 9 June, and the
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences () is one of the Swedish Royal Academies, royal academies of Sweden. Founded on 2 June 1739, it is an independent, non-governmental scientific organization that takes special responsibility for promoting nat ...
on 11 June. Crawford, p. 1. The Nobel Foundation reached an agreement on guidelines for how the prizes should be awarded; and, in 1900, the Nobel Foundation's newly created
statute A statute is a law or formal written enactment of a legislature. Statutes typically declare, command or prohibit something. Statutes are distinguished from court law and unwritten law (also known as common law) in that they are the expressed wil ...
s were promulgated by
King Oscar II Oscar II (Oscar Fredrik; 21 January 1829 – 8 December 1907) was King of Sweden from 1872 until his death in 1907 and King of Norway from 1872 to 1905. Oscar was the son of King Oscar I and Queen Josephine. He inherited the Swedish and Norweg ...
.


Nobel Foundation


Formation of Foundation

According to his will and testament read in Stockholm on 30 December 1896, a foundation established by Alfred Nobel would reward those who serve humanity. The Nobel Prize was funded by Alfred Nobel's personal fortune. According to the official sources, Alfred Nobel bequeathed most of his fortune to the Nobel Foundation that now forms the economic base of the Nobel Prize. The
Nobel Foundation The Nobel Foundation () is a private institution founded on 29 June 1900 to manage the finances and administration of the Nobel Prizes. The foundation is based on the last will of Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite. It also holds Nobel Sym ...
was founded as a private organisation on 29 June 1900. Its function is to manage the finances and administration of the Nobel Prizes. Levinovitz, p. 14. In accordance with Nobel's
will Will may refer to: Common meanings * Will and testament, instructions for the disposition of one's property after death * Will (philosophy), or willpower * Will (sociology) * Will, volition (psychology) * Will, a modal verb - see Shall and will ...
, the primary task of the foundation is to manage the fortune Nobel left.
Robert The name Robert is an ancient Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic "fame" and "bright" (''Hrōþiberhtaz''). Compare Old Dutch ''Robrecht'' and Old High German ''Hrodebert'' (a compound of ''Hrōþ, Hruod'' () "fame, glory, honour, prais ...
and
Ludvig Nobel Ludvig Immanuel Nobel ( ; ; ; 27 July 1831 – 12 April 1888) was a Swedish-Russian engineer, a noted businessman and a humanitarian. One of the most prominent members of the Nobel family, he was the son of Immanuel Nobel (also an engineering pi ...
were involved in the oil business in
Azerbaijan Azerbaijan, officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, is a Boundaries between the continents, transcontinental and landlocked country at the boundary of West Asia and Eastern Europe. It is a part of the South Caucasus region and is bounded by ...
, and according to Swedish
historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human species; as well as the ...
E. Bargengren, who accessed the
Nobel family The Nobel family ( ), is a prominent Swedish family closely related to the history both of Sweden and of Russia in the 19th and 20th centuries. Its legacy includes its outstanding contributions to philanthropy and to the development of the ar ...
archive An archive is an accumulation of historical records or materials, in any medium, or the physical facility in which they are located. Archives contain primary source documents that have accumulated over the course of an individual or organ ...
, it was this "decision to allow withdrawal of Alfred's money from
Baku Baku (, ; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Azerbaijan, largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and in the Caucasus region. Baku is below sea level, which makes it the List of capital ci ...
that became the decisive factor that enabled the Nobel Prizes to be established". Another important task of the Nobel Foundation is to market the prizes internationally and to oversee informal administration related to the prizes. The foundation is not involved in the process of selecting the
Nobel laureates The Nobel Prizes (, ) are awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Swedish Academy, the Karolinska Institutet, and the Norwegian Nobel Committee to individuals and organizations who make outstanding contributions in th ...
. Levinovitz, p. 15. Feldman, p. 16. In many ways, the Nobel Foundation is similar to an
investment company An investment company is a financial institution principally engaged in holding, managing and investing securities. These companies in the United States are regulated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and must be registered under th ...
, in that it invests Nobel's money to create a solid funding base for the prizes and the administrative activities. The Nobel Foundation is exempt from all taxes in Sweden (since 1946) and from investment taxes in the United States (since 1953). Levinovitz, pp. 17–18. Since the 1980s, the foundation's investments have become more profitable and as of 31 December 2007, the assets controlled by the Nobel Foundation amounted to 3.628 billion Swedish ''kronor'' (c. US$560 million). Levinovitz, pp. 15–17. According to the statutes, the foundation consists of a board of five Swedish or Norwegian citizens, with its seat in Stockholm. The
chairman of the board The chair, also chairman, chairwoman, or chairperson, is the presiding officer of an organized group such as a Board of directors, board, committee, or deliberative assembly. The person holding the office, who is typically elected or appointed by ...
is appointed by the Swedish
King in Council The King-in-Council or the Queen-in-Council, depending on the gender of the reigning monarch, is a constitutional term in a number of states. In a general sense, it refers to the monarch exercising executive authority, usually in the form of app ...
, with the other four members appointed by the
trustee Trustee (or the holding of a trusteeship) is a legal term which, in its broadest sense, refers to anyone in a position of trust and so can refer to any individual who holds property, authority, or a position of trust or responsibility for the ...
s of the prize-awarding
institutions An institution is a humanly devised structure of rules and norms that shape and constrain social behavior. All definitions of institutions generally entail that there is a level of persistence and continuity. Laws, rules, social conventions and ...
. An Executive director is chosen from among the
board members A board of directors is a governing body that supervises the activities of a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government agency. The powers, duties, and responsibilities of a board of directors are determined by government regulatio ...
, a deputy director is appointed by the King in Council, and two
deputies A legislator, or lawmaker, is a person who writes and passes laws, especially someone who is a member of a legislature. Legislators are often elected by the people, but they can be appointed, or hereditary. Legislatures may be supra-nati ...
are appointed by the
trustees Trustee (or the holding of a trusteeship) is a legal term which, in its broadest sense, refers to anyone in a position of trust and so can refer to any individual who holds property, authority, or a position of trust or responsibility for the ...
. However, since 1995, all the members of the board have been chosen by the trustees, and the executive director and the deputy director appointed by the board itself. As well as the board, the Nobel Foundation is made up of the prize-awarding institutions (the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institute, the Swedish Academy, and the
Norwegian Nobel Committee The Norwegian Nobel Committee () selects the recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize each year on behalf of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel's estate, based on instructions of Nobel's will. Five members are appointed by the Norwegian Parliament. ...
), the trustees of these institutions, and
audit An audit is an "independent examination of financial information of any entity, whether profit oriented or not, irrespective of its size or legal form when such an examination is conducted with a view to express an opinion thereon." Auditing al ...
ors.


