Nobel Prize in numbers. Curiosities and records of the Nobel Prizes The Nobel Prize is worthy of both old and young

On the eve of the Nobel Week started, during which the best minds of the planet will receive well-deserved awards. On Monday, the first prizes - in medicine - have already received the first "trio" of authors: Randy Shekman, James Rothman and Thomas Zudof.

In honor of this event, "Reedus" decided to recall the most Interesting Facts for the most prestigious award in the world. But it turned out that those were a wagon and a small cart. Therefore, in order to somehow streamline them, we connected each curious fact with a certain numeral ...

• $1.1 million. This is the amount of money awarded to the laureates this year. In June 2012, it had to be reduced by 20% in order to save money.
• Once at the ceremony, the medals were mixed up. In 1975 Russian laureate Prize in Economics Leonid Kantorovich received the medal of his American colleague Tjalling Koopmans.
• The only winner in the world of both the Nobel Prize and the Ignobel Prize is Andrey Geim. In 2000, together with Michael Barry, they were honored by the Ignobel Physics Committee for "using magnets to demonstrate the levitation of frogs."
• The only woman to win the Nobel Prize twice is Marie Skłodowska-Curie.
• The first winner of the Peace Prize, who received it alone, Sir William Randel Creamer.
• One person received not only the Nobel Prize, but also the Oscar. Bernard Shaw in 1925 received the Literature Prize "for a work marked by idealism and humanism, for sparkling satire, which is often combined with exceptional poetic beauty." In 1938, Bernard Shaw received an Oscar for writing the screenplay for Pygmalion.

• Two Nobel laureates were seen in "connections" with drugs. 1993 Chemistry Prize winner Kary Mullis claims that the discovery of polymerase chain reaction imaging was only due to the use of LSD. Mullis has been an active advocate for lysergin ever since. Another "drug addict" is the 1962 Medicine Prize winner Francis Crick. He discovered the molecular structure of DNA, and also under the influence of "acid".
• There have been two cases of refusal of Nobel Prizes. Le Dykh Tho refused the Peace Prize, Jean-Paul Sartre - from the Literary Prize.

• Three times Nobel Peace Prize winner - International Committee Red Cross. This is the only three-time "champion" in the history of the award.
• More than three - do not gather. This rule also applies to the Nobel Committee. Maximum amount co-authors of one work - 3 people, for a year in one area, again, three authors can receive awards.

Four people have won the Prize twice: Maria Skłodowska-Curie (Physics Prize 1903, Chemistry Prize 1911), John Bardeen (Physics Prize 1956, 1972), Linus Pauling (Chemistry Prize 1954, Peace Prize 1962) ) and Frederick Senger (Chemistry Prize - 1958, 1980).

The prize in physics was not awarded six times: in 1916, 1931, 1934, 1940, 1941 and 1942.

The Literature Prize was not awarded seven times: in 1914, 1918, 1935, 1940, 1941, 1942 and 1943.

Eight times no prize was awarded in chemistry: in 1916, 1917, 1919, 1924, 1933, 1940, 1941 and 1942.

Nine times the prize in medicine was not awarded: in 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918, 1925, 1940, 1941 and 1942.

Knut Anlund.

For ten days late was named the winner of the Literature Prize in 2005. One of the jury members, Knut Anlund, did not agree with the award to the Austrian writer Elfriede Jelinek. In the end, in protest, Anlund left the jury, and the award found its "heroine".

The Peace Prize has not been awarded twenty times: in 1914, 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918, 1923, 1924, 1928, 1932, 1939, 1940, 1941, 1942, 1943, 1948, 1955, 1956, 1966, 1967 and 1967.

Only twenty-one years later, Myanmar's opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi was able to receive her Peace Prize. Previously, it did not work out, she was in prison. By the way, the song "Walk On" by U2 is dedicated to her.

William Lawrence Bragg.

The youngest laureate turned twenty-five years old. So much was celebrated in 1915 by the Australian William Lawrence Bragg, who received the prize in physics.

Thirty-nine years have passed since the creation of the neutron diffraction method to the awards of Schall and Brockhouse. This is the largest gap of its kind in the history of the Nobel Prize.

Forty-three percent of award winners in science disciplines are Americans.

Forty-four women have won Nobel Prizes to date.

Albert Camus.

Only forty-six years lived the winner of the prize in literature, Albert Camus, this is the most short life among all winners.

Fifty-five years average age laureates in medicine.

