The Nobel Prizes_A Complete Review

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Editorial Team et al., IJSID, 2012, 2 (5), 132-151

International Journal of Science Innovations and Discoveries, Volume 2, Issue 5, September-October 2012

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THE NOBEL PRIZES: A COMPLETE REVIEW

IJSID Editorial Team

TThis

INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION

ISSN:2249-5347

IJSID

International Journal of Science Innovations and Discoveries An International peerReview Journal for Science

Review Article Available online through www.ijsidonline.info

ABSTRACT

Since 1901, the Nobel Prize has been honoring men and women from all corners of the globe for outstandin

achievements in physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, and for work in peace. The foundations for the prize were laid in 189

when Alfred Nobel wrote his last will, leaving much of his wealth to the establishment of the Nobel Prize.

Each year the respective Nobel Committees send individual invitations to thousands of members of academies, universit

professors, scientists from numerous countries, previous Nobel Laureates, members of parliamentary assemblies and other

asking them to submit candidates for the Nobel Prizes for the coming year. These nominators are chosen in such a way that a

many countries and universities as possible are represented over time.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences is responsible for the selection of the Nobel Laureates in Physics from among th

candidates recommended by the Nobel Committee for Physics. The Nobel Committee is the working body that screens th

nominations and selects the final candidates. It consists of five members, but for many years, the Committee has included adjunc

members with the same voting rights as members.

Keywords: The Nobel Prizes, Medicines, Chemistry, Physics, Literature, Alfried Nobel. Nobel Prize Winner.

DECLARATION

This review is only for education purpose only. Its an IJSID Editorial article and do not claim anything. This review

article information has collected from the official websites.

How to cite this article:

IJSID Editorial Team, The Nobel Prizes,International Jounal of Science Innovations and

Discoveries,

2012, 2 (5), 3023-3030.


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INTRODUCTION

Since 1901, the Nobel Prize has been honoring men and women from all corners of the globe for outstanding

achievements in physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, and for work in peace. The foundations for the prize were laid in

1895 when Alfred Nobel wrote his last will, leaving much of his wealth to the establishment of the Nobel Prize. But who was

Alfred Nobel? Articles, photographs, a slide show and poetry written by Nobel himself are presented here to give a glimpse of a

man whose varied interests are reflected in the prize he established. Meet Alfred Nobel - scientist, inventor, entrepreneur

author and pacifist. The Nobel Organizations

The Nobel Prize is surrounded by several organizations and institutions with different tasks related to the prize.

The Nobel Foundation

The Nobel Prize is financed by the Nobel Foundation, a private institution established in 1900 based on the will of Alfred

Nobel.

The Nobel Prize Awarding Institutions

The process of selecting the Nobel Laureates is exclusively handled by the Nobel Prize awarding institutions.

The Royal Swedish Academy (Nobel Prize in Physics, Nobel Prize in Chemistry and Prize in Economic Sciences)

The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet (Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine). The Swedish Academy (Nobel Prize in

Literature)

The Norwegian Nobel Committee elected by the Norwegian Parliament (Nobel Peace Prize)

The Nobel Foundation Rights Association

To meet the demands of a constantly growing global audience when it comes to information of high quality, regarding the

Nobel Laureates and their achievements, via a number of platforms, the Nobel Foundation Rights Association was established

in 1999. This non-profit association has an overall function as the umbrella organization for the following five units:

Nobel Media AB

Nobel Media manages and develops media rights connected with the Nobel Prize, in the areas of TV and web production,

distribution, publishing and events to reach a global audience.

Nobel Museum AB

The Nobel Museum illustrates a century of creativity through the Nobel Prize and the achievements of the Nobel Laureates

The Nobel Museum is located in the Old Town in Stockholm, Sweden.

Nobelhuset AB

The objective of the company Nobelhuset AB is to plan, build, own and manage as well as improve a building for cultural and

scientific work known as the Nobel Prize Center located at Blasieholmen in Stockholm.

Nobel Peace Center Foundation

Nobel Peace Center Foundation

The Nobel Peace Center is an institution aimed at presenting the Nobel Peace Prize and the work of the Nobel Peace Prize

Laureates. The Nobel Peace Center is located at Rdhusplassen in Oslo, Norway.

Nobels Fredspriskonsert AS

Nobels Fredspriskonsert AS is a Norwegian company with the aim to organize the Nobel Peace Prize Concert in Oslo and run

research on international relations, peace and conflict.


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Financing of Informational Activities

The above mentioned entities, a part from the Nobel Foundation Rights Association, are all externally financed, e.g. via

subsidies from state or local governments, corporate sponsors, educational organizations and philanthropic entities.

ABOUT THE NOBEL PRIZES

Every year since 1901 the Nobel Prize has been awarded for achievements in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine,

literature and for peace. The Nobel Prize is an international award administered by the Nobel Foundation in Stockholm,

Sweden. In 1968, Sveriges Riksbank established The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel,

founder of the Nobel Prize. Each prize consists of a medal, personal diploma, and a cash award.