Foundation capital and cost

The capital of the Nobel Foundation today is invested 50% in
shares In financial markets, a share (sometimes referred to as stock or equity) is a unit of equity ownership in the capital stock of a corporation. It can refer to units of mutual funds, limited partnerships, and real estate investment trusts. Sha ...
, 20% bonds and 30% other
investments Investment is traditionally defined as the "commitment of resources into something expected to gain value over time". If an investment involves money, then it can be defined as a "commitment of money to receive more money later". From a broade ...
(e.g.
hedge funds A hedge fund is a pooled investment fund that holds liquid assets and that makes use of complex trading and risk management techniques to aim to improve investment performance and insulate returns from market risk. Among these portfolio techniq ...
or real estate). The distribution can vary by 10 percent. At the beginning of 2008, 64% of the funds were invested mainly in American and European stocks, 20% in bonds, plus 12% in real estate and hedge funds. In 2011, the total annual cost was approximately 120 million kronor, with 50 million kronor as the prize money. Further costs to pay institutions and persons engaged in giving the prizes were 27.4 million kronor. The events during the Nobel week in Stockholm and Oslo cost 20.2 million kronor. The administration, Nobel
symposium In Ancient Greece, the symposium (, ''sympósion'', from συμπίνειν, ''sympínein'', 'to drink together') was the part of a banquet that took place after the meal, when drinking for pleasure was accompanied by music, dancing, recitals, o ...
, and similar items had costs of 22.4 million kronor. The cost of the
Economic Sciences Economics () is a behavioral science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics analyses ...
prize of 16.5 Million kronor is paid by the
Sveriges Riksbank Sveriges Riksbank, or simply the Riksbank, is the central bank of Sweden. Founded in 1668, it is the world's oldest surviving central bank, and the third oldest bank in continuous operation. Prior to World War I, it was also the only state- ...
.


Inaugural Nobel prizes

Once the Nobel Foundation and its guidelines were in place, the
Nobel Committee A Nobel Committee is a working body responsible for most of the work involved in selecting Nobel Prize laureates. There are six awarding committees from four institutions, one for each Nobel Prize. Five of these committees are working bodies ...
s began collecting nominations for the inaugural prizes. Subsequently, they sent a list of preliminary candidates to the prize-awarding institutions. The Nobel Committee's Physics Prize shortlist cited
Wilhelm Röntgen Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen (; 27 March 1845 – 10 February 1923), sometimes Transliteration, transliterated as Roentgen ( ), was a German physicist who produced and detected electromagnetic radiation in a wavelength range known as X-rays. As ...
's discovery of
X-ray An X-ray (also known in many languages as Röntgen radiation) is a form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength shorter than those of ultraviolet rays and longer than those of gamma rays. Roughly, X-rays have a wavelength ran ...
s and
Philipp Lenard Philipp Eduard Anton von Lenard (; ; 7 June 1862 – 20 May 1947) was a Hungarian-German physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1905 "for his work on cathode rays" and the discovery of many of their properties. One of his most im ...
's work on
cathode ray Cathode rays are streams of electrons observed in discharge tubes. If an evacuated glass tube is equipped with two electrodes and a voltage is applied, glass behind the positive electrode is observed to glow, due to electrons emitted from the c ...
s. The Academy of Sciences selected Röntgen for the prize. Feldman, p. 134. Leroy, pp. 117–118. In the last decades of the 19th century, many chemists had made significant contributions. Thus, with the Chemistry Prize, the academy "was chiefly faced with merely deciding the order in which these scientists should be awarded the prize". Levinovitz, p. 77. The academy received 20 nominations, eleven of them for Jacobus van 't Hoff. Crawford, p. 118. Van 't Hoff was awarded the prize for his contributions in
chemical thermodynamics Chemical thermodynamics is the study of the interrelation of heat and work with chemical reactions or with physical changes of state within the confines of the laws of thermodynamics. Chemical thermodynamics involves not only laboratory measure ...
. Levinovitz, p. 81. Feldman, p. 205. The Swedish Academy chose the poet Sully Prudhomme for the first Nobel Prize in Literature. A group including 42 Swedish writers, artists, and literary critics protested against this decision, having expected
Leo Tolstoy Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy Tolstoy pronounced his first name as , which corresponds to the romanization ''Lyov''. () (; ,Throughout Tolstoy's whole life, his name was written as using Reforms of Russian orthography#The post-revolution re ...
to be awarded. Levinovitz, p. 144. Some, including Burton Feldman, have criticised this prize because they consider Prudhomme a mediocre poet. Feldman's explanation is that most of the academy members preferred
Victorian literature Victorian era, Victorian literature is English literature during the reign of Queen Victoria (1837–1901). In the Victorian era, the novel became the leading literary genre in English. English writing from this era reflects the major transform ...
and thus selected a Victorian poet. Feldman, p. 69. The first Physiology or Medicine Prize went to the German physiologist and microbiologist
Emil von Behring Emil von Behring (; Emil Adolf von Behring: born Emil Adolf Behring; 15 March 1854 – 31 March 1917), was a German physiologist who received the 1901 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, the first one awarded in that field, for his discovery ...
. During the 1890s, von Behring developed an
antitoxin An antitoxin is an antibody with the ability to neutralize a specific toxin. Antitoxins are produced by certain animals, plants, and bacterium, bacteria in response to toxin exposure. Although they are most effective in neutralizing toxins, the ...
to treat
diphtheria Diphtheria is an infection caused by the bacteria, bacterium ''Corynebacterium diphtheriae''. Most infections are asymptomatic or have a mild Course (medicine), clinical course, but in some outbreaks, the mortality rate approaches 10%. Signs a ...
, which until then had been causing thousands of deaths each year. Feldman, pp. 242–244. Leroy, p. 233. The first
Nobel Peace Prize The Nobel Peace Prize (Swedish language, Swedish and ) is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the Will and testament, will of Sweden, Swedish industrialist, inventor, and armaments manufacturer Alfred Nobel, along with the prizes in Nobe ...
went to the Swiss
Jean Henri Dunant Henry Dunant (born Jean-Henri Dunant; 8 May 182830 October 1910), also known as Henri Dunant, was a Swiss humanitarian, businessman, social activist, and co-founder of the Red Cross. His humanitarian efforts won him the first Nobel Peace Prize i ...
for his role in founding the International Red Cross Movement and initiating the Geneva Convention, and jointly given to French pacifist
Frédéric Passy Frédéric Passy (20 May 182212 June 1912) was a French economist and pacifist who was a founding member of several peace societies and the Inter-Parliamentary Union. He was also an author and politician, sitting in the Chamber of Deputies fro ...
, founder of the Peace League and active with Dunant in the Alliance for Order and Civilization.


Second World War

In 1938 and 1939,
Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...
's
Third Reich Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a totalitarian dictat ...
forbade three laureates from Germany (
Richard Kuhn Richard Johann Kuhn (; 3 December 1900 – 31 July 1967) was an Austrian-German biochemist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1938 "for his work on carotenoids and vitamins". Biography Early life Kuhn was born in Vienna, Austria ...
, Adolf Friedrich Johann Butenandt, and
Gerhard Domagk Gerhard Johannes Paul Domagk (; 30 October 1895 – 24 April 1964) was a German pathologist and bacteriologist. He is credited with the discovery of Sulfonamide (medicine), sulfonamidochrysoidine (KL730) as an antibiotic for which he received th ...
) from accepting their prizes. Levinovitz, p. 23 They were all later able to receive the diploma and medal. Wilhelm, p. 85. Even though Sweden was officially neutral during the Second World War, the prizes were awarded irregularly. In 1939, the Peace Prize was not awarded. No prize was awarded in any category from 1940 to 1942, due to the occupation of Norway by Germany. In the subsequent year, all prizes were awarded except those for literature and peace. During the occupation of Norway, three members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee fled into exile. The remaining members escaped persecution from the Germans when the Nobel Foundation stated that the committee building in
Oslo Oslo ( or ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of 1,064,235 in 2022 ...
was Swedish property. Thus it was a safe haven from the German military, which was not at war with Sweden. Abrams, p. 23. These members kept the work of the committee going, but did not award any prizes. In 1944, the Nobel Foundation, together with the three members in exile, made sure that nominations were submitted for the Peace Prize and that the prize could be awarded once again.