Fifty-seven years is the average age of laureates in physics and chemistry.

Nober Prize winners in 2009. © Peter Andrews/Reuters

Fifty-nine years is the average age of all laureates in all categories.

Einstein was nominated sixty times for his formulation of the theory of relativity. He never received an award for it. An outstanding physicist was awarded for explaining the photovoltaic cell.

Sixty-nine people are the winners of the Economics Prize to date.

Ninety years old at the time of receiving the award was the American Leonid Gurvich. In 2007 he received an economics award. So far this record has not been broken.

Rita Levi-Montalcini.

One hundred and three years this year, the main long-liver among the laureates, the Italian neuroscientist Rita Levi-Montalcini, turned. She received the Physiology Prize in 1986, when she was 77 years old.

One hundred and eight people have won prizes in literature to date.

One hundred and twenty-one people have been laureates of the Peace Prize to date.

One hundred and sixty people have received prizes in chemistry to date.

One hundred and ninety-three people have received prizes for research in physics to date.

Two hundred and two people have received prizes for research in physiology and medicine to date.

Probably, only the desire of mankind for self-expression and heroic deeds contributes to the emergence of unusually tenacious initiatives. So a gentleman by the name of Nobel took it and decided to leave his money to his descendants in order to reward the gentlemen who distinguished themselves in one area or another. He has long rested in the damp earth, and the people remember him. The population is waiting (some impatiently) when the next lucky ones will be announced. And the candidates try, set goals, even intrigue, trying to climb this Olympus of glory. And if everything is clear with scientists and researchers - they receive their awards for real achievements or discoveries, then how do the Nobel Peace Prize winners stand out? Interesting? Let's figure it out.

Who awards the prize and for what?

There is a special committee whose main task is to select and approve
nominations for the highest award in the field. The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded to people who have distinguished themselves in promoting security and stability on the planet. It is issued annually. The procedure takes place in Oslo, the tenth of December. At the same time, both international organizations and national governments can propose a candidate who will become a laureate. They are listed in the Charter of the Committee. Any person who has been or is a member of the Nobel Committee is also eligible to participate in the nomination process. In addition, the Charter gives such privileges to university professors involved in politics or history.

When they study who received the Nobel Peace Prize, they will definitely come across the name of another political figure whose activities do not cause criticism. Such a person is Tenzin Gyatso, the Dalai Lama. It's perfect outstanding personality. From an early age, he was forced to take on spiritual leadership. Buddhists recognized the boy as the incarnation of the deceased lama. Subsequently, he had to shoulder the political responsibility for Tibet (at the age of sixteen). All his work is based on kindness, tolerance and love (from the wording of the Nobel Committee). It should be added that he was unable to reach an agreement with the Chinese government. Now he lives and carries out his ideas in exile.

It turns out that not everything is so simple!

There are also very controversial winners of this high award. The committee is often criticized for being too politicized. Residents of the post-Soviet space consider Mikhail Gorbachev to be such a figure. The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to such a controversial person from the point of view of the world community as Yasser Arafat.

This decision of the Committee is considered scandalous on the grounds that this laureate did not deny military ways to achieve his goals. On his account not only battles, but also terrorist acts. He himself proclaimed the destruction of an entire sovereign state (Israel) as his goal. That is, despite the fact that Arafat fought for the well-being of the inhabitants of the Middle East, it is difficult to assign the title of peacemaker to him. Another scandalous figure is Barack Obama. The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to him in 2009. It must be said that the Committee had to put up with a flurry of criticism of this decision.

More about Obama

In the world press, the opinion is still flickering that the President of the States was awarded the award "in advance". At that time, he had just taken office, he had not yet distinguished himself in anything significant. And the initiatives and decisions that he subsequently took do not at all explain why he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Obama is considered the president who unleashed the largest number military conflicts. Their victims are incalculable due to the "hybrid nature" of these collisions (the term appeared quite recently). He had to make decisions about bombing and ground operations. He is criticized for the invasion of Syria, unrest in Iraq and Ukraine. Nevertheless, Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize and is listed among its laureates.

This "advance reward" leads to more and more scandals. As zones of aggravation of tensions emerge, some politicians are in favor of the annulment of this award. There is an opinion that such non-peaceful behavior dishonors a high premium. In the Russian Federation, of course, they believe that V.V. Putin is a more worthy candidate. The Nobel Peace Prize may yet be awarded to him for his true tenacity in conflict resolution.