The Nobel Prize Amounts

On 27 November 1895, a year before his death, Alfred Nobel signed the famous will which would implement some of the goals

to which he had devoted so much of his life. Nobel stipulated in his will that most of his estate, more than SEK 31 million

(today approximately SEK 1,702 million) should be converted into a fund and invested in "safe securities."

The Nobel Medals and the Medal for the Prize in Economics

According to the Statutes of the Nobel Foundation, given by the King in Council on June 29, 1900, "the prize-awarding bodies

shall present to each prize-winner an assignment for the amount of the prize, a diploma, and a gold medal bearing the image of

the testator and an appropriate inscription."

The medals for Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine and Literature were modeled by the Swedish sculptor and

engraver Erik Lindberg and the Peace medal by the Norwegian sculptor Gustav Vigeland. The medal for The Sveriges Riksbank

Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel (established in 1968 in connection with the 300th anniversary of the

Sveriges Riksbank), was designed by Gunvor Svensson-Lundqvist.

The front side of the three "Swedish" medals (Physics and Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, and Literature) is the same,

featuring a portrait of Alfred Nobel and the years of his birth and death in Latin - NAT-MDCCC XXXIII OB-MDCCC XCVI. Alfred

Nobel's face on the Peace medal and on the medal for the Economics Prize has different designs. The main inscription on the

reverse side of all three "Swedish" Nobel Prize medals is the same: "Inventas vitam juvat excoluisse per artes,"while the

images vary according to the symbols of the respective prize-awarding institutions. The Peace medal has the inscription "Pro

pace et fraternitate gentium" and the Economics medal has no quotation at all on the reverse.


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Up to 1980 the "Swedish" medals, each weighing approximately 200 g and with a diameter of 66 mm, were made of 23 carat

gold. Since then they have been made of 18 carat green gold plated with 24 carat gold.

The Nobel medals have had the same design since 1902. Why not since 1901, when the first Prizes were awarded? In early

1901 the young and talented Swedish sculptor and engraver Erik Lindberg - later Professor Erik Lindberg - had been

entrusted with the task of creating the three "Swedish" Nobel medals, while the Norwegian medal - the Peace medal - had been

entrusted to the Norwegian sculptor Gustav Vigeland. The designs of the reverse sides of the "Swedish" Nobel medals were not

finalized in time for the first Award Ceremony in 1901. We gather from Erik Lindberg's correspondence with his father

Professor Adolf Lindberg that each of the 1901 Laureates received a "temporary" medal - a medal bearing the portrait o

Alfred Nobel, cast in a baser metal - as a memento until the "real" medals were finished. The first of these medals was no

completed and cast until September 1902.

During the years 1901-1902 Erik Lindberg was living in Paris. He was influenced by modern French medal engravers of tha

period, such as the masters Roty, Chaplain, Tasset and Vernon. The portrait on the front of the Swedish medals was completed

in time. It was reduced in October 1901 at Janvier's in Paris and the final punching took place in Stockholm. The reason for the

delay was that the symbols on the reverse of the medals had to be approved by each Prize-Awarding institution, which was not

without controversy. After lengthy discussions by letter, Erik Lindberg decided to return to Stockholm in November 1901 in


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order to present his ideas in person. His proposals were then all accepted, and he was finally able to produce the plaster casts

for the reverse sides, which were then reduced for the final metal-stamping dies.

As Gustav Vigeland was a sculptor and not a medal engraver, Erik Lindberg was asked to make the dies for the Peace medal.

His reductions were based on Vigeland's designs.

On all "Swedish" Nobel medals the name of the Laureate is engraved fully visible on a plate on the reverse, whereas the name

of the Peace Laureate as well as that of the Winner for the Economics Prize is engraved on the edge of the medal, which is less

obvious. For the 1975 Economics Prize winners, the Russian Leonid Kantorovich and the American Tjalling Koopmans, this

created problems. Their medals were mixed up in Stockholm, and after the Nobel Week the Prize Winners went back to their

respective countries with the wrong medals. As this happened during the Cold War, it took four years of diplomatic efforts to

have the medals exchanged to their rightful owners.

On December 10 at the Prize Award Ceremony in Stockholm, His Majesty the King hands each Laureate a diploma and a medal

The Peace Prize, i.e. diploma and medal, is presented on the same day in Oslo by the Chairman of the Norwegian Nobel

Committee in the presence of the King of Norway. The Irish poet William Butler Yeates wrote the following in "The Bounty of

Sweden" (The Cuala Press, Dublin, 1925) after receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923:


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"All is over, and I am able to examine my medal, its charming, decorative, academic design, French in manner, a work of the

nineties. It shows a young man listening to a Muse, who stands young and beautiful with a great lyre in her hand, and I think as

I examine it, 'I was good-looking once like that young man, but my unpractised verse was full of infirmity, my Muse old as it

were; and now I am old and rheumatic, and nothing to look at, but my Muse is young'."