Prize in Economic Sciences

After
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
,
economics Economics () is a behavioral science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interac ...
evolved rapidly as an academic discipline and came to be increasingly recognized as a significant scientific field. In 1968, Sweden's central bank,
Sveriges Riksbank Sveriges Riksbank, or simply the Riksbank, is the central bank of Sweden. Founded in 1668, it is the world's oldest surviving central bank, and the third oldest bank in continuous operation. Prior to World War I, it was also the only state- ...
, celebrated its 300th anniversary and donated a sum of money to the
Nobel Foundation The Nobel Foundation () is a private institution founded on 29 June 1900 to manage the finances and administration of the Nobel Prizes. The foundation is based on the last will of Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite. It also holds Nobel Sym ...
to be used to set up a new award in the field of
economic sciences Economics () is a behavioral science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics analyses ...
. The following year, 1969, the Prize in Economic Sciences was awarded for the first time. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences is required to select the economics laureate in the same way as it does for the science Nobel Prizes. The first laureates for the Economics Prize were
Jan Tinbergen Jan Tinbergen ( , ; 12 April 1903 – 9 June 1994) was a Dutch economist who was awarded the first Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1969, which he shared with Ragnar Frisch for having developed and applied dynamic models for the ana ...
and
Ragnar Frisch Ragnar Anton Kittil Frisch (3 March 1895 – 31 January 1973) was an influential Norwegian economist and econometrician known for being one of the major contributors to establishing economics as a quantitative and statistically informed science ...
, "for having developed and applied dynamic models for the analysis of economic processes". Feldman, p. 343. Levinovitz, p. 207. The board of the Nobel Foundation decided that after this addition, it would allow no further new prizes. Levinovitz, p. 20.


Award process

The award process is similar for all of the Nobel Prizes, the main difference being who can make nominations for each of them. Feldman, pp. 16–17.


Nominations

Nomination forms are sent by the Nobel Committee to about 3,000 individuals, usually in September the year before the prizes are awarded. These individuals are generally prominent academics working in a relevant area. Regarding the Peace Prize, inquiries are also sent to governments, former Peace Prize laureates, and current or former members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee. The deadline for the return of the nomination forms is 31 January of the year of the award. Levinovitz, p. 26. The Nobel Committee nominates about 300 potential laureates from these forms and additional names. Abrams, p. 15. The nominees are not publicly named, nor are they told that they are being considered for the prize. All nomination records for a prize are sealed for 50 years from the awarding of the prize.


Selection

The Nobel Committee then prepares a report reflecting the advice of experts in the relevant fields. This, along with the list of preliminary candidates, is submitted to the prize-awarding institutions. Feldman, p. 52. There are four awarding institutions for the six prizes awarded: *
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences () is one of the Swedish Royal Academies, royal academies of Sweden. Founded on 2 June 1739, it is an independent, non-governmental scientific organization that takes special responsibility for promoting nat ...
– Chemistry; Physics; Economics *
Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute The Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute is a body at Karolinska Institute that awards the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. It is headquartered in the Nobel Forum on the grounds of the Karolinska Institute campus. Originally the Nobe ...
– Physiology / Medicine *
Swedish Academy The Swedish Academy (), founded in 1786 by King Gustav III, is one of the Royal Academies of Sweden. Its 18 members, who are elected for life, comprise the highest Swedish language authority. Outside Scandinavia, it is best known as the body t ...
– Literature *
Norwegian Nobel Committee The Norwegian Nobel Committee () selects the recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize each year on behalf of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel's estate, based on instructions of Nobel's will. Five members are appointed by the Norwegian Parliament. ...
– Peace The institutions meet to choose the laureate or laureates in each field by a majority vote. Their decision, which cannot be appealed, is announced immediately after the vote. Levinovitz, pp. 25–28. A maximum of three laureates and two different works may be selected per award. Except for the Peace Prize, which can be awarded to institutions, the awards can only be given to individuals. Abrams, p. 8 The winners are announced by the awarding institutions during the first two weeks of October.


Posthumous nominations

Although posthumous nominations are not presently permitted, individuals who died in the months between their nomination and the decision of the prize committee were originally eligible to receive the prize. This has occurred twice: the 1931 Literature Prize awarded to
Erik Axel Karlfeldt Erik Axel Karlfeldt (20 July 1864 – 8 April 1931) was a Swedish poet whose highly symbolist poetry masquerading as regionalism was popular and won him the 1931 Nobel Prize in Literature posthumously after he had been nominated by Nathan Söd ...
, and the 1961 Peace Prize awarded to
UN Secretary General The secretary-general of the United Nations (UNSG or UNSECGEN) is the chief administrative officer of the United Nations and head of the United Nations Secretariat, one of the United Nations System#Six principal organs, six principal organs of ...
Dag Hammarskjöld Dag Hjalmar Agne Carl Hammarskjöld (English: ,; 29 July 1905 – 18 September 1961) was a Swedish economist and diplomat who served as the second secretary-general of the United Nations from April 1953 until his death in a plane crash in Septe ...
. Since 1974, laureates must be thought alive at the time of the October announcement. There has been one laureate,
William Vickrey William Spencer Vickrey (21 June 1914 – 11 October 1996) was a Canadian-American professor of economics and Nobel Laureate. He was a lifelong faculty member at Columbia University. A theorist who worked on public economics and mechanism design, ...
, who in 1996 died after the prize (in
Economics Economics () is a behavioral science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interac ...
) was announced but before it could be presented. Abrams, p. 9 On 3 October 2011, the laureates for the
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine () is awarded yearly by the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute for outstanding discoveries in physiology or medicine. The Nobel Prize is not a single prize, but five separate prizes that, acco ...
were announced; however, the committee was not aware that one of the laureates, Ralph M. Steinman, had died three days earlier. The committee was debating about Steinman's prize, since the rule is that the prize is not awarded posthumously. The committee later decided that as the decision to award Steinman the prize "was made in good faith", it would remain unchanged, and the prize would be awarded.


