The Nobel prizes are handed out for outstanding achievements in physiology or medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and peace.
STOCKHOLM:
The Nobel prizes are set to be announced this week, starting with the award for physiology or medicine on Monday and ending with the unveiling of the winners in economics on October 12.
The awards, which are also handed out for outstanding achievements in physics, chemistry, literature and peace, come with a recently increased prize amount of 12 million Swedish crowns ($1.21 million) and bestow instant fame on the recipients that is unthinkable for the vast majority of scientists.
WHO WAS ALFRED NOBEL?
The Nobel Prize was created by wealthy Swedish chemist and entrepreneur Alfred Nobel, who in his will dictated that the bulk of his estate should be used to fund “prizes to those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind”.
Best known as the inventor of dynamite, Nobel was also a businessman, poet and linguist who could speak Russian, French, English and German by the age of 17. The five original prize categories reflect interests closest to his heart.
Nobel spent much of his career developing weapons technologies and made a fortune from it, but later in life became a close friend of Austrian peace activist Bertha von Suttner. She went on to become the first woman to win the peace prize in 1905 and many believe it was her influence that made him include an award for that category.
Nobel died in 1896 but it took until 1901, following a legal battle over his will, before the first prizes were awarded.
WHO AWARDS THE NOBEL PRIZES?
Nobel selected the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to award the prizes for chemistry and physics, the Swedish Academy for literature, Sweden’s Karolinska Institute medical university for physiology or medicine, and the Norwegian parliament for peace. It is not known exactly why Nobel chose Norway to hand out the peace prize, though it could reflect that Norway and Sweden were linked in a political union at the time he penned his will.
In 1968, when Sweden’s central bank was celebrating its 300th anniversary, it established the Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel with a donation to the Nobel Foundation. The prize is awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, according to the same principles as the other prizes.
FAMOUS AND INFAMOUS LAUREATES
Notable Nobel laureates include physicists Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr, authors Ernest Hemingway and Albert Camus, and leaders such as Nelson Mandela and Mother Teresa.
The Curies were the most successful “Nobel Prize family”, with Marie Curie winning twice and her husband, daughter and son-in-law also among Nobel laureates.
Only five people have won multiple Nobel prizes, with American chemist and peace activist Linus Pauling the only person to have received two unshared Nobel Prizes.
Some awards have aged poorly, such as Egas Moniz’s 1949 medicine prize for the since-discredited practice of lobotomy.
Many peace prizes have also been criticised, including those for Henry Kissinger, Yasser Arafat, Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres. Failure to give the prize to Mahatma Gandhi before his death in 1948 is also seen by many as a great oversight.
THE FESTIVITIES
The Nobel prizes are presented to the laureates on December 10, the anniversary of Nobel’s death. The peace prize is handed out by the chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee in Oslo, while the other prizes are presented by the Swedish king in the Stockholm Concert Hall.
During the evening some 1,300 guests are treated to a lavish banquet at Stockholm City Hall. The menu, meticulously planned for months by some of Sweden’s best chefs and sommeliers, is kept a secret until the food is served by 200 waiters.
The food has a Nordic theme and last year’s menu featured Porcini mushroom soup, turbot stuffed with scallops and sugar kelp, and blackthorn berry sorbet with baked fresh cheese cream and browned butter sponge.
