October 7th, 2022: It's that time of the year when everyone eagerly awaits the Noble Prize announcements. But how did it all start? Background, Trivia and everything you wanted to know about the Noble Prize. A ReferencePepper!
Let's start from the beginning:
Alfred Nobel (1833-1896) was born in Stockholm, Sweden, on 21 October 1833. His family was descended from Olof Rudbeck, the best-known technical genius in Sweden in the 17th century.
Alfred's father was Immanuel Nobel and his mother was Andriette Ahlsell Nobel.
An Engineer and inventor, Alfred’s father built bridges and buildings and experimented with different ways of blasting rocks. The same year that Alfred was born, his father’s business suffered losses and had to be closed. In 1837, Immanuel Nobel decided to try his business somewhere else and left for Finland and later Russia and Immanuel stayed behind in Stockholm to take care of the family
After a time, Immanuel Nobel’s business in St. Petersburg, Russia started doing well. He had opened a mechanical workshop that provided equipment for the Russian army. With his success in Russia, by Immanuel was now able to move his family to St. Petersburg in 1842.
Alfred and his 3 brothers received first class education in St. Petersburg, Russia and their lessons included natural sciences, languages and literature. At the age of 17, Alfred could speak and write in Swedish, Russian, French, English and German.
Alfred was most interested in literature, chemistry and physics. His father wanted his sons to follow in his footsteps and was not pleased with Alfred’s interest in poetry. He decided to send the young man abroad to study and become a chemical engineer.
In Paris, Alfred worked in the private laboratory of Professor T. J. Pelouze, a famous chemist. There he met a young Italian chemist, Ascanio Sobrero. Three years earlier, Sobrero had invented nitroglycerine, a highly explosive liquid
Recognizing the potential usefulness of nitroglycerin, Alfred sought to make a practical explosive formulation that could be handled reasonably safely.
The Nobel family’s return to Sweden in 1863 and Alfred concentrated on developing nitroglycerine as an explosive. Sadly, these experiments resulted in accidents that killed several people, including Alfred’s younger brother, Emil. The government decided to ban these experiments within the Stockholm city limits.
Alfred did not give up and moved his experiments to a barge or flat bottom boat on Lake Mälaren. In 1864, he was able to start mass production of nitroglycerine but he did not stop experimenting with different additives to make the production much safer.
Alfred invents “dynamite”
Alfred found, through his experiments, that mixing nitroglycerine with a fine sand called kieselguhr would turn the liquid into paste which could be shaped into rods. These rods could then be inserted into drilling holes. The invention was made in 1866. Alfred got a patent or legal right of ownership on this material the next year. He named it “dynamite.” He also invented a detonator or blasting cap which could be set off by lighting a fuse.
Alfred Nobel’s will
On November 27, 1895, Alfred Nobel signed his third and last will at the Swedish-Norwegian Club in Paris. When it was opened and read after his death, the will caused a lot of controversy both in Sweden and internationally, as Nobel had left much of his wealth for the establishment of a prize. His family opposed the establishment of the Nobel Prize, and the prize awarders he named refused to do what he had requested in his will. It was five years before the first Nobel Prize could be awarded in 1901.
In this excerpt of the will, Alfred Nobel dictates that his entire remaining estate should be used to endow “prizes to those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind”
In short, Alfred Noble in his will, dictated that all the interest from his wealth kept aside for this Noble cause would constitute a fund which would be divided annually as prizes. As per his will, the fund would be divided in 5 equal parts and distributed as follows:
For the Person who | To be awarded by |
made the most important discovery or invention in the field of physics | Swedish Academy of Sciences |
made the most important chemical discovery or improvement | Swedish Academy of Sciences |
made the most important discovery within the domain of physiology or medicine | Karolinska Institute in Stockholm |
in the field of literature, produced the most outstanding work in an idealistic direction | Academy in Stockholm |
has done the most or best to advance fellowship among nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies, and the establishment and promotion of peace congresses | committee of five persons to be selected by the Norwegian Storting |
More Facts:
As of 2020, 962 laureates (57 women) have been awarded with 603 Nobel Prizes in the mentioned categories. Some of them are shared by more than one recipient. The ceremony is conducted every year in Stockholm, Sweden, on the death anniversary of Alfred Nobel. However, the peace prize is awarded in the presence of the King of Norway, in Oslo, on the very same day.
Marie Curie was the first woman to receive this award and the only woman to have received it twice- once in Physics (1903) and once in Chemistry (1911). Malala Yousufzai is the youngest Nobel laureate and she received it at the age of only 17 years. John B Goodenough received it at the age of 97 years and is the oldest Nobel laureate recorded so far.
Four scientists have received the Nobel Prize twice so far- Marie Curie, John Bardeen, Linus Pauling and Frederick Sanger.
There are nine Nobel winners from India so far:
Rabindranath Tagore | Literature | 1913 | because of his profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse, by which, with consummate skill, he has made his poetic thought, expressed in his own English words, a part of the literature of the West |
C.V. Raman | Physics | 1930 | for his work on the scattering of light and for the discovery of the effect named after him |
Hargobind Khorana + 2 | Physiology or Medicine | 1968 | for their interpretation of the genetic code and its function in protein synthesis |
Mother Teresa | Peace | 1979 | for her work for bringing help to suffering humanity |
Subramaniam Chandrashekhar | Physics | 1983 | for his theoretical studies of the physical processes of importance to the structure and evolution of the stars |
Amartya Sen | Economic Sciences | 1998 | for his contributions to welfare economics |
Venkatraman Ramakrishnan +2 | Chemistry | 2009 | for studies of the structure and function of the ribosome |
Kailash Satyarthi +1 | Peace | 2014 | for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education |
Abhijeet Banerjee + 2 | Economic Sciences | 2019 | for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty |
Courtesy: https://www.nobelprize.org/