Recognition time lag

Nobel's will provided for prizes to be awarded in recognition of discoveries made "during the preceding year". Early on, the awards usually recognised recent discoveries. However, some of those early discoveries were later discredited. For example,
Johannes Fibiger Johannes Andreas Grib Fibiger (23 April 1867 – 30 January 1928) was a Danish physician and professor of anatomical pathology at the University of Copenhagen. He was the recipient of the 1926 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for his disc ...
was awarded the 1926 Prize in
Physiology or Medicine The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine () is awarded yearly by the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute, Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute for outstanding discoveries in physiology or medicine. The Nobel Prize is not a single ...
for his purported discovery of a parasite that caused cancer. Levinovitz, p. 125. To avoid repeating this embarrassment, the awards increasingly recognised scientific discoveries that had withstood the test of time. Abrams, p. 25. According to Ralf Pettersson, former chairman of the Nobel Prize Committee for Physiology or Medicine, "the criterion 'the previous year' is interpreted by the Nobel Assembly as the year when the full impact of the discovery has become evident." The interval between the award and the accomplishment it recognises varies from discipline to discipline. The Literature Prize is typically awarded to recognise a cumulative lifetime body of work rather than a single achievement. The Peace Prize can also be awarded for a lifetime body of work. For example, 2008 laureate
Martti Ahtisaari Martti Oiva Kalevi Ahtisaari (, 23 June 1937 – 16 October 2023) was a Finnish politician, the tenth president of Finland, from 1994 to 2000, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and a United Nations diplomat and mediation, mediator noted for his inte ...
was awarded for his work to resolve international conflicts. However, they can also be awarded for specific recent events. For instance,
Kofi Annan Kofi Atta Annan (8 April 193818 August 2018) was a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh secretary-general of the United Nations from 1997 to 2006. Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize. He was the founder a ...
was awarded the 2001 Peace Prize just four years after becoming the Secretary-General of the United Nations. Abrams, p. 330. Similarly
Yasser Arafat Yasser Arafat (4 or 24 August 1929 – 11 November 2004), also popularly known by his Kunya (Arabic), kunya Abu Ammar, was a Palestinian political leader. He was chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) from 1969 to 2004, Presid ...
,
Yitzhak Rabin Yitzhak Rabin (; , ; 1 March 1922 – 4 November 1995) was an Israeli politician, statesman and general. He was the prime minister of Israel, serving two terms in office, 1974–1977, and from 1992 until Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, his ass ...
, and
Shimon Peres Shimon Peres ( ; ; born Szymon Perski, ; 2 August 1923 – 28 September 2016) was an Israeli politician and statesman who served as the prime minister of Israel from 1984 to 1986 and from 1995 to 1996 and as the president of Israel from 2007 t ...
received the 1994 award, about a year after they successfully concluded the
Oslo Accords The Oslo Accords are a pair of interim agreements between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO): the Oslo I Accord, signed in Washington, D.C., in 1993; and the Oslo II Accord, signed in Taba, Egypt, in 1995. They marked the st ...
. Abrams, p. 27. A
controversy Controversy (, ) is a state of prolonged public dispute or debate, usually concerning a matter of conflicting opinion or point of view. The word was coined from the Latin '' controversia'', as a composite of ''controversus'' – "turned in an op ...
was caused by awarding the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize to
Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...
during his first year as US president. Awards for physics, chemistry, and medicine are typically awarded once the achievement has been widely accepted. Sometimes, this takes decades – for example,
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (; 19 October 1910 – 21 August 1995) was an Indian Americans, Indian-American theoretical physicist who made significant contributions to the scientific knowledge about the structure of stars, stellar evolution and ...
shared the 1983 Physics Prize for his 1930s work on stellar structure and evolution. Not all scientists live long enough for their work to be recognised. Some discoveries can never be considered for a prize if their impact is realised after the discoverers have died.


Award ceremonies and related events

Except for the Peace Prize, the Nobel Prizes are presented in Stockholm, Sweden, at the annual Prize Award Ceremony on 10 December, the anniversary of Nobel's death. The recipients' lectures are normally held in the days prior to the award ceremony. The Peace Prize and its recipients' lectures are presented at the annual Prize Award Ceremony in Oslo, Norway, usually on 10 December. The award ceremonies and the associated banquets are typically major international events. The Prizes awarded in Sweden's ceremonies are held at the
Stockholm Concert Hall The Stockholm Concert Hall () is the main hall for orchestral music in Stockholm, Sweden. With a design by Ivar Tengbom chosen in competition, inaugurated in 1926, the Hall is home to the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra. It is also wh ...
, with the Nobel banquet following immediately at
Stockholm City Hall Stockholm City Hall (, ''Stadshuset'' locally) is the seat of Stockholm Municipality in Stockholm, Sweden. It stands on the eastern tip of Kungsholmen island, next to Riddarfjärden's northern shore and facing the islands of Riddarholmen and ...
. The Nobel Peace Prize ceremony has been held at the
Norwegian Nobel Institute The Norwegian Nobel Institute () is located in Oslo, Norway. The institute is located at Henrik Ibsen Street 51 in the center of the city. It is situated just by the side of the Royal Palace. History The institute was established in 1904 in Kr ...
(1905–1946), at the
auditorium An auditorium is a room built to enable an audience to hear and watch performances. For movie theaters, the number of auditoriums is expressed as the number of screens. Auditoriums can be found in entertainment venues, community halls, and t ...
of the
University of Oslo The University of Oslo (; ) is a public university, public research university located in Oslo, Norway. It is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation#Europe, oldest university in Norway. Originally named the Royal Frederick Univ ...
(1947–1989), and at
Oslo City Hall Oslo City Hall () is a municipal building in Oslo, the capital of Norway. It houses the city council, the city's administration and various other municipal organisations. The building as it stands today was constructed between 1931 and 1950, wi ...
(1990–present). Levinovitz, pp. 21–23. The highlight of the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony in Stockholm occurs when each Nobel laureate steps forward to receive the prize from the hands of the
King of Sweden The monarchy of Sweden is centred on the monarchical head of state of Sweden,See the #IOG, Instrument of Government, Chapter 1, Article 5. by law a constitutional monarchy, constitutional and hereditary monarchy with a parliamentary system.Parl ...
. In Oslo, the chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee presents the Nobel Peace Prize in the presence of the Monarchy of Norway, King of Norway and the Norwegian royal family. At first, King Oscar II of Sweden, Oscar II did not approve of awarding grand prizes to foreigners.


Nobel Banquet

After the award ceremony in Sweden, a banquet is held in the Blue Hall at the
Stockholm City Hall Stockholm City Hall (, ''Stadshuset'' locally) is the seat of Stockholm Municipality in Stockholm, Sweden. It stands on the eastern tip of Kungsholmen island, next to Riddarfjärden's northern shore and facing the islands of Riddarholmen and ...
, which is attended by the Swedish Royal Family and around 1,300 guests. The
Nobel Peace Prize The Nobel Peace Prize (Swedish language, Swedish and ) is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the Will and testament, will of Sweden, Swedish industrialist, inventor, and armaments manufacturer Alfred Nobel, along with the prizes in Nobe ...
banquet is held in Norway at the Grand Hotel (Oslo), Oslo Grand Hotel after the award ceremony. Apart from the laureate, guests include the president of the
Storting The Storting ( ; ) is the supreme legislature of Norway, established in 1814 by the Constitution of Norway. It is located in Oslo. The Unicameralism, unicameral parliament has 169 members and is elected every four years based on party-list propo ...
, on occasion the Swedish prime minister, and, since 2006, the King and Queen of Norway. In total, about 250 guests attend.


Nobel lecture

According to the statutes of the Nobel Foundation, each laureate is required to give a public lecture on a subject related to the topic of their prize. The Nobel lecture as a rhetorical genre took decades to reach its current format. These lectures normally occur during Nobel Week (the week leading up to the award ceremony and banquet, which begins with the laureates arriving in Stockholm and normally ends with the Nobel banquet), but this is not mandatory. The laureate is only obliged to give the lecture within six months of receiving the prize, but some have happened even later. For example, US President Theodore Roosevelt received the Peace Prize in 1906 but gave his lecture in 1910, after his term in office. Abrams, pp. 18–19. The lectures are organised by the same association which selected the laureates.
Military cemeteries in every corner of the world are silent testimony to the failure of national leaders to sanctify human life. :—
Yitzhak Rabin Yitzhak Rabin (; , ; 1 March 1922 – 4 November 1995) was an Israeli politician, statesman and general. He was the prime minister of Israel, serving two terms in office, 1974–1977, and from 1992 until Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, his ass ...
, 1994 Nobel Peace Prize lecture


Nobel Minds

From 1959 to 1990, Swedish journalist Bengt Feldreich gathered the science prize laureates to a discussion, broadcast as ''Snillen spekulerar'' (in English ''Science and Man'') first in radio, and then from the mid-1960s in Sveriges Television. Since 2004, the program is a coproduction with BBC World News under the title ''Nobel Minds'', since 2011 hosted by Zeinab Badawi.


