Nobel Prize Facts

On 27 November 1895, Alfred Nobel signed his last will and testament, giving the largest share of his fortune to a series of prizes in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature and Peace - the Nobel Prizes. In 1968, Sveriges Riksbank (Sweden's central bank) established The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. 

 

Lists of Nobel Prizes and Laureates 2015

 

The Nobel Prize in Physics 2015

Takaaki Kajita and Arthur B. McDonald

 "for the discovery of neutrino oscillations, which shows that neutrinos have mass"

 The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2015

 Tomas Lindahl, Paul Modrich and Aziz Sancar

 "for mechanistic studies of DNA repair"

 The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2015

 William C. Campbell and Satoshi Ōmura

 "for their discoveries concerning a novel therapy against infections caused by roundworm parasites"

 Youyou Tu

 "for her discoveries concerning a novel therapy against Malaria"

 The Nobel Prize in Literature 2015

 Svetlana Alexievich

 "for her polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time"

 The Nobel Peace Prize 2015

 National Dialogue Quartet

 "for its decisive contribution to the building of a pluralistic democracy in Tunisia in the wake of the Jasmine Revolution of 2011"

 The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2015

 Angus Deaton

 "for his analysis of consumption, poverty, and welfare"

 

The Nobel Prize 2014

 The Nobel Prize in Literature 2014 was awarded to Patrick Modiano "for the art of memory with which he has evoked the most ungraspable human destinies and uncovered the life-world of the occupation".

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2014 was awarded jointly to Eric Betzig, Stefan W. Hell and William E. Moerner "for the development of super-resolved fluorescence microscopy".

The Nobel Prize in Physics 2014 was awarded jointly to Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano and Shuji Nakamura "for the invention of efficient blue light-emitting diodes which has enabled bright and energy-saving white light sources".

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2014 was divided, one half awarded to John O'Keefe, the other half jointly to May-Britt Moser and Edvard I. Moser "for their discoveries of cells that constitute a positioning system in the brain".

 

Nobel Prize 2013

 The Nobel Prize in Physics 2013 was awarded jointly to François Englert and Peter W. Higgs. “For the Theory of How Particles Acquire Mass”

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2013 was awarded jointly to Martin Karplus, Michael Levitt and Arieh Warshel "for the development of multiscale models for complex chemical systems".

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2013 was awarded jointly to James E. Rothman, Randy W. Schekman and Thomas C. Südhof "for their discoveries of machinery regulating vesicle traffic, a major transport system in our cells".

The Nobel Prize in Literature 2013 was awarded to Alice Munro "master of the contemporary short story".

The Nobel Peace Prize 2013 was awarded to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons "for its extensive efforts to eliminate chemical weapons".

The 2013 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel was awarded jointly to Eugene F. Fama, Lars Peter Hansen and Robert J. Shiller "for their empirical analysis of asset prices".

 Between 1901 and 2013, the Nobel Prizes and the Prize in Economic Sciences were awarded 561 times.

Nobel Prize

Number of Prizes

Number of Laureates

Awarded to one Laureate

Shared by two Laureates

Shared by three Laureates

Physics

107

196

47

30

29

Chemistry

105

166

63

22

19

Medicine

104

204

38

31

34

Literature

106

110

101

4

-

Peace

94

100+25

63

28

2

Economic Sciences

45

74

22

16

6

Total:

561

875

334

131

90

 

Years when the Nobel Prize Have Not Been Awarded

Since the start, in 1901, there are some years when the Nobel Prizes have not been awarded. The total number of times are 50. Most of them during World War I (1914-1918) and II (1939-1945).

Nobel Prize

Year

Physics

1916, 1931, 1934, 1940, 1941, 1942

Chemistry

1916, 1917, 1919, 1924, 1933, 1940, 1941, 1942

Medicine

1915, 1916, 1917, 1918, 1921, 1925, 1940, 1941, 1942

Literature

1914, 1918, 1935, 1940, 1941, 1942, 1943

Peace

1914, 1915, 1916, 1918, 1923, 1924, 1928, 1932, 1939, 1940, 1941, 1942, 1943, 1948, 1955, 1956, 1966, 1967, 1972

Economic Sciences

-

 

Nobel Laureates and Field

The most common fields for Physics Laureates is particle physics, for Chemistry Laureates it is biochemistry, for Medicine Laureates it is genetics and for Laureates in Economic Sciences it is Macroeconomics.

 

The Youngest Nobel Laureates

Category

Name

Year of Award

Age of Nobel Laureate

Physics

William Lawrence Bragg

1915

25

Chemistry

Frédéric Joliot

1935

35

Physiology or Medicine

Frederick Banting

1923

32

Literature

Rudyard Kipling

1907

42

Peace

Tawakkol Karman

2011

32

Economic Sciences

Kenneth J. Arrow

1972

51

 

The Oldest Nobel Laureates

Category

Name

Year of Award

Age of Nobel Laureate

Physics

Raymond Davis Jr.