About money

People are often interested not so much in the achievements of the individuals awarded this award, but in its amount. The Nobel Peace Prize really can amaze the imagination. The fact is that all the funds of the Committee do not just lie in financial institutions. They "work", increasing in size. According to the will, the profit is divided into five parts. They are not the same and become more and more impressive from year to year. So, the very first amount, handed in 1901, was equal to forty-two thousand dollars. In 2003, the amount was already 1.35 million. Its size is influenced by the state of the world economy. Dividends that go to payments can not only increase, but also decrease. For example, in 2007 the amount of the premium was 1.542 million, and by 2008 it "melted" (1.4 million dollars).

These funds are distributed in five equal shares according to nominations, and then - according to the number of laureates, in accordance with the rules according to which the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded. How much money will go to awards in each year is determined by the Committee, having carried out the appropriate calculations of earnings from securities and other assets.

Russian laureates

Our fellow citizens received such an award only twice. In addition to Gorbachev, the scientist Andrei Sakharov was awarded such an honor. However, not his scientific works gave rise to the award. Sakharov was considered a human rights activist and a fighter against the regime. AT Soviet times he was severely criticized and persecuted. The scientist worked on the creation of hydrogen weapons. Despite this, he openly advocated a ban on weapons testing. mass destruction, against the arms race. His ideas were very popular in society and did not like the ruling elite at all.

Sakharov is considered to be a passionate champion of peace, who suffered for his views. The Nobel Committee used the wording: "for courage in the fight against abuse of power ...". Nevertheless, he was rather an idealist, a kind and non-aggressive person (according to the recollections of his colleagues). More Russians did not receive high awards, which does not mean that worthy personalities do not live in our country. Quicker, given fact can be perceived as a political engagement of the Committee, the use of awards in geopolitical competition.

Who has not received an award, but deserves it?

Many politicians believe that Mahatma Gandhi, more than all other figures, deserved a high award. This man dealt with the organization of the struggle of the Indians against the colonialists. Gandhi not only had to devise ways in which the weak and unarmed population could oppose the British army, but they also had to be correlated with the characteristics of the local religion. This method was invented by him. It has been called non-violent resistance and is often used today. Mahatma Gandhi was proposed to the Committee five times. Only there were "more worthy" candidates (which again can be explained by the politicization of this organization). Subsequently, the officials responsible for awarding the Nobel Prize expressed their regret that Gandhi never became a laureate.

Incidents of the Nobel Committee

There are such incredible things in the history of this organization that today can only be perceived anecdotally. So, as you know, none other than Adolf Hitler was nominated for this award in 1939. Fortunately, he did not receive the Nobel Peace Prize. And it's not about the money. What would be the prestige of an organization that would call a peacemaker a person guilty of the death of millions of inhabitants of our planet? The Nobel Committee refused to award it, explaining its decision by the attitude of the Nazis towards the Jews.

Nevertheless, at the time of his nomination, Hitler's activities looked quite progressive for the German intelligentsia. He had just concluded two large peace agreements, raised industry, took care of the development of science and art. Nowadays, people understand how absurd and unfounded Hitler's claims for the award were. But at that time, the inhabitants of Germany perceived him as a real leader, leading them to a brighter life. Yes, it was true to some extent. He really cared about the Germans, only at the expense of people of other nationalities. To the credit of the members of the Nobel Committee, they understood this and refused his candidacy for the prize.

Collective laureates

This award was awarded three times to organizations that are somehow connected with the Red Cross. If we take into account the first laureate - its organizer, then four. It should be noted that this international organization undoubtedly deserves such a high appraisal. Its representatives always find a field for activity. Whether in areas of bloody conflict or epidemics, they are often at the center of the action, lending a much-needed hand of support to unfortunate people in distress. By the way, once the UN became the laureate of the award (2001), earlier it was celebrated peacekeeping force(1988) and Refugee Service (1981). Of the not very well-known organizations-laureates, one can name international organization Labor (1969). It is possible that we do not hear about the wave because a lot of time has passed since its influence in the world was so great that it was awarded an award.

There are many winners of this major award. The names of some went down in history with courage and courage, others - with scandals and intrigues. The third is not remembered at all. Nevertheless, people want this award to fall into the hands of truly worthy individuals, regardless of the political situation.

