Nobel Prizes facts

While investigating facts about Nobel Prizes Medicine and Nobel Prizes 2019, I found out little known, but curios details like:

Marie Curie, the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the first person to win twice, and the only person to win a Nobel Prize in two different sciences couldn't legally attend college, so she did it illegally, going to what was known as the 'Flying University', a secret organization.

how nobel prizes are awarded?

C.S. Lewis nominated J.R.R. Tolkien for the 1961 Nobel Prize for Literature. He was rejected on the grounds that his writing "has not in any way measured up to storytelling of the highest quality."

What nobel prizes are awarded?

In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across answering what are the nobel prizes. Here are 50 of the best facts about Nobel Prizes By Country and Nobel Prizes 2018 I managed to collect.

what nobel prizes are there?

Italian author Umberto Eco said that social media "gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community...but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots."
About John Gurdon, who was ranked last out of 250 boys in his year group in Biology and in a progress report, his teacher said that pursuing Biology for him would be a "waste of time, for him and those who have to teach him". In 2012, John Gurdon won the Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine
Norman Borlaug saved more than a billion lives with a "miracle wheat" that averted mass starvation, becoming 1 of only 5 people to win the Nobel Peace Prize, Presidential Medal of Freedom, and Congressional Gold Medal. He said, "Food is the moral right of all who are born into this world."
Dr.James Watson, Nobel Prize winner & co-discoverer of DNA's double helix structure, believed that babies shouldn't be considered alive until 3 days after birth so that if the baby is sick, disabled, deformed, or deemed otherwise unacceptable, the baby can be legally left to die or euthanized.
To prove that stomach ulcers are caused by bacteria, Barry Marshall drank broth filled with infectious bacteria, got ulcers, then cured himself with antibiotics. He won a Nobel Prize.
Marie Skłodowska Curie changed the world not once but twice. She founded the new science of radioactivity – even the word was invented by her – and her discoveries launched effective cures for cancer. She is the 1st woman to win a Nobel Prize, and 1st person to win a second Nobel prize.
When John Bardeen won a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1956, the Swedish king criticized him for not bringing his children to the ceremony. Bardeen promised he would bring them the next time he won - and in 1972, he did when he became the first person to win 2 prizes in the same field.
The first photograph of DNA was taken as part of research by a woman, Rosalind Franklin. Unknown to her, and without her permission, it was shown to James Watson, who then with Francis Crick used what they learned from it to develop the double helix model for DNA, winning them the Nobel Prize.
In 2003, Dutchman Kees Moeliker won the Ig Nobel Prize for Biology after writing a paper on "the first case of homosexual necrophilia [by a mallard]" after watching a duck die after crashing into his window, only for its corpse to be "raped almost continually for 75 mins" by another duck.
In the past 42 years over 51 million trees have been planted in Kenya by the Green Belt Movement founded by Nobel Peace Prize Winner Wangari Maathai.

nobel prizes facts — What country has the most nobel prizes?

Nobel Prizes data charts

For your convenience take a look at Nobel Prizes figures with stats and charts presented as graphic.

nobel prizes fact data chart about Number of Nobel Prizes won, by country — Number of Nobel Prizes won, by country

nobel prizes fact data chart about Jewish Nobel Prize winners by country — Jewish Nobel Prize winners by country

Why nobel prizes fail 21st century science?

You can easily fact check why are nobel prizes not awarded posthumously by examining the linked well-known sources.

J.J. Thomson won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1906 for showing that the electron is a particle. His son, George Paget Thomson, won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1937 for showing that the electron is a wave.

Tom Lehrer, a musician known for biting satire stopped performing because "Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel peace prize." - source

A Hungarian chemist during WWII hid his Nobel Prize by dissolving it in acid and leaving it on a shelf due to the Nazi ban on its citizens from accepting the Nobel Prize. After the war, he reconstituted the gold from the acid, returned it to Sweden, and got the medal cast again. - source

Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, was able to view his obituary before he died due to a news-outlet mishap. Due to all the horrible things he read about himself, including being called "the merchant of death", he decided to dedicate his fortune to the creation of the Nobel Prize.

Dr Barry Marshal was convinced that H. pylori bacteria caused stomach ulcers, but no one believed him. Since it was illegal to test his theory on humans, he drank the bacteria himself, developed ulcers within days, treated them with antibiotics and went on to win a Nobel prize - source

When nobel prizes are announced?

After the death of Ludvig Nobel, brother of Alfred Nobel the inventor of the dynamite, a French newpaper mistook him for his brother and wrote a scathing obituary for Alfred Nobel. This caused Alfred to consider his legacy and caused him to create what today we call the Nobel Prize.

How many nobel prizes are there?

In 1888, a French newspaper mistakenly published Alfred Nobel's obituary. It condemned Nobel for his invention of dynamite and labeled him the "merchant of death." Disconcerted, Nobel set aside his fortune for the creation of the Nobel Prizes, so that he would leave behind a better legacy.

