TWS-Academia

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