The Nobel Prize is the most prestigious award that can be given in the fields of chemistry, physics, literature, physiology or medicine and peace. When Alfred Nobel died in Italy in 1896, he left no heirs, and most of his estate was placed in trust to use the capital as prizes for those who excelled in their field. According to the Nobel Prize website, only 590 prizes have been awarded since 1901.

It is obvious that getting the Nobel Prize is not easy. Four people received it twice. Many worthy candidates are put forward, but usually only one (or one team) can win. Some candidates are nominated more than once. Arnold Johannes Wilhelm Sommerfeld was nominated 84 times but never got it, his students were more fortunate.

Arnold Sommerfeld

Sommerfeld was born in 1868 in East Prussia and received his doctorate in mathematics and physics from the University of Königsberg in 1891.
In 1895 he received a license to teach higher mathematics. Sommerfeld's talents became widely known when, in 1897, he moved to the chair of mathematics at the Bergakademie in Clausthal-Zellerfeld, a city in Lower Saxony, Germany. He also became editor of the 1926 Enzyklopädie der mathematischen Wissenschaften, a German mathematical encyclopedia.

Arnold Sommerfeld, Stuttgart, 1935

Sommerfeld later became chair of applied mechanics at the Konigliche Technische Hochschule Aachen in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, where he advanced his theory of hydrodynamics. In 1906 Sommerfeld was director of the Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of Munich. Among his students at both these universities were many famous names in scientific circles.

It was at Konigliche that he taught Peter Debye, who in 1936 received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his contributions to the study of molecular structure.


Peter Joseph Debye (1884-1966)

In Munich, Sommerfeld taught Werner Heisenberg. Heisenberg received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1932 for his creation of quantum mechanics. Other Munich students include Wolfgang Pauli, who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1945 for discovering the "Pauli exclusion principle," and Hans Bethe, who received the Nobel Prize in Physics for his theory of stellar nucleosynthesis in 1967.

Albert Einstein once remarked: "There is no such level of scientists who could claim the role of Sommerfeld as a mentor."

The mathematician Morris Klein said of Sommerfeld that he produced the greatest physicists in the first 30 years of the 20th century.
Jewish mathematician, physicist and Nobel laureate Max Born noted that Sommerfeld took undisciplined but creative minds and helped them learn what they did not know, as well as developing the skills and discipline necessary to conduct fruitful research.


Solvay conference in Brussels, October 1927

With the outbreak of war, many promising European scientists fled Germany. Sommerfeld decided to stay and continue working.
According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, together with the Englishman William Wilson, he discovered the Sommerfeld-Wilson quantization rules, worked with electromagnetism and hydrodynamics, and improved the theory of X-ray waves. He did exhaustive work on wave mechanics, and his theory of electrons in metals was valuable in the study of thermoelectricity and conduction.

Arnold Sommerfeld

Sommerfeld's Nobel Prize nominations can be found archived on the Nobel Prize website. His name was nominated for awards for work in physics in 1917, 1918, twice in 1919, 1920, four times in 1922, twice in 1923, 1924, six times in 1925, three times in 1926, three times in 1927 year, three times in 1928 - nine times in 1929, four times in 1930, twice in 1931, five times in 1932, eight times in 1933, six times in 1934, 1935, twice in 1936, eight times in 1937, 1940, 1948, three times in 1949, three times in 1950 and four times in 1951.

In 1951, at the age of 82, Sommerfeld was hit by a truck while crossing the street - the accident was due to hearing loss.

Two months later, on April 26, he died. Although he never received the Nobel Prize himself, it can be said that he received it many times thanks to his students.

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Every year on December 10, several hundred people iron their tuxedos and evening dresses to go to the Nobel Prize ceremony - the most famous prize in the world. On this occasion, we decided to recall the most remarkable facts from the history of the award, among which there are both curious cases and quite detective stories.

Even such a generous organization as the Nobel Foundation is also sometimes forced to tighten its belts and reduce the amount of the Nobel Prize money. This amount was reduced by 20% in June 2012 to save money. As the Nobel Foundation argued for this step, the innovation will help to avoid a reduction in the organization's capital in long term, because the management of capital should be carried out in such a way that "the award could be given endlessly."

It is either good or nothing about the dead, but they are not supposed to receive a bonus. In 1974, the Nobel Foundation introduced a rule that the Nobel Prize was not awarded posthumously. Before that, there were only two posthumous awards: in 1931 - to Erik Karlfeldt (for literature), and in 1961 - to Dag Hammarskjöld (peace prize). After the introduction of the rule, it was violated only once, and then by a tragic coincidence. In 2011, the Physiology or Medicine Prize was awarded to Ralph Steinman, pictured in the photograph, but he died of cancer hours before the Nobel Committee's decision was made public.

