Nobel prizes are awarded to persons of highest achievement in
particular field. Alfred Nobel, a Swedish scientist, engineer, inventor,
business man, poet, dramatist and weapons manufacturer. He developed dynamite
and invented a detonator which drastically reduced the cost of mining, blasting
rocks, building tunnels and building canals. By the time of his death in 1896
he had 355 patents. Due to his entrepreneurial acumen, he founded 90 industries
spread in over 20 counties and accumulated lot of wealth. As per will of Alfred
Nobel, the interest on the huge capital invested in safe securities was to be
distributed into five equal halves and shall be used to award prizes annually.
The prizes are awarded to a discovery or an invention in the field of physics,
chemical sciences, physiology or medicine; to a work in the field of literature
working towards an ideal; to a person who has made outstanding contributions in
promoting the fraternity between nations, reducing the standing armies and
contributing to the peace and progress of nations. Following these directions,
annually five prizes are awarded. The prizes for Physics and Chemistry are
awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, for physiology or medicine by
the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm and Norwegian Storting nominates the
award for peace prize.
Though Nobel Prize for economics has not been instituted
under Alfred Nobel’s will, The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in
the memory of Alfred Nobel is awarded every year for outstanding contributions
in economics. It is more often referred to as “Nobel Memorial Prize in
Economics”. The nomination, selection, awarding and announcement of prizes are
similar to the Nobel Prize. Awardees are
selected by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. It is a non-Nobel Prize
associated officially with the Nobel Foundation. It was first awarded in the
year 1969. Following the eruption of controversies after the release of book “A
beautiful Mind” written by Slyvia Nasar pertaining to awarding of Nobel Prize
in Economics to John Forbes Nash in 1994, prize was redefined as prize in
social sciences. Hence there is an ample opportunity for people working tin
fields of psychology, political science and sociology to vie for the prize with
their land mark contribution in those fields. Meanwhile the composition of the
Economics Prize Committee has thus been changed to accommodate two
non-economists. There are instances where non-economists like Herbert A Simson,
a PhD in political Science won Nobel Prize in economics. The nominations for
the prizes are strictly by invitations. The information about nomination
process is not disclosed till 50 years later as per the statutes of the Nobel
Foundation.
India has distinction of being the birth place for 11 Nobel
Laureates. All the Nobel Prizes have been announced. The Nobel Prize for
Physics could be easily guessed as the landmark discovery of the God particle
or the Higgs-Boson particle has made headlines in the preceding year. There has
been a great excitement regarding the peace prize as for the first time a 16
year old girl has been nominated for the prize and conferring her with the
prize would have been a history. Since the average age of the Nobel Prize
winners is 59 and the youngest Lawrence Bragg, aged 25 bagged the prize. While
90 is the age of oldest winner Leonid Hurwicz, received Nobel Memorial prize
for economics and 49 laureates were younger than 40. Le Duc Tho a Vietnam
politician awarded a Nobel Peace Prize along Henry Kissinger for their role in
negotiating Vietnam peace accord declined the prize. Prize amount is 8 million
Swedish Kroner (SEK) or 1.2 million USD. Till 2012 Nobel Prize was awarded to
835 individuals and 21 organisations.
The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institute has awarded Nobel Prize
in physiology or medicine jointly to James E Rothman Yale University, Randy W.
Schekman, University of California Berkeley and Thomas C Sudof Stanford
University for solving the mystery of how cell organises its transport system.
They have discovered the principles that govern the transport of cargo to the
right place at the right time in the cell. The molecules or cargo is
transported around the cell in small packaged called vesicles. Randy Schekman
discovered the set of genes responsible for vesicular traffic. James Rothman
unravelled the protein machinery that allows vesicular fusion and subsequent
release of cargo at the right target. Thomas Sudof revealed the processes
involved in vesicular signalling that guides the vesicles to release their cargo
accurately. Any minor aberration or discrepancy in any of these mechanisms
would have deleterious effects resulting in neurological disorders, diabetes
and immunological disorders.
Nobel Prize in Physics was jointly was to Francois Englert ,
Universite Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels and Peter W Higgs, University of
Edinburg. In 1964 each of them along with Englert’s colleague Robert Brout, now
deceased have independently postulated a theory of how particles acquire mass.
These ideas were confirmed by the illustrious experiment carried on Large
Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN laboratory outside Geneva, with the discovery of
the Higgs particle. LHC is perhaps the largest and the most complex instrument
built by humans so far. Two research groups comprising 3000 scientists managed
to extract Higgs particle from billions of collisions within the LHC.
The Royal Swedish Academy has conferred the Nobel Prize in
Chemical Sciences 2013 jointly to Martin Karplus, University of Strasbourg,
France and Harvard University Cambridge, MA; Michael Levitt, Stanford
University, Arieh Warshel, University of Southern California. These have
spearheaded computer modelling to understand and predict complex chemical
processes. Earlier chemists used to create models of molecules using ball and
stick. The trio have managed to make Newton’s Classical physics work to work
side by side with fundamentally different quantum physics. The combination of
classical and quantum physics is used to make simulations which are realistic
and are capable to predicting the outcome of traditional chemical experiments.
Canadian author 82 year old Alice Munro was awarded Nobel
Prize for literature for her mastery in contemporary short story writing. She
has published several short stories over the years. She is widely acclaimed for
her fine tuned style of story- telling characterised by psychological realism
and clarity. She is considered as Canadian Chekov. Her stories are set in small
town back ground and basically revolve struggle, social acceptance often resulting
strained relationships and moral conflicts. They also deal about the generation
gap and colliding life ambitions. She is the 13th woman and 17th
Canadian to receive the award. She was also winner of Man Booker International
Prize in 2009.
Organization for the prohibition of Chemical weapons (OPCW)
was awarded Nobel Peace prize 2013.It was founded in 1997.Tha Hague based
autonomous body works within the frame work of UN. It is awarded the prize for
its extensive efforts to eliminate of chemical weapons. It promotes and
verifies the adherence to the Chemical Weapons Convention. It has played a
crucial role in the recent Syrian war and has been deftly handling the
destruction of stock piles of chemical weapons in Syria. It has received
massive acclaim for its technical expertise and the unstinted courage displayed
by its team for working in the most dangerous war incriminating zones.
Disarmament figured prominently in Alfred Nobel’s will, Norwegian Nobel
Committee is seeking to contribute to elimination of chemical weapons by
awarding the organization.
The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded 25 times to
organisation between 1901 and 2013. 22 individual organisations have been
awarded, UNHCR and the office of United Nations High Commissioner for refugees
received the award twice and International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)
was honoured thrice.
The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences for the year
2013 in memory of Alfred Nobel is shared jointly by Eugene F Fama, University
of Chicago; Lars Peter Hansen, University of Chicago and Robert Shiller, Yale
University for their empirical analysis of assets prices. . In general there is
no way to predict the prices of stocks and bonds over few days or weeks. But it
is possible to forecast the prices of the stocks over a broad period. These two
statements are quite startling and contradictory. The Nobel laureates have laid
foundation for understanding asset prices which are subject to rapid
fluctuations. Their analyses rely on the fluctuations, risk and risk attitudes,
and partly on behavioural biases and market frictions. The behaviour of the
asset prices is the key to the savings, buying of assets and finally plays a
pivotal role in the national economic policy. Long term assessment of prices
has attained utmost prominence following the collapse of US housing market
bubble which led the financial meltdown. So far Nobel Memorial Prize in
Economics has been awarded 45 times to 74 laureates.
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