Nobel Prize | Meaning & Concept [Explained]

We explain what the Nobel Prize is, what it consists of and in what categories it is awarded. Also, who was its creator, Alfred Nobel.

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What is the Nobel Prize?

The Nobel Prize (pronounced /nobél/) is one of the most famous and recognized international awards in recent history. awarded annually to individuals, groups or institutions that have made exceptional contributions and significant to humanity in six different thematic categories: physics, chemistry, physiology (medicine), literature, economics and the peace prize (social activism, charity or similar).

The prize It has been taught since 1901 in five of its six current categories, and since 1968 in its economics category. The institutions in charge of choosing the winners in each area are the Swedish Academy of Sciences (chemistry, physics and economics), the Karolinska Institute (medicine), the Swedish Academy (literature) and the Nobel Central Committee (peace). The first five are awarded in Stockholm, Sweden, while the last is awarded in Oslo, Norway. All activities linked to the prize are administered by the Nobel Foundation.

The Nobel Prize named after the Swedish chemist and inventor Alfred Nobel (1833-1896), inventor of dynamite and 355 other patents. In his will, Nobel dedicated 95% of his immense fortune to the creation of the prizes, as a way to stimulate the most positive aspects of human inventiveness and also to clear his own name, associated with the creation of cannons and other weapons of war. For this reason the prize is awarded every December 10, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel's death.

Who was Alfred Nobel?

nobel prize creator — Alfred Nobel dedicated 95% of his immense fortune to the creation of the prizes.

Alfred Nobel born October 21, 1833 in Stockholm, Sweden within a family of engineers. After spending his childhood in Tsarist Russia, where he received an education in natural and human sciences, he returned to his native country in 1863 to devote himself to research in the area of explosives.

His family's factories had been widely criticized for their handling of nitroglycerin and industrial accidents (in one of which, in fact, his own brother Emil had died); so Nobel dedicated himself to the matter and In 1867 he invented dynamite a much more stable explosive that turned out to be immensely profitable.

The dynamite It was just one of the 355 inventions he patented during his lifetime. although perhaps the most famous. Thanks to this, in 1894 Nobel bought the Bofors steel industry, dedicated to iron and steel, and converted it into a formidable war weapons factory, which earned him the nickname “the merchant of death.”

It is believed that the impact that his nickname had on him was such that He decided to invest his remaining time and fortune in compensating for the damage his invention had caused to the world. . This is how the Nobel Prizes were born: in the last of his living wills, Alfred Nobel left just 5% of his wealth to his family, and the rest was invested in the creation of a series of prizes for those who carried out “the greatest benefit to humanity.”

Nobel was a cultured and sensitive man, who spoke five languages and cultivated literary crafts (especially poetry in English), but extremely lonely: he never had a wife or family of his own, or children.

One of her best-known affections was that of the novelist and pacifist Bertha von Suttner (1843-1914), whose correspondence with Alfred is considered the seed of the Nobel Peace Prize: a prize that she herself would receive in 1905, becoming the first woman to receive it in history (and the second Nobel winner after Marie Curie).

Nobel Prize Categories

nobel prize martin luther king — The Nobel Peace Prize honors those who contribute to coexistence and fraternity between nations.

The Nobel Prize is currently awarded in six different categories:

