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November 27th 1895, At the Swedish-Norwegian Club in Paris, The Swedish Chemist, Engineer & innovator Alfred  Nobel ( Founder of Nobel Prize ) Signed his Last will & testament and set aside a bulk of his estate to establish the Nobel Prizes, to be awarded annually without distinction of nationality..


Anyone ever wondered what is the Story behind the Nobel Prizes.. ?

Well, here it is in a Nutshell..

I'm not sure if you all know this, but Mr. Nobel is the inventor of Dynamite. Yes, those red sticks that blow up!! : ) He created them..



Also He found that when Nitroglycerin was incorporated with certain inert substances it became more stable and safer to handle, He named his creation Dynamite. ( referring to the Greek word Power ) .

Now to be honest, it must of been hard for him, because imagine being the inventor of a gadget that is mainly used for murder,not that he used it for that purpose but I mean other Nations, In his defence, an invention is an invention no matter what it is, For instance are we going to punish the man that invented Bullets..?! No.. He deserves just as much credit as any inventor in my opinion..

And all inventions can be taken both ways...The good & the bad.. Its us who control it and have  the responsibility..not the inventors.

So you can imagine the amount of backlash he was put against, he even wanted to change its name to
" Nobel's Safety Powder " to make it seem less harmful and save face.. but then he eventually settled with Dynamite.

Anyways, so in 1888 Alfred's brother died while visiting Cannes, France. And a French paper thought that Alfred was killed and published his obituary..They published the following (translated) :

" The merchant of death is dead. " Then went on to say " Dr. Alfred Nobel, who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before, died yesterday "

Upon reading this, Mr. Nobel was shocked, He did want to be remembered as the merchant of death or the one who created a murder weapon.. So this is why he Made the Nobel Peace Prizes..



For outstanding contribution in :

Physics.
Chemistry.
Literature.
Peace.
Medicine or Physiology.

The Nobel Medal

Each recipient gets a Gold Medal, a diploma and a sum of money depending on the Nobel's Foundation's annual income, In 2009 each prize took home around 1.5 Million $, so it is no petty cash..
Also, the award cannot be given posthumously. ( to a dead person ) Unless the recipient died after the announcement was made and the award cannot be shared among more than Three people.. : )

The Nobel Diploma ( This one for Fritz Haber for his discovery of the Synthesis of Ammonia by Haber's Process )

First Nobel Prize ever :

In Physics went to Willhelm Conrad Rontgen For the Discovery of X-Rays.
In Chemistry went to Jacobus Van't Hoff For vast contributions in chemical Thermodynamics.
In Medicine went to Emil von Behring for developing an Antitoxin to treat Diphtheria.
In Peace to 2 prominent peace figures : Frederic Passy & Henry Dunant.
In Literature went to Sully Prudhomme against the expectations of the members who thought Leo Tolstoy was more deserving..  :)

The comittee room of the Norwegian Nobel Committee. On the wall are prtraits of all the winners of the Nobel Peace Prize

Four people only ever received the Nobel Prize Twice :

- Maria Sklodowska-Curie in Physics in 1903 for discovery of Radioactivity & in 1911 in Chemistry for the isolation of pure Uranium.
- Linus Pauling  in Chemistry in 1954 for vast contributions in Chemical bonding and how it effects structure & in 1962 he won the Peace prize for his anti-Nuclear activism ( He is the only person to ever win TWO unshared Nobel Prizes )
- John Bardeen in Physics twice : One in 1956 for the invention of the Transistor & in 1972 for the theory of Superconductivity.
- Frederick Sanger in Chemistry twice : One in 1958 for determining the structure of an Insulin molecule & in 1980 for inventing a method for determining base sequences in DNA. ( He is the only living person out of the Four )

May Gob bless them all and they Rest in Peace..

People to have Declined the Nobel Prize :

Two people only ever rejected to Nobel Prize, One is the French writer Jean-Paul Sartre who was awarded the literature prize in 1964 but refused stating " A writer must refuse to allow himself to be transformed into an institution, even if it takes place in the most honourable form." The second is Lê Ðức Thọ, chosen for the 1973 Peace Prize for his role in the Paris Peace Accords. He declined, claiming there was no actual peace in Vietnam..


References :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_nobel

Until the Next post,
May God bless,
Peace.

Yazz

Due to the fact that this post would be concerning the Chemistry Nobel Prize for the year 2010, I thought it would only be appropriate for it to contain the words and story of One of the Greatest chemist of all time in my opinion.

Dmitriv Mendeleev ( above ) Born 8 Feb 1834 - Died 2 Feb 1907 was a Russian Chemist and Inventor.

He is credited as the creator of the first version of Periodic Table of elements, Which is a fundamental part of chemistry in which hundreds of questions were answered based on his creation. Also, using his table he managed to predict the properties of elements yet to be discovered. Truly Remarkable in my opinion..

He was the first to try to classify the elements according to their chemical properties, he then noticed a pattern that later lead him to postulate his Periodic Table.

Claims of elements being able to fall in Periodicity have been made before Mendeleev's Table but have always fallen short, John Newlands, another scientist published his Law Of Octaves in 1865, but his lack of spaces for undiscovered elements and placing two elements in one box were criticized and his ideas were not accepted..

History notes that Julius Lothar Meyer a German Chemist was Mendeleev's competitor in drawing up and discovering the first Periodic Table of chemical elements, Both scientist have made vast contribution to the Periodic table however Mendeleev is credited for being the First and  created the Most widely accepted version of the Periodic Table.