Prizes


Medals

The Nobel Foundation announced on 30 May 2012 that it had awarded the contract for the production of the five (Swedish) Nobel Prize medals to Svenska Medalj AB. Between 1902 and 2010, the Nobel Prize medals were minted by Myntverket (the Swedish Mint), Sweden's oldest company, which ceased operations in 2011 after 107 years. In 2011, the Mint of Norway, located in Kongsberg, made the medals. The Nobel Prize medals are registered trademarks of the Nobel Foundation. Each medal features an image of Alfred Nobel in left profile on the obverse and reverse, obverse. The medals for physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, and literature have identical obverses, showing the image of Alfred Nobel and the years of his birth and death. Nobel's portrait also appears on the obverse of the Peace Prize medal and the medal for the Economics Prize, but with a slightly different design. For instance, the laureate's name is engraved on the rim of the Economics medal. Feldman, p. 2. The image on the reverse of a medal varies according to the institution awarding the prize. The reverse sides of the medals for chemistry and physics share the same design."Nobel Prize for Chemistry. Front and back images of the medal. 1954"
, "Source: Photo by Eric Arnold. Ava Helen and Linus Pauling Papers. Honors and Awards, 1954h2.1", "All Documents and Media: Pictures and Illustrations", ''Linus Pauling and The Nature of the Chemical Bond: A Documentary History'', the The Valley Library, Valley Library, Oregon State University. Retrieved 7 December 2007.
All medals made before 1980 were struck in 23 carat (purity), carat gold. Since then, they have been struck in 18 carat coloured gold#Green gold, green gold plated with 24 carat gold. The weight of each medal varies with the value of gold, but averages about for each medal. The diameter is and the thickness varies between and . Because of the high value of their gold content and tendency to be on public display, Nobel medals are subject to medal theft. During World War II, the medals of German scientists Max von Laue and James Franck were sent to Copenhagen for safekeeping. When Germany invaded Denmark, Hungarian chemist (and Nobel laureate himself) George de Hevesy dissolved them in aqua regia (nitro-hydrochloric acid), to prevent confiscation by Nazi Germany and to prevent legal problems for the holders. After the war, the gold was recovered from solution, and the medals re-cast. Feldman, p. 397.


Diplomas

Nobel laureates receive a diploma directly from the hands of the King of Sweden, or in the case of the peace prize, the chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee. Each diploma is uniquely designed by the prize-awarding institutions for the laureates that receive them. The diploma contains a picture and text in Swedish which states the name of the laureate and normally a citation of why they received the prize. None of the Nobel Peace Prize laureates has ever had a citation on their diplomas. Abrams, p. 18.


Award money

The laureates are given a sum of money when they receive their prizes, in the form of a document confirming the amount awarded. The amount of prize money depends upon how much money the Nobel Foundation can award each year. The purse has increased since the 1980s, when the prize money was 880,000 SEK per prize (c. 2.6 million SEK altogether, US$350,000 today). In 2009, the monetary award was 10 million SEK (US$1.4 million). In June 2012, it was lowered to 8 million SEK. If two laureates share the prize in a category, the award grant is divided equally between the recipients. If there are three, the awarding committee has the option of dividing the grant equally, or awarding one-half to one recipient and one-quarter to each of the others. Abrams, pp. 8–10. It is common for recipients to donate prize money to benefit scientific, cultural, or humanitarian causes.


Statistics

* Youngest person to receive a Nobel Prize: *: Malala Yousafzai; at the age of 17, received
Nobel Peace Prize The Nobel Peace Prize (Swedish language, Swedish and ) is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the Will and testament, will of Sweden, Swedish industrialist, inventor, and armaments manufacturer Alfred Nobel, along with the prizes in Nobe ...
(2014). * Oldest person to receive a Nobel Prize: *: John B. Goodenough; at the age of 97, received Nobel Prize in Chemistry (2019). * Only person to receive more than one unshared Nobel Prize: *: Linus Pauling; received the prize twice. Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1954) and
Nobel Peace Prize The Nobel Peace Prize (Swedish language, Swedish and ) is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the Will and testament, will of Sweden, Swedish industrialist, inventor, and armaments manufacturer Alfred Nobel, along with the prizes in Nobe ...
(1962). * Persons to receive a Nobel Prize in two different disciplines: *: Marie Skłodowska-Curie; received the prize twice. Nobel Prize in Physics (1903) and Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1911). *: Linus Pauling; received the prize twice. Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1954) and
Nobel Peace Prize The Nobel Peace Prize (Swedish language, Swedish and ) is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the Will and testament, will of Sweden, Swedish industrialist, inventor, and armaments manufacturer Alfred Nobel, along with the prizes in Nobe ...
(1962). * Country with most Nobel laureates: :: United States; List of Nobel laureates by country#United States, 403 Nobel laureates, as of 2022. * Laureates who have received multiple Nobel Prizes: (by date of second Prize) *# Marie Skłodowska-Curie; received the prize twice. Nobel Prize in Physics (1903) and Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1911). *# International Committee of the Red Cross; received the prize thrice.
Nobel Peace Prize The Nobel Peace Prize (Swedish language, Swedish and ) is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the Will and testament, will of Sweden, Swedish industrialist, inventor, and armaments manufacturer Alfred Nobel, along with the prizes in Nobe ...
(1917, 1944, 1963). *# Linus Pauling; received the prize twice. Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1954) and
Nobel Peace Prize The Nobel Peace Prize (Swedish language, Swedish and ) is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the Will and testament, will of Sweden, Swedish industrialist, inventor, and armaments manufacturer Alfred Nobel, along with the prizes in Nobe ...
(1962). *# John Bardeen; received the prize twice. Nobel Prize in Physics (1956, 1972). *# Frederick Sanger; received the prize twice. Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1958, 1980). *# United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees; received the prize twice.
Nobel Peace Prize The Nobel Peace Prize (Swedish language, Swedish and ) is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the Will and testament, will of Sweden, Swedish industrialist, inventor, and armaments manufacturer Alfred Nobel, along with the prizes in Nobe ...
(1954, 1981). *# Karl Barry Sharpless; received the prize twice. Nobel Prize in Chemistry (2001, 2022). * Posthumous Nobel Prizes laureates: *#
Erik Axel Karlfeldt Erik Axel Karlfeldt (20 July 1864 – 8 April 1931) was a Swedish poet whose highly symbolist poetry masquerading as regionalism was popular and won him the 1931 Nobel Prize in Literature posthumously after he had been nominated by Nathan Söd ...
; received Nobel Prize in Literature (1931). *#
Dag Hammarskjöld Dag Hjalmar Agne Carl Hammarskjöld (English: ,; 29 July 1905 – 18 September 1961) was a Swedish economist and diplomat who served as the second secretary-general of the United Nations from April 1953 until his death in a plane crash in Septe ...
; received
Nobel Peace Prize The Nobel Peace Prize (Swedish language, Swedish and ) is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the Will and testament, will of Sweden, Swedish industrialist, inventor, and armaments manufacturer Alfred Nobel, along with the prizes in Nobe ...
(1961). *# Ralph M. Steinman; received
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine () is awarded yearly by the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute for outstanding discoveries in physiology or medicine. The Nobel Prize is not a single prize, but five separate prizes that, acco ...
(2011). * Married couples to receive Nobel Prizes: :# Marie Skłodowska-Curie, Pierre Curie (along with Henri Becquerel). Received Nobel Prize in Physics (1903). :# Irène Joliot-Curie, Frédéric Joliot-Curie, Frédéric Joliot. Received Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1935). :# Gerty Cori, Carl Ferdinand Cori, Carl Cori. Received Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, Nobel Prize in Medicine (1947). :# Gunnar Myrdal received Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics Sciences (1974), Alva Myrdal received
Nobel Peace Prize The Nobel Peace Prize (Swedish language, Swedish and ) is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the Will and testament, will of Sweden, Swedish industrialist, inventor, and armaments manufacturer Alfred Nobel, along with the prizes in Nobe ...
(1982). :# May-Britt Moser, Edvard Moser, Edvard I. Moser. Received Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, Nobel Prize in Medicine (2014). :# Esther Duflo, Abhijit Banerjee (along with Michael Kremer). Received Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics Sciences (2019). * Years without prizes: :* Nobel Prize in Physics, Physics: 1916, 1931, 1934, 1940, 1941, 1942 :* Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Chemistry: 1916, 1917, 1919, 1924, 1933, 1940, 1941, 1942 :*
Physiology or Medicine The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine () is awarded yearly by the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute, Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute for outstanding discoveries in physiology or medicine. The Nobel Prize is not a single ...
: 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918, 1921, 1925, 1940, 1941, 1942 :* Nobel Prize in Literature, Literature: 1914, 1918, 1935, 1940, 1941, 1942, 1943 :* Nobel Peace Prize, Peace: 1914, 1915, 1916, 1918, 1923, 1924, 1928, 1932, 1939, 1940, 1941, 1942, 1943, 1948, 1955, 1956, 1966, 1967, 1972


