By Staff Writer: Jerri Clewis
The Nobel Prize award ceremonies will be on December 10, which will see many worthy individuals and their impressive accomplishments being recognized and awarded with one of the highest honors. This will be the 121st ceremony since the first award in 1901.
The Swedish-born inventor and industrialist Alfred Nobel, known for inventing dynamite and hundreds of other patents, stipulated in his last will before his death in 1896 that his remaining fortunate, around 31 million Swedish kronor, should go to the founding of annual prizes for those who offer “the greatest benefit on mankind,” according to the Nobel Peace Prize website.
The will was controversial because of the nature of his demands and because of how much money it involved. It caused a legal battle with parts of the Nobel family, and authorities of various countries also opposed the demands. It wasn’t until all the problems were solved, partly helped by the establishment of the Nobel Foundation, that the Norwegian Nobel Committee and other prize-awarding bodies could begin. That’s why the first prizes were awarded in 1901, years after Nobel’s death.
The original prizes were awarded in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, and literature, which are now handed out in Stockholm, Sweden every year. Each prize carries special criteria the prize communities use when choosing the best recipients. An additional prize called the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel was added in 1969.
There is also the more well-known Nobel Peace Prize, which was a part of the original prizes in 1901 and has since become an annual prestigious award for those who have done the best work for maintaining peace. The first Nobel Peace Prize was shared between The Frenchman Frédéric Passy for his lifelong work for international peace conferences and the Swiss Jean Henry Dunant (the founder of the Red Cross) for his humanitarian efforts for wounded soldiers.
Since then, the Nobel Prizes have been awarded 621 times to 1,000 people and organizations.
This year’s awardees include:
The Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz, and Anne L’Huillier for their experiments that found a way to create extremely short pulses of light that can be used to explore the world of electrons.
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry is shared between Moungi G Bawendi, Louis E. Brus, Aleksey I. Yekimov for the discovery and development of quantum dots.
The Physiology or Medicine award has gone to Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman for their discoveries that aided in the development of a vaccine for COVID-19.
The Nobel Prize in Literature has gone to Jon Fosse, who is one of the most widely performed playwrights in the world.
The prize for Economic Sciences has gone to Claudia Goldin for her work in understanding gender differences in the labor market.
And finally, the Nobel Peace Prize has been announced to go to Narges Mohammadi “for her fight against the oppression of women in Iran and her fight to promote human rights and freedom for all,” according to the Nobel Prize Organization.