Nobel Prize in Physics . It has been awarded since 1901 by the Nobel Foundation and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to those people or institutions that have made significant contributions to the understanding of the laws and composition of the universe. It has been taught just over 200 times.
Nobel Prize in Chemistry. It has been awarded since 1901 by the Nobel Foundation and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to those people or institutions that have made significant contributions to the understanding and transformation of the subject. It has been taught around 160 times.
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. It has been awarded since 1901 by the Nobel Foundation and the Karolinska Institute of Sweden to those people or institutions that have made significant contributions to the study and understanding of the human body, health and the fight against diseases. It has been taught around 206 times.
Nobel Prize in Literature. It has been awarded since 1901 by the Nobel Foundation and the Swedish Academy to those people whose literary career is considered to be of importance and interest to humanity. It has been taught 114 times.
Nobel Peace Prize . It has been awarded since 1901 by the Nobel Foundation and the Norwegian Nobel Committee (composed of 5 people elected, in turn, by the Norwegian parliament) to those people or institutions that have contributed significantly to peace, human coexistence, brotherhood of nations, the abolition of war and injustice, and other important forms of social and political activism. It has been taught almost 100 times.
Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics. Also called the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, it has been awarded since 1968 by the Nobel Foundation, the Bank of Sweden and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to individuals and institutions that have made significant contributions to development. of economic sciences. It is not technically a Nobel Prize, since it was not in Alfred Nobel's will, but it is considered the “Nobel Prize in economics” and has the same prestige and importance.

What is the Nobel Prize?

No Nobel Prize can be awarded to more than three people at a time, and awards the winner or winners a significant sum of money equivalent to about 1.5 million dollars or 1 million euros (10 million Swedish crowns).

In addition, the winners of the physics, chemistry, medicine and literature categories receive a medal with the image of Alfred Nobel left profile, with the Latin inscription Inventions vital juvat excoluisse per arts (“Who ennobled life by discovering the arts”), corresponding to a verse by the Roman poet Virgil. This medal is the work of the sculptor and engraver Erik Lindberg, and has the symbols of each institution that awards them.

The winners of the Nobel Peace Prize, on the other hand, receive a medal made by the Norwegian sculptor Gustav Vigeland that also displays the profile of Alfred Nobel, and the Latin quote Pro pace et fraternitate gentium (“For the peace and brotherhood of nations”). And, for his part, the Nobel Prize in Economics receives a medal with the image of Alfred Nobel by the Swede Gunvor Svensson-Lundkvist, on which no inscription appears.

All winners They also receive a diploma from the King of Sweden, or the president of the Norwegian Nobel Committee. (in the case of the peace prize), whose design belongs to the awarding institutions and the reasons that led to the award of the prize are detailed.

Nobel Prize winners

Some examples of Nobel Prize winners in their different categories are:

Nobel Prize in Physics :

In 1901 it was awarded to the German Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen by the discovery of X-rays (then called “Röntgen rays”).
In 1918 it was awarded to the German Max Planck for his contributions to physics by discovering energy quanta and laying the foundations for quantum physics.
In 1921 it was awarded to the German Albert Einstein for his revolutionary contributions to theoretical physics and the discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect.
In 1922 it was awarded to the Danish Niels Bohr for his contributions in the investigation of the structure of atoms and the radiation that emanates from them.
In 1938 it was awarded to the Italian Enrico Fermi for the discovery of nuclear reactions produced by slow neutrons and for demonstrating the existence of new radioactive elements created by neutron irradiation.
In 1971 it was awarded to the Hungarian Dennis Gabor for the invention and development of the holographic method.
In 2017 it was awarded to the Americans Rainer Weiss, Barry Barish and Kip Thorne for his contributions to the LIGO detector and the observation of gravitational waves for the first time in history.

Nobel Prize in Chemistry :

In 1908 it was awarded to the British Ernest Rutherford for his research regarding the degradation of elements and the chemistry of radioactive substances.
In 1911 it was awarded to the Polish Marie Curie for his services in advancing chemistry with the discovery and isolation of radium and polonium.
In 1944 it was awarded to the German Otto Hahn for discovering the fission of heavy atomic nuclei.
In 1958 it was awarded to the British Frederick Sanger for his work on the structure of proteins and especially insulin.
In 1989 it was awarded to the Canadian Sidney Altman and to the American Thomas Cech for having discovered the catalytic properties of ribonucleic acid (RNA).
In 2020 it was awarded to the French Emmanuelle Charpentier and the American Jennifer Doudna for the development of the CRISPR method of gene editing.