Specially distinguished laureates


Multiple laureates

Five people have received two Nobel Prizes. Marie Skłodowska-Curie received the Physics Prize in 1903 for her work on radioactive decay, radioactivity and the Chemistry Prize in 1911 for the isolation of pure radium, making her the only person to be awarded a Nobel Prize in two different sciences. Linus Pauling was awarded the 1954 Chemistry Prize for his research into the chemical bond and its application to the Chemical structure, structure of complex substances. Pauling was also awarded the Peace Prize in 1962 for his activism against nuclear weapons, making him the only laureate of two unshared prizes. John Bardeen received the Physics Prize twice: in 1956 for the invention of the transistor and in 1972 for the theory of superconductivity. Feldman, p. 180. Frederick Sanger received the prize twice in Chemistry: in 1958 for determining the structure of the insulin molecule and in 1980 for inventing a method of determining base sequences in DNA. Shalev, p. 78. Feldman, p. 222. Karl Barry Sharpless was awarded the 2001 Chemistry Prize for his research into chirally catalysed oxidation reactions, and the 2022 Chemistry Prize for click chemistry. Two organisations have received the Peace Prize multiple times. The International Committee of the Red Cross received it three times: in 1917 and 1944 for its work during the world wars; and in 1963 during the year of its centenary. Abrams, p. 84. Abrams, p. 149. Abrams, pp. 199–200. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has been awarded the Peace Prize twice for assisting refugees: in 1954 and 1981. Feldman, p. 313.


Family laureates

The Curie family has received the most prizes, with four prizes awarded to five individual laureates. Marie Skłodowska-Curie received the prizes in Physics (in 1903) and Chemistry (in 1911). Her husband, Pierre Curie, shared the 1903 Physics prize with her. Their daughter, Irène Joliot-Curie, received the Chemistry Prize in 1935 together with her husband Frédéric Joliot-Curie. In addition, Henry Richardson Labouisse Jr., Henry Labouisse, the husband of Marie Curie's second daughter Ève Curie, was the director of UNICEF when he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in 1965 on that organisation's behalf. Feldman, p. 405. Although no family matches the Curie family's record, there have been several with two laureates. The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to the husband-and-wife team of Gerty Cori and Carl Ferdinand Cori in 1947, and to the husband-and-wife team of May-Britt Moser and Edvard Moser in 2014 (along with John O'Keefe (neuroscientist), John O'Keefe). The Physics Prize in 1906 was won by J. J. Thomson for showing that electrons are particles, and in 1937 by his son, George Paget Thomson, for showing that they Wave–particle duality, also have the properties of waves.#Gribbin69, Gribbin, p. 91 William Henry Bragg and his son, William Lawrence Bragg, shared the Physics Prize in 1915 for inventing X-ray crystallography. Niels Bohr was awarded the Physics Prize in 1922, as was his son, Aage Bohr, in 1975. The Physics Prize was awarded to Manne Siegbahn in 1924, followed by his son, Kai Siegbahn, in 1981. Hans von Euler-Chelpin, who received the Chemistry Prize in 1929, was the father of Ulf von Euler, who was awarded the Physiology or Medicine Prize in 1970. C. V. Raman was awarded the Physics Prize in 1930 and was the uncle of
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (; 19 October 1910 – 21 August 1995) was an Indian Americans, Indian-American theoretical physicist who made significant contributions to the scientific knowledge about the structure of stars, stellar evolution and ...
, who was awarded the same prize in 1983.#Feldman, Feldman, p. 406 Arthur Kornberg received the Physiology or Medicine Prize in 1959; Kornberg's son Roger D. Kornberg, Roger later received the Chemistry Prize in 2006. Arthur Schawlow received the 1981 Physics prize, and was married to the sister of 1964 Physics laureate Charles Townes. Two members of the Hodgkin family received Nobels in consecutive years: Alan Hodgkin, Sir Alan Lloyd Hodgkin shared in the Nobel for Physiology or Medicine in 1963, followed by Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin, the wife of his first cousin, who won solo for Chemistry in 1964.
Jan Tinbergen Jan Tinbergen ( , ; 12 April 1903 – 9 June 1994) was a Dutch economist who was awarded the first Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1969, which he shared with Ragnar Frisch for having developed and applied dynamic models for the ana ...
, who was awarded the first Economics Prize in 1969, was the brother of Nikolaas Tinbergen, who received the 1973 Physiology or Medicine Prize. Gunnar Myrdal, who was awarded the Economics Prize in 1974, was the husband of Alva Myrdal, Peace Prize laureate in 1982. Economics laureates Paul Samuelson (1970) and Kenneth Arrow (1972; shared) were brothers-in-law. Frits Zernike, who was awarded the 1953 Physics Prize, was the great-uncle of 1999 Physics laureate Gerard 't Hooft. In 2019, married couple Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo were awarded the Economics Prize. Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard was awarded the Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1995, and her nephew Benjamin List received the Chemistry Prize in 2021. Sune Bergström was awarded the Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1982, and his son Svante Pääbo was awarded the same prize in 2022. Edwin McMillan, who shared the Prize in Chemistry in 1951, was the uncle of John Clauser, who was awarded the Prize in Physics in 2022.


