Nobel Prizes

Nobel Prizes

Alfred Nobel, the inventor of Dynamite, laid the foundations of the Nobel Prize in 1895 in his will. He left much of his wealth for the establishment of the award. Since 1901, the Prize has been awarded for outstanding contributions in the field of physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, and for working towards peace. The Nobel Prize for Economics was instituted in 1968 by Sveriges Riksbank (Sweden’s Central Bank) in memory of Alfred Nobel and was given for the first time in 1969.

Some Interesting Facts about Nobel Prizes

» The most common field for Physics Laureates is particle physics, for Chemistry Laureates, it is biochemistry, or for Medicine Laureates, it is genetics, and, for Laureates in Economic Sciences, it is Macroeconomics.
» The Youngest Nobel Laureate till date is Malala Yousafzai, who won it for her struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education in 2014, at the age of just 17 years.
» The Oldest Nobel Laureate till date is Leonid Hurwicz, who won it for Economic Sciences in 2007, at the age of 90 years.
» Two Nobel Laureates have declined the Nobel Prize. Jean-Paul Sartre, who was awarded the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature, declined it because he had constantly declined all official honors. Le Due Tho, who was awarded the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize along with US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger for negotiating the Vietnam Peace Accord, rejected it citing the situation in Vietnam as the reason.
» Four Nobel Laureates have been forced to decline the Nobel Prize by the authorities. Adolf Hitler forbade three German Laureates, Richard Kuhn, Adolf Butenandt, and Gerhard Domagk from accepting the Nobel Prize. The Soviet Union coerced Boris Pasternak, the 1958 Nobel Laureate in Literature to decline the Nobel Prize.
» The Curie family has won the maximum amount of Nobel Prizes till date-Five.

Adolf Hitler has once been nominated for ‘Nobel Peace Prize’. He was nominated by E.G. C. Brandt, a member of Swedish Parliament, in an obvious taunting way. The nomination was formally withdrawn later. A year before Rabindranath Tagore got the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. He had lost the original manuscript of Gitanjali on a trip of England. Luckily he found the manuscript, but not before a frantic search was carried out all over the place.

Indian Winners of Nobel Prize