Nobel Prize in Medicine :

In 1902 it was awarded to the British Ronald Ross for his discovery of how the malaria parasite enters the body and effective methods to combat it.
In 1906 it was awarded to the Italian Camillo Golgi and to Spanish Santiago Ramon y Cajal for his work on the structure of the nervous system of the human body.
In 1923 it was awarded to the Canadian Frederick Grant Banting and to the british John James Richard Mcleod for the discovery of insulin.
In 1930 it was awarded to the Austrian Karl Landsteiner for the discovery of human blood groups.
In 1945 it was awarded jointly to the British Alexander Fleming into German Ernst Boris Chain and to the Australian Howard Walter Florey for the discovery of penicillin and its antibiotic effect in different bacterial diseases.
In 1985 it was awarded to the Americans Michael Brown and Joseph Goldstein for his discoveries on the metabolic regulation of cholesterol.
In 2020 it was awarded to Americans Harvey James Alter and Charles Rice and to the British Michael Houghton for the discovery of the hepatitis C virus.

Nobel Prize in Literature :

In 1907 it was awarded to the British Rudyard Kipling for “his power of observation, originality of imagination, virility of ideas and an extraordinary talent for narration that characterize the creations of this world-famous author.”
In 1913 it was awarded to the Indian Rabindranath Tagore “because of his deeply sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse, with which, with consummate skill, he has created his poetic thought, expressed in his own words in English, a part of the literature of the West.”
In 1945 it was awarded to the Chilean Gabriela Mistral “for his lyrical poetry that, inspired by powerful emotions, has turned his name into a symbol of the idealistic aspirations of the entire Latin American world.”
In 1954 it was awarded to the American Ernest Hemingway “for his mastery of the art of narrative, most recently demonstrated in The old man and the seaand for the influence it has exerted on contemporary style.”
In 1968 it was awarded to the Japanese Yasunari Kawabata “for his narrative mastery, which expresses with great sensitivity the essence of the Japanese mind.”
In 1982 it was awarded to the Colombian Gabriel Garcia Marquez “for his novels and short stories, in which the fantastic and the real are combined in a world richly composed of imagination, reflecting the life and conflicts of a continent.”
In 2015 it was awarded to the Belarusian Svetlana Alexievich “for his polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time.”

Nobel Peace Prize :

In 1901 it was delivered to the Swiss Jean-Henri Dunant for his role in the creation of the International Red Cross and the French Frederic Passy for being one of the founders of the Interparliamentary Union and the main organizer of the Universal Congress for Peace.
In 1935 it was awarded to the German writer and pacifist Carl von Ossietzky founder of the movement Nie Wieder Krieg (“Never again war”) and international denouncer of the secret rearmament carried out by Adolf Hitler.
In 1954 it was awarded to United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Switzerland an organization dedicated to the work of caring for refugees around the world since 1951.
In 1964 it was awarded to the American Martin Luther King for his fight for the rights of the African-American minority in his country and his role in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
In 1979 it was awarded to the Indian mother Teresa of Calcutta leader of the religious congregation of the Missionaries of Charity.
In 1992 it was awarded to the Guatemalan Rigoberta Menchú for their work towards social justice and recognition of the legacy of indigenous peoples.

Nobel Prize in Economics :

In 1974 it was awarded to the Swede Gunnar Myrdal and to the Austrian Friedrich Hayek for his work in monetary theory and his analyzes of the independence of economic, social and institutional phenomena.
In 1976 it was awarded to the American Milton Friedman for his demonstration of the complexity of political stabilization and his contributions in the field of consumption analysis, history and monetary theory.
In 1988 it was awarded to the French Maurice Allais for his contribution to the theory of markets and the efficient distribution of resources.
In 2019 it was awarded to the Indian Abhijit Banerjee the French Esther Duflo and the American Michael Kremer for its experimental approach aimed at reducing global poverty.