2002

88

Chemistry

John B. Fenn

2002

85

Physiology or Medicine

Peyton Rous

1966

87

Literature

Doris Lessing

2007

88

Peace

Joseph Rotblat

1995

87

Economic Sciences

Leonid Hurwicz

2007

90

 

45 Nobel Prizes to Women

Between 1901 and 2013 the Nobel Prize and Prize in Economic Sciences have been awarded 45 times to women.

 

Two Nobel Laureates have Declined the Nobel Prize!

Jean-Paul Sartre, awarded the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature, declined the prize because he had consistently declined all official honours.

Le Duc Tho, awarded the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize jointly with US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. They were awarded the Prize for negotiating the Vietnam peace accord. Le Doc Tho said that he was not in a position to accept the Nobel Peace Prize, citing the situation in Vietnam as his reason.

 

Forced to Decline the Nobel Prize!

Four Nobel Laureates have been forced by authorities to decline the Nobel Prize. Adolf Hitler forbade three German Nobel Laureates, Richard Kuhn, Adolf Butenandt andGerhard Domagk, from accepting the Nobel Prize. All of them could later receive the Nobel Prize Diploma and Medal, but not the prize amount.

Boris Pasternak, the 1958 Nobel Laureate in Literature, initially accepted the Nobel Prize but was later coerced by the authorities of the Soviet Union, his native country, to decline the Nobel Prize.

Three Nobel Laureates Have Been under Arrest at the Time of the Award

German pacifist and journalist Carl von Ossietzky

Burmese politician Aung San Suu Kyi

Chinese human rights activist Liu Xiaobo

 

Multiple Nobel Laureates

The work of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has been honoured by a Nobel Peace Prize three times. Besides, the founder of the ICRC,Henry Dunant, was awarded the first Nobel Peace Prize in 1901.

Linus Pauling is the only person to have been awarded two unshared Nobel Prizes - the 1954 Nobel Prize in Chemistry and the 1962 Nobel Peace Prize.

J. Bardeen

M. Curie

L. Pauling

Physics 1956
Physics 1972

Physics 1903
Chemistry 1911

Chemistry 1954
Peace 1962

F. Sanger

ICRC

UNHCR

Chemistry 1958
Chemistry 1980

Peace 1917
Peace 1944
Peace 1963

Peace 1954
Peace 1981

 

The Nobel Prize Amount

Alfred Nobel left most of his estate, more than SEK 31 million (today approximately SEK 1,702 million) to be converted into a fund and invested in "safe securities." The income from the investments was to be "distributed annually in the form of prizes to those who during the preceding year have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind."

The Nobel Prize amount for 2013 is set at Swedish kronor (SEK) 8.0 million per full Nobel Prize.

 

মহিলা নোবেল বিজয়ী (Female Nobel laureates )

Nobel Prize in Physiology/Medicine

1947: Gerty Cori

1977: Rosalyn Sussman Yalow

1983: Barbara McClintock

1986: Rita Levi-Montalcini

1988: Gertrude Elion

1995: Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard

2004: Linda B. Buck

2008: Françoise Barré-Sinoussi

2009: Elizabeth H. Blackburn   

2009: Carol W. Greider 

Nobel Prize in Physics

1903: Marie Curie

1963: Maria Goeppert Mayer

Nobel Prize in Chemistry

1911: Marie Curie

1935: Irène Joliot-Curie

1964: Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin

2009: Ada E. Yonath 

Nobel Prize in Literature

1909: Selma Lagerlöf

1926: Grazia Deledda

1928: Sigrid Undset

1938: Pearl Buck

1945: Gabriela Mistral

1966: Nelly Sachs

1991: Nadine Gordimer

1993: Toni Morrison

1996: Wislawa Szymborska

2004: Elfriede Jelinek

2007: Doris Lessing

2009: Herta Müller

2013: Alice Munro

Nobel Prize in Economics

2009: Elinor Ostrom

Nobel Peace Prize

1905: Bertha von Suttner

1931: Jane Addams

1946: Emily Greene Balch

1976: Betty Williams

1976: Mairead Corrigan

1979: Mother Teresa

1982: Alva Myrdal

1991: Aung San Suu Kyi

1992: Rigoberta Menchú

1997: Jody Williams

2003: Shirin Ebadi

2004: Wangari Maathai

2011: Tawakkul Karman

2011: Ellen Johnson Sirleaf

2011: Leymah Gbowee

 

মুসলিম নোবেল বিজয়ী (Muslim Nobel laureates)

Nobel Prize in Literature

1988: Naguib Mahfouz

2006: Orhan Pamuk

Nobel Prize in Chemistry

1999: Ahmed Zewail

Nobel Prize in Physics

1979: Dr. Abdus Salam

Nobel Peace Prize

1978: Anwar El-Sadat

1994: Yasser Arafat

2003: Shirin Ebadi

2005: Mohamed ElBaradei

2006: Muhammad Yunus

2011: Tawakkul Karman

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

None

Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics

None