Reception and controversies


Controversial recipients

Among other criticisms, the Nobel Committees have been accused of having a political agenda, and of omitting more deserving candidates. They have also been accused of Eurocentrism, especially for the Literature Prize. Abrams, p. xiv. Feldman, p. 65. ;Peace Prize Among the most criticised Nobel Peace Prizes was the one awarded to Henry Kissinger and Lê Đức Thọ. This led to the resignation of two Norwegian Nobel Committee members. Kissinger and Thọ were awarded the prize for negotiating a ceasefire between North Vietnam and the United States in January 1973 during the Vietnam War. However, when the award was announced, both sides were still engaging in hostilities. Abrams, p. 219. Critics sympathetic to the North announced that Kissinger was not a peace-maker but the opposite, responsible for widening the war. Those hostile to the North and what they considered its deceptive practices during negotiations were deprived of a chance to criticise Lê Đức Thọ, as he declined the award.#Feldman, Feldman, p. 315 Abrams, p. 315. The satirist and musician Tom Lehrer has remarked that "political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize."
Yasser Arafat Yasser Arafat (4 or 24 August 1929 – 11 November 2004), also popularly known by his Kunya (Arabic), kunya Abu Ammar, was a Palestinian political leader. He was chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) from 1969 to 2004, Presid ...
,
Shimon Peres Shimon Peres ( ; ; born Szymon Perski, ; 2 August 1923 – 28 September 2016) was an Israeli politician and statesman who served as the prime minister of Israel from 1984 to 1986 and from 1995 to 1996 and as the president of Israel from 2007 t ...
, and
Yitzhak Rabin Yitzhak Rabin (; , ; 1 March 1922 – 4 November 1995) was an Israeli politician, statesman and general. He was the prime minister of Israel, serving two terms in office, 1974–1977, and from 1992 until Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, his ass ...
received the Peace Prize in 1994 for their efforts in making peace between Israel and Palestine. Levinovitz, p. 183. Immediately after the award was announced, one of the five Norwegian Nobel Committee members denounced Arafat as a terrorist and resigned. Feldman, pp. 15–16. Additional misgivings about Arafat were widely expressed in various newspapers. Abrams, pp. 302–306. Another controversial Peace Prize was that awarded to
Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...
2009 Nobel Peace Prize, in 2009. Nominations had closed only eleven days after Obama took office as President of the United States, but the actual evaluation occurred over the next eight months. Obama himself stated that he did not feel deserving of the award, or worthy of the company in which it would place him. Past Peace Prize laureates were divided, some saying that Obama deserved the award, and others saying he had not secured the achievements to yet merit such an accolade. Obama's award, along with the previous Peace Prizes for Jimmy Carter and Al Gore, also prompted accusations of a Liberalism, liberal bias. Aung San Suu Kyi was awarded the Peace Prize in 1993. However, in 2015, when she came into power in Myanmar, she was criticized for being silent on human rights violation under her rule and especially over the Rohingya genocide and calls were made to strip her of her Nobel Peace Prize. ;Literature Prize The award of the 2004 Literature Prize to Elfriede Jelinek drew a protest from a member of the Swedish Academy, Knut Ahnlund. Ahnlund resigned, alleging that the selection of Jelinek had caused "irreparable damage to all progressive forces, it has also confused the general view of literature as an art". He alleged that Jelinek's works were "a mass of text shovelled together without artistic structure". The 2009 Literature Prize to Herta Müller also generated criticism. According to ''The Washington Post'', many US literary critics and professors were ignorant of her work. This made those critics feel the prizes were too Eurocentric. The 2019 Literature Prize to Peter Handke received heavy criticisms from various authors, such as Salman Rushdie and Hari Kunzru, and was condemned by the governments of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, and Turkey, due to his history of Bosnian genocide denialism and his support for Slobodan Milošević. ;Science prizes In 1949, the neurologist António Egas Moniz received the Physiology or Medicine Prize for his development of the Lobotomy, prefrontal lobotomy. The previous year, Walter Jackson Freeman II, Walter Freeman had developed a Lobotomy#Transorbital lobotomy, version of the procedure which was faster and easier to carry out. Due in part to the publicity surrounding the original procedure, Freeman's procedure was prescribed without due consideration or regard for modern medical ethics. Endorsed by such influential publications as ''The New England Journal of Medicine'', leucotomy or "lobotomy" became so popular that about 5,000 lobotomies were performed in the United States in the three years immediately following Moniz's receipt of the Prize. Feldman, pp. 286–289.


Overlooked achievements

Although Mohandas Gandhi, an icon of nonviolence in the 20th century, was nominated for the
Nobel Peace Prize The Nobel Peace Prize (Swedish language, Swedish and ) is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the Will and testament, will of Sweden, Swedish industrialist, inventor, and armaments manufacturer Alfred Nobel, along with the prizes in Nobe ...
five times, in 1937, 1938, 1939, 1947, and a few days before he was assassinated on 30 January 1948, he was never awarded the prize. Levinovitz, pp. 181–186. In 1948, the year of Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, Gandhi's death, the Norwegian Nobel Committee decided to make no award that year on the grounds that "there was no suitable living candidate". Abrams, pp. 147–148. In 1989, this omission was publicly regretted, when the 14th Dalai Lama was awarded the Peace Prize, the chairman of the committee said that it was "in part a tribute to the memory of Mahatma Gandhi". Geir Lundestad, 2006 Secretary of Norwegian Nobel Committee, said, Other high-profile individuals with widely recognised contributions to peace have been overlooked. In 2009, an article in ''Foreign Policy'' magazine identified seven people who "never won the prize, but should have". The list consisted of Gandhi, Eleanor Roosevelt, Václav Havel, Ken Saro-Wiwa, Sari Nusseibeh, Corazon Aquino, and Liu Xiaobo. Liu Xiaobo would go on to win the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize while imprisoned. In 1965, UN Secretary General U Thant was informed by the Norwegian Permanent Representative to the UN that he would be awarded that year's prize and asked whether or not he would accept. He consulted staff and later replied that he would. At the same time, Chairman Gunnar Jahn of the Nobel Peace prize committee, lobbied heavily against giving U Thant the prize and the prize was at the last minute awarded to UNICEF. The rest of the committee all wanted the prize to go to U Thant, for his work in defusing the Cuban Missile Crisis, ending the war in the Congo, and his ongoing work to mediate an end to the Vietnam War. The disagreement lasted three years and in 1966 and 1967 no prize was given, with Gunnar Jahn effectively vetoing an award to U Thant. The Literature Prize also has controversial omissions. Adam Kirsch has suggested that many notable writers have missed out on the award for political or extra-literary reasons. The heavy focus on European and Swedish authors has been a subject of criticism. The Eurocentric nature of the award was acknowledged by Peter Englund, the 2009 Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy, as a problem with the award and was attributed to the tendency for the academy to relate more to European authors. This tendency towards European authors still leaves many European writers on a list of notable writers that have been overlooked for the Literature Prize, including
Leo Tolstoy Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy Tolstoy pronounced his first name as , which corresponds to the romanization ''Lyov''. () (; ,Throughout Tolstoy's whole life, his name was written as using Reforms of Russian orthography#The post-revolution re ...
, Anton Chekhov, J. R. R. Tolkien, Émile Zola, Marcel Proust, Vladimir Nabokov, James Joyce, August Strindberg, Simon Vestdijk, Karel Čapek, the New World's Jorge Luis Borges, Ezra Pound, John Updike, Arthur Miller, Mark Twain, and Africa's Chinua Achebe. Feldman, pp. 56–57. Candidates can receive multiple nominations the same year. Gaston Ramon received a total of 155 nominations in physiology or medicine from 1930 to 1953, the last year with public nomination data for that award . He died in 1963 without being awarded. Pierre Paul Émile Roux received 115 nominations in physiology or medicine, and Arnold Sommerfeld received 84 in physics. These are the three most nominated scientists without awards in the data published . Otto Stern received 79 nominations in physics 1925–1943 before being awarded in 1943. The strict rule against awarding a prize to more than three people is also controversial. Levinovitz, p. 61. When a prize is awarded to recognise an achievement by a team of more than three collaborators, one or more will miss out. For example, in 2002, the prize was awarded to Koichi Tanaka and John Fenn (chemist), John Fenn for the development of mass spectrometry in protein chemistry, an award that did not recognise the achievements of Franz Hillenkamp and Michael Karas of the Institute for Physical and Theoretical Chemistry at the Goethe University Frankfurt, University of Frankfurt. According to one of the nominees for the prize in physics, the three person limit deprived him and two other members of his team of the honor in 2013: the team of C. R. Hagen, Carl Hagen, Gerald Guralnik, and Tom Kibble published a paper in 1964 that gave answers to how the cosmos began, but did not share the 2013 Physics Prize awarded to Peter Higgs and François Englert, who had also published papers in 1964 concerning the subject. All five physicists arrived at the same conclusion, albeit from different angles. Hagen contends that an equitable solution is to either abandon the three limit restriction, or expand the time period of recognition for a given achievement to two years. Similarly, the prohibition of posthumous awards fails to recognise achievements by an individual or collaborator who dies before the prize is awarded. The Economics Prize was not awarded to Fischer Black, who died in 1995, when his co-author Myron Scholes received the honor in 1997 for their landmark work on option pricing along with Robert C. Merton, another pioneer in the development of valuation of stock options. In the announcement of the award that year, the Nobel committee prominently mentioned Black's key role. Political subterfuge may also deny proper recognition. Lise Meitner and Fritz Strassmann, who co-discovered nuclear fission along with Otto Hahn, may have been denied a share of Hahn's 1944 Nobel Chemistry Award due to having fled Germany when the Nazi Party, Nazis came to power. The Meitner and Strassmann roles in the research was not fully recognised until years later, when they joined Hahn in receiving the 1966 Enrico Fermi Award.


