The Nobel prizes, arguably the world’s most valuable and cherished awards, are being unfolded over coming days, beginning on Monday. The prizes, with a 11 million Swedish crown ($994,000) award each, are provided for victories in physics, literature, medicine or physiology, chemistry and peace.
MEANING OF NOBEL PRIZE?
The Nobel Prize was made and launched by Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel, who in his will dictated that his estate should be used to fund “prizes to those who, whilst the preceding year, have conferred the best benefit to humankind.” Nobel lost his life in 1895 but it took until 1901, following disputes over his will, before the first awards.
Nobel called the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to award the prizes for chemistry and physics, the Swedish Academy for literature, Sweden’s Karolinska Institute university for physiology or medicine, and the Norwegian parliament for peace. It is not known why Nobel decided Norway, which at the moment was in a union with Sweden, to give the peace prize.
In 1968, when Sweden’s central bank was cherishing and enjoying its 300th anniversary, it launched the Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel with a donation to the Nobel Foundation. The prize is awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, according to the same principles as the other prizes.
FAMOUS AND INFAMOUS LAUREATES
Notable Nobel laureates involve scientists such as Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr and Marie Curie, writers such as Ernest Hemingway and Albert Camus, and governers who inspire and are looked up on like Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr. and Mother Teresa.