Nobel Prize

Raju Ahmed
7 min readOct 9, 2020

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A brief history of the Nobel Prize.

The Nobel Prize (Swedish: Nobelpriset) was introduced in 1901. This award has been given to various individuals and organizations worldwide for successful and unique research and innovation and unparalleled humanitarian activities since that year. A total of six subjects were awarded. The residents are Physics, Chemistry, Medicine, Economics, Literature, and Peace. The Nobel Prize is considered the most prestigious medal in all these fields. Nobel laureates are called Nobel laureates in English.

The Nobel Prize was awarded following a will made by Swedish scientist Alfred Nobel in 1895. Noble announced the award in a choice before his death. Only the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded from Oslo, Norway. The rest of the award ceremony was held in Stockholm, Sweden.

Prizes in subjects other than economics have been awarded since 1901, but economics awards began in 1989. Alfred Nobel did not mention economics in his will. From 1940 to 1942, the award ceremony was closed for World War II. Each of the awardees receives a gold medal, a certificate, and a certain amount of money from the Nobel Foundation. In 2012, the amount was 6 million Swedish kronor. The Nobel Prize is not awarded to the deceased. Laureate must be alive at the time of the award. [3] But there are some exceptions. Posthumous awards are given for significant contributions.

First Creativity:

Alfred Nobel (hear this word (help · info)), was born on October 21, 1833, in Stockholm, Sweden, to an engineering family. He was simultaneously a chemist, an engineer, and an inventor. In 1894 he purchased a buffer iron and steel factory, which later turned into one of the largest arms factories. He invented the ballistic missile, which is used as a smokeless military explosive all over the world. Through his 355 inventions, he amassed vast wealth in his lifetime, the most notable of which was dynamite.

Alfred Nobel was shocked to read the news of his own death in a French newspaper, The Merchant of Death is Dead.

In 18, he was surprised to see the dead list, which was published in a French newspaper A Merchant of Death Who Dead. Since Nobel’s brother Ludwig died, this article makes him think and easily understand how he wants to be remembered in history, which prompted him to change his will. Alfred Nobel died on December 10, 1898, in his hometown of San Remo, Italy. He was 63 years old at the time.

Noble wrote many wills during his lifetime. The last one was written at the Swedish-Norwegian Club in Paris on November 26, 1895, just a year before his death. Work in the interest of humanity. He bequeathed 94 percent of his total assets (31 million Swedish kronor) to the five prizes. Norway did not approve the will for skepticism until April 26, 1897. Ragnar Solman and Rudolf Lilzequist, co-ordinators of his will, created the Nobel Foundation. . Whose job is to maintain his assets and organize the Nobel Prize ceremony.

With the Nobel Prize’s approval in 1896, an organization called the Norwegian Nobel Committee was formed to award the Nobel Prize. Other Nobel Prize-winning organizations were soon established. Among them are the Karolinska Institute on June 8, the Swedish Academy on June 9, and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on June 11. The Nobel Foundation reached a policy on how the Nobel Prize was awarded, and in 1900 the Nobel Foundation formulated a new rule issued by King Oscar. In 1905, the bond between Sweden and Norway was broken. Since then, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has been responsible for awarding only the Nobel Peace Prize and Swedish institutions the other prizes.

Will of Alfred Nobel

The award is based on the will of Alfred Nobel, a Swedish chemist, and industrialist. Nobel discovered dynamite, through which he made a lot of money, and he used this money to pay for the prize. During his lifetime, Nobel wrote several wills, the last of which was written on November 26, 1895, just a year before his death. Nobel’s invention was mostly an explosive that could have caused enormous damage. So the use of this dynamite on the battlefield makes him apprehensive. Nobel donated 94 percent of his fortune to be awarded five prizes. The total amount is 31 million SEK (3.4 million euros, 4.4 million US dollars).

Although Alfred Nobel introduced the prize, he did not see its activities. Because his plan was not complete. There are also several other reasons for the delay in establishing the Nobel Foundation. The first Nobel Prize was awarded on December 10, 1901.

History of Award

When the Nobel Foundation and its policies were finalized, the Nobel Committee began collecting nominations for the first prize. They then give a list of preliminary selected candidates to the awarding agencies. The Norwegian Nobel Committee Jrgen Loveland, Jorn Stern Joneson, and Johannes hired celebrities like Stein to award the Nobel Peace Prize. The committee awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to two prominent figures who accelerated the peace movement in the late 19th century. They were Federico Passi, co-founder of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, and Henri Dunn, founder of the Red Cross.

Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen for discovering the X-ray and Philip Leonard for his work on the cathode ray were shortlisted for the Nobel Committee’s Material Prize. The Academy of Sciences later selected Rontgen. Many chemists have made significant contributions in the last decade of the 19th century. That is why the academy suffers from slight indecision as to who among so many scientists can be awarded in chemistry awards. The academy gets 20 nominations. Eleven of them were named after Font Huff. He was awarded the prize for his research on chemical thermodynamics.

The Swedish Academy has nominated poet Sully Prudham for the first Nobel Prize in Literature. A group of 42 writers, poets, and literary critics opposed Leo Tolstoy’s decision. Many, like Burton Feldman, criticized the award because it considered Prudham a middle-class poet. According to Feldman, most members of the academy were fans of Victorian literature. So they have chosen such a poet. The first Nobel Prize in Medicine went to Emily von Berring, a German physician and psychologist. In the 1890s, he developed a diphtheria vaccine, which saves thousands of lives each year.

In 1938 and 1939, Adolf Hitler told three German awardees (Richard Koon, Gerhard Domag, and Adolf Friedrich Johann Buttoned) to refrain from accepting their awards. Later, all of them were able to receive medals and certificates. Although Sweden played a neutral role during World War II, the Nobel Prize was awarded irregularly. The Peace Prize was not awarded in 1939. No rewards were awarded in this case from 1940–42 for Germany’s unfair right over Norway. Prizes were awarded in all subjects except literature and peace during these years.

During the occupation of Norway, three members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee were deported. The rest of the members were released after the Nobel Foundation stated that Oslo’s committee was under Swedish control. All those members kept the committee active even though no award was given. In 1944, the Nobel Foundation, along with three exiled members, confirmed that nominations had been accepted and that the prize could be awarded again.

Reward in economics

In 1987, the Swedish central bank donated a large sum of money to the Nobel Foundation to mark its 300th anniversary. Which will be used to award a new Nobel Peace Prize. The very next year, the Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded for the first time. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences is responsible for nominating prizes in economics.

John Tinbergen and Ranger Fris are the first Nobel laureates in economics. They are awarded this honor for applying and improving their theory of motion in economic systems. Although not a Nobel Prize, it is recognized with other prizes, and their names are announced along with other prize winners at the Swedish Nobel Prize ceremony.

How to be rewarded
The nomination and selection process for the Nobel Prize is quite long and rigorous compared to other awards. This is why the Nobel Prize is the most prestigious award in the world.

Nomination
There are specific nominations for the Nobel Prize. The nomination papers were given to 3,000 selected people from all over the world to fill them up and apply for the award. The Nobel Peace Prize selection is the responsibility of those who claim special authority in the matter. The Nobel Committee nominates 300 potential candidates by the 31st of January of the year in which the prize is awarded. The names of the nominees are not disclosed or even informed that they have been nominated. These nomination documents are kept for 50 years from the award.

Selection
The Nobel Committee then publishes a report based on the views of experts on related issues. The information, along with a list of initially selected candidates, was sent to Nobel Prize-winning companies. Companies have to choose the winner in each subject by a majority vote. Their decision was announced immediately after the vote. An award can be given for a maximum of three and two different works. The Nobel Peace Prize can be awarded to any organization, and all praises are given only to the living. If the Peace Prize is not granted, the money is divided equally among the other prizes in science, which has happened 19 times.

Posthumous award
Although posthumous nominations are not approved, a candidate will be eligible to be elected if their death occurred between the time the nomination was made and the decision to award the Nobel Committee. This has happened twice in history: Eric Axel Karlfeld in 1931 in literature and Dag Hammarskjold in 1961 in peace. Until 1984, it was thought that the winner would survive until the October announcement. William Vickery, a Nobel laureate, died in 1996 after the award (in economics) was announced but before it could be awarded. The Nobel laureates’ names in medicine were announced on October 3, 2011; Until then, the committee did not know that one of the winners, Ralph Steinman, had died three days earlier. The committee was debating Ralph Steinmann’s award because the posthumous award was against the rules. The latter decision is to be kept intact.

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Raju Ahmed

Medium member since September 2020 In quest of understanding how human work. I also ghostwriter for my heroes.