Mendeleev predicted 8 elements, the very accurate predictions of Three of them which he called ekasilicon, ekaaluminium and ekaboron ( Germanium, Gallium and Scandium respectively ) Granted him great credibility and the major contribution to the Periodic Table of Elements..He used the prefixes (eka, dvi, tri) which are (Sanskrit One, Two, Three)

Some people dismissed Mendeleev for predicting there would be more elements, but he was proven correct when Germanium & Gallium were discovered in 1886 & 1875 respectively, Fitting perfectly in the two missing places..

The Mendeleev Medal

Central Metal atom with Six (Red) Ligands.

And These three scientist were the recipients of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry 2010 for their work on Palladium Catalysed Cross Coupling in Organic Synthesis.




Applications :

• Styrene, component plastic of polystyrene (late 1969s)
• Naproxen, anti-inflammatory (OTC – 1994 as Flanax, Midol among other brands)
• Montelukast, ashtma relief – 1990s based on patent expiry of 2012
• Palytoxin -1994
• Dragmacidin F, herpes and HIV anti viral – 2005
• Vancomycin modification for MRSE and entero-cocci –
• Discodermolide synthesis, anti-cancer (2010 for large-scale synthesis)
• Diazonamide A synthesis, anti colon cancer – a Philippine ascidian -sea squirt – is the original, natural source of this drug ingredient
• Organic and blue LED optimization – late 1990s
• Thin computer monitors

There is an European Organization For Nuclear Research known as (CERN) , Heard of them ?

They are the world's largest particle physics laboratory, situated in the Northwest suburbs of Geneva on the Franco-Swiss Border, Established on 1954.




This organization has 20 European Member states, also the workplace of about 2,600 employees, with 7,931 Scientists & Engineers of 80 Nationalities..

CERN's main function is to provide the Particle Accelerators and other infrastructure needed for High Energy Physics research..



 It is also noted for being the Birthplace of The World Wide Web.

 

THESE ARE THE MEMBER STATES OF CERN

You can do some research on them, but this is not the content of the post niether is it THE BREAKING NEWS!!

I Hope everyone knows what is Antimatter.

Antimatter is basically the antiparticle counter part to matter, For example :

Black - White.
Fat - Skinny.
Young - Old.

Just like that, we have :

Matter - Antimatter.

Antimatter is composed of antiparticles just like matter is made of particles, for instance :

A Hydrogen atom is made of a Proton and an Electron. Now, The counter part of a Proton is an Antiproton, and the counter part of an Electron is a Postiron, Therefore an Antiproton & a Postiron will give you An Antihydrogen... Get it ? : )



Thats the simplest way to explaining it.. Just image it is the complete opposite of all matter.
But beware, if Antimatter comes in contact with matter, they will cancel out eachother and cause an ANNIHILATION! The severity of it will depend on the amounts used..

Now as humans we have knows about all this for quite some time, the first paper on Antimatter was in 1928 by Paul Dirac,

Antiproton in 1955, Antineutrons in 1956 Meaning we do have a clue about what is what..

Now this is juicy part, Remember the Antihydrogen atom you read about above, When one Postiron which is an Antielectron and One Antiproton get together they fom an Antihyrogen..

Now, in 1995, CERN announced they have successfully brought into existence 9 ANTIHYDROGEN ATOMS! Then once that was successful they managed to create 100 of them, but these atoms were extremley energetic and give out extremley high temperatures, Not very helpful when they want to study it..

The CERN even formed a group of scientist to try and create a COLD ANTIHYDROGEN which will be eaiser to study, In 2002 they annouced the managed to create the FIRST COLD ANTIHYDROGEN EVER! The experiment was highly effective but highly inefficient,

They used 25, 000, 000 Antiprotons at first and only 25, 000 of them make it through, that is almost 0.1% of the Amount..Not Efficient!

THE BREAKING IS THIS! :

CERN were never able to TRAP any ANTIHYDROGEN ATOMS long enough in order to study them, They could produce them but not sustain them for a long time..And this was extremley difficult!!

BUT


Recently, in Late November 2010 between the 17th and 19th, The CERN have managed to trap 38 ANTIHYDROGEN ATOMS for a TENTH OF A SECOND in a MAGNETIC TRAP!




Imagine..

I am sure you saying, what is the big deal, but beleive me this is no small thing!! And a tenth of a second is a very small amount of time but this is a Huge MILESTONE IN PARTICLE PHYSICS, it was Enough time to study them..it was trapped long enough to be studied and probbed by scientific instruments.

This will all help us further in understanding the ever growing field of Particle physics and the origins of the Universe,

Proffesor Jeffery Hangst a CERN Researcher said " Its taken us five years to get here, this is a big Milestone, It was 10,000 more times harder than creating untrapped Antihydrogen atoms, We could have held them for much longer... I am just full of joy and relief "

The Scientists had to run the experiment 335 to trap 38 Antihydrogen Atoms..


The CERN's next ambition is to create a beam of antimatter.

This is a True Milestone in Particle Physics, All the dedication, all the hard work, all the time spent, all in the love of Science...

Reference :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CERN
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antihydrogen
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antimatter
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/11/17/antimatter-antihydrogen-atoms-trap.html
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/11/18/switzerland.cern.antimatter/?hpt=Mid

until Next time,
Peace,
May God Bless,

Yazz

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So, let’s start our journey through this academic year, I hope we all land safely the day we get our results!