The prize is for that and the prize is to give short-term joy without turning into a habit. Therefore, among the rules for awarding Nobel Prizes, there is a condition that all prizes, except for the Peace Prize, can be awarded to one person only once. Nevertheless, four Nobel laureates are known who received prizes twice: this is Maria Sklodowska-Curie (pictured; in physics - in 1903, in chemistry - in 1911), Linus Pauling (in chemistry - in 1954, the Peace Prize - in 1962), John Bardeen (in physics in 1956 and 1972) and Frederick Sanger (in chemistry in 1958 and 1980).

There was only one three-time winner in the history of the Nobel Prize - the International Committee of the Red Cross, which received the Peace Prize (this prize is the only one that allows the nomination of not only individuals, but also organizations) in 1917, 1944 and 1963.

Among the laureates there are those who set records not only in science. Italian neuroscientist Rita Levi-Montalcini is a long-liver among Nobel laureates and the oldest of them: this year she turned 103 years old. She was awarded the Physiology or Medicine Prize in 1986, when she celebrated her 77th birthday. The oldest laureate at the time of the award was 90-year-old American Leonid Gurvich (Economics Prize - 2007), and the youngest was 25-year-old Australian William Lawrence Bragg (Physics Prize - 1915), who became a laureate together with his father William Henry Bragg.

There are not so many women among the laureates, but still the fair sex sometimes manages to bite off a piece of the Nobel pie. The largest number of women laureates is among the winners of the Nobel Peace Prize (15 people) and the Literature Prize (11 people). However, the winners of the literary prize can boast that the first of them was awarded the high title 37 years earlier: in 1909 Nobel laureate in literature was the Swedish writer Selma Lagerlöf (pictured), and the first woman to win the Peace Prize was the American Emily Green Bolch in 1946.

Among the laureates there are those who are able to achieve significant results by working together. For such invented special conditions: according to the rules of the Nobel Foundation, no more than three people can receive an award in one area per year for various works or no more than three authors of one work.

The first three were the Americans George Whipple, George Minot and William Murphy (pictured), who were awarded the Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1934. And the last (for 2011) are the Americans Saul Pelmutter and Adam Reiss and the Australian Brian Schmidt (physics), as well as the Liberians Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and Leima Gbowee and the Yemeni citizen Tawakul Karman (Nobel Peace Prize).

If the prize is awarded to more than one person or for more than one work, it is divided proportionally: first - by the number of works, then - by the number of authors of each work. If two works are awarded the prize, one of which has two authors, then the author of the first will receive half the amount, and each of the authors of the second - only a quarter.

There were awards and detective stories in the history. So, in the entire history, only one case has been recorded when the winners twice received the same Nobel medals for the same discovery. Physicists from Germany Max von Laue (1915 laureate) and James Frank (1925 laureate) after the ban on Nobel Prizes introduced in Nazi Germany in 1936, handed over their medals for preservation to Niels Bohr, who led the institute in Copenhagen.

In 1940, when the Reich occupied Denmark, an employee of the institute, the Hungarian Gyorgy de Hevesy (pictured), fearing that the medals might be seized, dissolved them in "aqua regia" (a mixture of concentrated nitrogen and hydrochloric acid), and after his release, he isolated the gold from the stored solution of chloroauric acid and transferred it to the Royal Swedish Academy. There, Nobel medals were again made from it, which were returned to the laureates. By the way, György de Hevesy himself was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1944.

PRIZES NOT ISSUED

There were cases when the awards were simply not issued due to the lack of winners. The rules for awarding the Nobel Prize do not require that it be awarded every year without fail: by decision of the Nobel Committee, if among those applying for high award there is no worthy work, the prize may not be awarded. In this case, its monetary equivalent is transferred to the Nobel Foundation in whole or in part - in the latter case, from one third to two thirds of the amount can be transferred to the special fund of the profile section.

During the three war years - in 1940, 1941 and 1942 - no Nobel Prizes were awarded at all. Given this gap, the Nobel Peace Prize was most often (18 times) not awarded, the prize in physiology or medicine - nine times, in chemistry - eight times, in literature - seven times, in physics - six times, and in the awarding of the prize in economics, introduced only in 1969, there was not a single pass.