There are many rumors of what happened to the Nobel medals of three Nobel Laureates in Physics during World War II: the

medals of the Germans Max von Laue (1914) and James Franck (1925), and of the Dane Niels Bohr (1922). Professor Bohr's

Institute of Theoretical Physics in Copenhagen had been a refuge for German Jewish physists since 1933. Max von Laue and

James Franck had deposited their medals there to keep them from being confiscated by the German authorities. After the

occupation of Denmark in April 1940, the medals were Bohr's first concern, according to the Hungarian chemist George de

Hevesy (also of Jewish origin and a 1943 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry), who worked at the institute. In Hitler's Germany it was

almost a capital offense to send gold out of the country. Since the names of the Laureates were engraved on the medals, their

discovery by the invading forces would have had very serious consequences. To quote George de Hevesy (Adventures in

Radioisotope Research, Vol. 1, p. 27, Pergamon, New York, 1962), who talks about von Laue's medal: "I suggested that we

should bury the medal, but Bohr did not like this idea as the medal might be unearthed. I decided to dissolve it. While the

invading forces marched in the streets of Copenhagen, I was busy dissolving Laue's and also James Franck's medals. After the

war, the gold was recovered and the Nobel Foundation generously presented Laue and Frank with new Nobel medals." de

Hevesy wrote to von Laue after the war that the task of dissolving the medals had not been easy, as gold is "exceedingly

unreactive and difficult to dissolve." The Nazis occupied Bohr's institute and searched it very carefully but they did not find

anything. The medals quietly waited out the war in a solution of aqua regia. de Hevesy did not mention Niels Bohr's own Nobel

medal but documents in the Niels Bohr Archive in Copenhagen show that Niels Bohr's Nobel medal, as well as the Nobel medal

of the 1920 Danish Laureate in Physiology or Medicine, August Krogh, had already been donated to an auction held on March

12, 1940 for the benefit of the Fund for Finnish Relief (Finlandshjlpen). The medals were bought by an anonymous buyer and

donated to the Danish Historical Museum in Fredriksborg, where they are still kept. Regarding the Nobel medals of von Laue

and Franck, the Niels Bohr Archive has a letter from Niels Bohr dated January 24, 1950, about the delivery of gold to the Royal

Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm relating to these two medals. The proceedings of the Nobel Foundation on

February 28, 1952, mention that Professor Franck received his recoined medal at a ceremony at the University of Chicago on

January 31, 1952.


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The Nobel Medals were produced by Myntverket (the Swedish Mint) in Eskilstuna, Sweden, 19022010.

All the medals produced by Myntverket (the Swedish Mint) are well documented since the 18th century.


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The Nobel Medals were cast by Myntverket (the Royal Mint) in Eskilstuna, Sweden, 1902-2010. 2011, the Nobel Medals and

the Nobel Peace Prize Medals were cast by Det Norske Myntverket (Mint of Norway) in Kongsberg, Norway.

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."


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The list below shows the Nobel Prize amount in Swedish kronor (SEK) through the years, the monetary value per December

2011 in Swedish kronor (SEK) and the value in % compared to the original amount in 1901. Prize Announcement Dates

The announcement of the Nobel Laureates and the Laureates in Economic Sciences for the year is made on the same day that

the Nobel Prize awarding institutions choose from among the names recommended by the respective Nobel Committees

Immediately after the vote, a press conference is held by the concerned Nobel Prize awarder. Announcements of the 2012

Nobel Prizes

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

Monday 8 October, 11:30 a.m. at the earliest

The Nobel Prize in Physics

Tuesday 9 October, 11:45 a.m. at the earliest

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry

Wednesday 10 October, 11:45 a.m. at the earliest

The Nobel Peace Prize

Friday 12 October, 11:00 a.m.

Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel

Monday 15 October, 1:00 p.m. at the earliest.

The Nobel Prize in Literature

According to tradition, the Swedish Academy will set the date for its announcement of the Nobel Prize in Literature later.

Nomination and Selection of Nobel Laureates

Each year the respective Nobel Committees send individual invitations to thousands of members of academies, university

professors, scientists from numerous countries, previous Nobel Laureates, members of parliamentary assemblies and others

asking them to submit candidates for the Nobel Prizes for the coming year. These nominators are chosen in such a way that as

many countries and universities as possible are represented over time.

Nomination and Selection of Physics Laureates

Nomination to the Nobel Prize in Physics is by invitation only. The Nobel Committee for Physics sends confidential forms to

persons who are competent and qualified to nominate. The names of the nominees and other information about the

nominations cannot be revealed until 50 years later.

Nomination and Selection of Chemistry Laureates

Nomination to the Nobel Prize in Chemistry is by invitation only. The Nobel Committee for Chemistry sends confidential forms

to persons who are competent and qualified to nominate. The names of the nominees and other information about the

nominations cannot be revealed until 50 years later.

Process of Nomination and Selection

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences is responsible for the selection of the Nobel Laureates in Physics from among the

candidates recommended by the Nobel Committee for Physics. The Nobel Committee is the working body that screens the

nominations and selects the final candidates. It consists of five members, but for many years, the Committee has included

adjunct members with the same voting rights as members.


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The Nobel Prizes_A Complete Review