The first man to perform cardiac catheterization, did it on himself then walked downstairs to the radiology department to take the x-ray to prove you would not die. He was fired, became a Nazi, then won the Nobel Prize.

Lise Meitner, an Austrian-born physicist, discovered that atomic nuclei can be split in half. She and her nephew explained and named nuclear fission in 1939, but the recognition went to Otto Hahn for this discovery. He was granted a Nobel Prize in 1944 in Chemistry.

Jame Watson (co-discoverer of DNA) decided to auction off his Nobel prize medal in view of his diminished income, for US$4.1 million. The medal was subsequently returned to Watson by the purchaser, Russian tycoon Alisher Usmanov.

About Lise Meitner, a woman who described a groundbreaking phenomenon called nuclear fission in a letter to Nature Editor, she was ignored because she was Jewish and five years later Otto Hahn won a Nobel prize for the same discovery.

Nobel prizes infographics

Beautiful visual representation of Nobel Prizes numbers and stats to get perspecive of the whole story.

nobel prizes fact infographic about Top 5 Countries By Number Of Nobel Prize Laureates For Each — Top 5 Countries By Number Of Nobel Prize Laureates For Each Prize Category

nobel prizes fact infographic about Geographic biases of Nobel Literature Prize — Geographic biases of Nobel Literature Prize

When are nobel prizes awarded?

Famed molecular biologist James Watson put his Nobel Prize up for auction in 2014 due to financial hardships. It sold for $4.1 million, and was promptly returned to him by the buyer.

In February 1939, Lise Meitner described a groundbreaking nuclear phenomenon in a letter to Nature editor and called it Nuclear Fission. Five years later, a Nobel prize was awarded to Otto Hahn for the discovery of fission; a word he never used in his original paper.

In the early 1900s Wagner von Jauregg treated syphilis patients with malaria (winning the Nobel Prize). The patients developed malaria, causing a severe fever and killed the syphilis bacteria. Then given the malaria drug quinine and cured. This was used until the development of penicillin

Two people have won the 1 million dollar prize on "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?" -- a superintendent from Georgia and the winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics.

Due to Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination in 1948, the Nobel Committee refused to give the Nobel Peace Prize that year because there was “no suitable living candidate.” The Prize cannot be given to deceased candidates. That way Gandhi's place on the list was silently but respectfully left open.

How many nobel prizes are awarded each year?

In order to prove that the bacteria H. pylori could cause stomach ulcers, an Australian doctor named Barry J. Marshall drank a culture of H. pylori, developed an ulcer, and successfully treated it with antibiotics. He won a Nobel Prize for it in 2005.

In 1964 white business leaders in Atlanta refused to buy tickets to an event honoring recent Nobel Prize winner Martin Luther King. Coca-Cola recognized the potential PR disaster and threatened to leave the city unless people attended. The event sold out the next day.

The Nobel Committee declined to award the Nobel Peace Prize in 1948 because "there was no suitable living candidate." This was meant as tribute to Mahatma Gandhi, who was assassinated earlier that year without receiving the Prize.

Nobel Prize laureate William Shockley, who invented a transistor, also proposed that individuals with IQs below 100 be paid to undergo voluntary sterilization

George de Hevesy dissolved the Nobel Prizes of James Franck (1925) and Max von Laue (1925) in acid to prevent the Nazis from confiscating them in 1940. After the war, he precipitated the gold and The Nobel Society recast the medals with the original material, presenting them to Franck and Laue.

The discoverer of a gene for Green Fluorescent Protein lost his grant, didn't get tenure, left academe and was working at a car dealership in Huntsville, Alabama, when he learned that former colleagues had won the Nobel Prize using the gene he sequenced.

The Tamagotchi won its creators the 1997 Ig Nobel Prize in Economics "for diverting millions of person-hours of work into the husbandry of virtual pets."

Swedish Navy detected underwater sounds suspected to be hostile Russian submarines in the 80s. The suspicion escalated to a diplomatic conflict between Sweden and Russia. It turned out later that these sounds came from fish farts, a discovery which led to the Ig Nobel Prize.

A WW2 era chemist dissolved gold nobel prize medals in aqua reggia to hide them from nazis. after the war he recovered the gold from the solution and the medals were recast for the winners

Donald Unger cracked his left hand knuckles everyday for 60 years but did not do so on his right hand. Proving that cracking knuckles had no effect on his health he earned a 2009 Ig Nobel Prize in Medicine.

Dr. Barry Marshall was convinced that H. pylori bacteria causes stomach ulcers, but no one believed him. Since it was illegal to test this theory on humans, he drank the bacteria himself, developed ulcers within days, treated them with antibiotics, and went on to win a Nobel Prize.

Although Jewish people make up only 0.2% of the world's population, they have won over 1/5 of the Nobel prizes since it first began.

Einstein was rewarded Nobel Prize not for his works with relativity, but for discovery of photoelectric effect.

Retta, Parks and Rec's Donna Meagle, is the niece of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberia's first female President and a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.

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