Emphasis on discoveries over inventions

Alfred Nobel left his fortune to finance annual prizes to be awarded "to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind". He stated that the Nobel Prizes in Physics should be given "to the person who shall have made the most important 'discovery' or 'invention' within the field of physics". Nobel did not emphasise discoveries, but they have historically been held in higher respect by the Nobel Prize Committee than inventions: 77% of the Physics Prizes have been given to discoveries, compared with only 23% to inventions. Christoph Bartneck and Matthias Rauterberg, in papers published in ''Nature (journal), Nature'' and ''Technoetic Arts'', have argued this emphasis on discoveries has moved the Nobel Prize away from its original intention of rewarding the greatest contribution to society.


Gender

In terms of the most prestigious awards in Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, STEM fields, only a small proportion have been awarded to women. Out of 210 laureates in Physics, 181 in Chemistry and 216 in Medicine between 1901 and 2018, there were only three female laureates in physics, five in chemistry and 12 in medicine. Factors proposed to contribute to the discrepancy between this and the roughly equal human sex ratio include biased nominations, fewer women than men being active in the relevant fields, Nobel Prizes typically being awarded decades after the research was done (reflecting a time when gender bias in the relevant fields was greater), a greater delay in awarding Nobel Prizes for women's achievements making longevity a more important factor for women (one cannot be nominated for the Nobel Prize posthumously), and a tendency to omit women from jointly awarded Nobel Prizes. Despite these factors, Marie Curie is to date the only person awarded Nobel Prizes in two different sciences (Physics in 1903, Chemistry in 1911); she is one of only three people who have received two Nobel Prizes in sciences (see Multiple laureates below). Malala Yousafzai is the youngest person ever to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. When she received it in 2014, she was only 17 years old.


Status of the Economic Sciences Prize

Peter Nobel describes the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel as a "false Nobel prize" that dishonours his relative Alfred Nobel, after whom the prize is named, and considers economics to be a pseudoscience.


Refusals and constraints

Two laureates have voluntarily declined the Nobel Prize. In 1964, Jean-Paul Sartre was awarded the Literature Prize, but refused, stating, "A writer must refuse to allow himself to be transformed into an institution, even if it takes place in the most honourable form." Lê Đức Thọ, chosen for the 1973 Peace Prize for his role in the Paris Peace Accords, declined, stating that there was no actual peace in Vietnam. George Bernard Shaw attempted to decline the prize money while accepting the 1925 Literature Prize; eventually it was agreed to use it to found the Anglo-Swedish Literary Foundation. During the Third Reich,
Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...
hindered
Richard Kuhn Richard Johann Kuhn (; 3 December 1900 – 31 July 1967) was an Austrian-German biochemist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1938 "for his work on carotenoids and vitamins". Biography Early life Kuhn was born in Vienna, Austria ...
, Adolf Butenandt, and
Gerhard Domagk Gerhard Johannes Paul Domagk (; 30 October 1895 – 24 April 1964) was a German pathologist and bacteriologist. He is credited with the discovery of Sulfonamide (medicine), sulfonamidochrysoidine (KL730) as an antibiotic for which he received th ...
from accepting their prizes. All of them were awarded their diplomas and gold medals after World War II. In 1958, Boris Pasternak declined his prize for literature due to fear of what the Soviet Union government might do if he travelled to Stockholm to accept his prize. In return, the Swedish Academy refused his refusal, saying "this refusal, of course, in no way alters the validity of the award." The academy announced with regret that the presentation of the Literature Prize could not take place that year, holding it back until 1989 when Pasternak's son accepted the prize on his behalf. Aung San Suu Kyi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, but her children accepted the prize because she had been placed under house arrest in Myanmar, Burma; Suu Kyi delivered her speech two decades later, in 2012. Liu Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010 while he and his wife were under house arrest in China as political prisoners, and he was unable to accept the prize in his lifetime.


Impact


Cultural

Being a symbol of scientific or literary achievement that is recognisable worldwide, the Nobel Prize is often depicted in fiction. This includes films such as ''The Prize (1963 film), The Prize'' (1963), ''Nobel Son'' (2007), and ''The Wife (2017 film), The Wife'' (2017) about fictional Nobel laureates, as well as fictionalised accounts of stories surrounding real prizes such as ''Nobel Chor'', a 2012 film based on the Rabindranath Tagore#Theft of Nobel Prize, theft of Rabindranath Tagore's prize. It has also been depicted in television shows such as ''The Big Bang Theory''. The statue and memorial symbol ''Planet of Alfred Nobel'' was opened in Alfred Nobel University of Economics and Law in Dnipro, Ukraine in 2008. On the globe, there are 802 Nobel laureates' reliefs made of a composite alloy obtained when disposing of military strategic missiles. Despite the symbolism of intellectual achievement, some recipients have embraced unsupported and Pseudoscience, pseudoscientific concepts, including various Vitamin C and the Common Cold (book)#Research, writing and revisions, health benefits of vitamin C and other dietary supplements, homeopathy, HIV/AIDS denialism, and various claims about race and intelligence. This is sometimes referred to as Nobel disease. In 2001, Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota, host of the Nobel Conference, commissioned American composer and alumnus Steve Heitzeg to compose a piece for the 100th anniversary of the Nobel Prizes. The 75-minute ''Nobel Symphony'' highlights all the major Nobel Prizes, and includes texts from Nobel laureates such as Pablo Neruda, Albert Camus, Toni Morrison, Amartya Sen, Martin Luther King Jr., Martin Luther King, Jr., Rigoberta Menchú,
Dag Hammarskjöld Dag Hjalmar Agne Carl Hammarskjöld (English: ,; 29 July 1905 – 18 September 1961) was a Swedish economist and diplomat who served as the second secretary-general of the United Nations from April 1953 until his death in a plane crash in Septe ...
, and Nelson Mandela. The ''Nobel Symphony'' premiered at Gustavus Adolphus on October 2, 2001, and was restaged by Philip Brunelle and VocalEssence at Orchestra Hall (Minneapolis), Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis, Minneapolis, Minnesota on April 18, 2004.


See also

* List of Nobel laureates ** List of Nobel laureates in Chemistry ** List of Nobel laureates in Literature ** List of Nobel Peace Prize laureates ** List of Nobel laureates in Physics ** List of Nobel laureates in Physiology or Medicine ** List of Nobel Memorial Prize laureates in Economics ** List of female Nobel laureates ** List of Nobel laureates by country ** List of Nobel laureates by university affiliation **List of Asian Nobel laureates **List of Jewish Nobel laureates * Nobel Prize medal * * * * * List of prizes known as the Nobel of a field * Lists of science and technology awards * * * *


References


Sources


Books

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Further reading

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External links

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Nobel Prizes by universities and institutes
* {{Authority control Nobel Prize, International academic awards Alfred Nobel Articles containing video clips Awards established in 1895 International science and technology awards Science and technology in Sweden Swedish science and technology awards Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences 1895 establishments in Sweden