Nobel Prize facts for kids

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Quick facts for kids Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine awarded in 1950 to researchers at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota
Presented by	Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (Physics, Chemistry and Economic Sciences) Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute (Physiology or Medicine) Swedish Academy (Literature) Norwegian Nobel Committee (Peace)
Country	Sweden (all prizes except the Peace Prize) Norway (Peace Prize only)
Reward	A gold-plated green gold medal, a diploma, and a monetary award of 11 million SEK
First awarded	10 December 1901; 123 years ago (1901-12-10)
Currently held by	621 prizes to 992 laureates (as of 2024^[update])

The Nobel Prizes (/noʊˈbɛl/ NOH-bel; Swedish: Nobelpriset [nʊˈbɛ̂lːˌpriːsɛt]; Norwegian: Nobelprisen Norwegian: [nʊˈbɛ̀lːˌpriːsn̩]) are five separate prizes awarded to those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind, as established by the 1895 will of Swedish chemist, engineer, and industrialist Alfred Nobel, in the year before he died. Prizes were first awarded in 1901 by the Nobel Foundation. Nobel's will indicated that the awards should be granted in the fields of Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and Peace. A sixth prize for Economic Sciences, endowed by Sweden's central bank, Sveriges Riksbank, and first presented in 1969, is also frequently included, as it is also administered by the Nobel Foundation. The Nobel Prizes are widely regarded as the most prestigious awards available in their respective fields.

The prize ceremonies take place annually. Each recipient, known as a laureate, receives a green gold medal plated with 24 karat gold, a diploma, and a monetary award. As of 2023, the Nobel Prize monetary award is 11,000,000 SEK, amounting to ~$1,035,000. A prize may not be shared among more than three individuals, although the Nobel Peace Prize can be awarded to organisations of more than three people. Nobel Prizes are not awarded posthumously, but if a person is awarded a prize and dies before receiving it, the prize is presented.

The Nobel Prizes, beginning in 1901, and the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, beginning in 1969, have been awarded 609 times to 975 people and 25 organisations. Five individuals and two organisations have received more than one Nobel Prize.

History

Alfred Nobel had the unpleasant surprise of reading his own obituary, which was titled "The Merchant of Death Is Dead", in a French newspaper.

Alfred Nobel was born on 21 October 1833 in Stockholm, Sweden, into a family of engineers. He was a chemist, engineer, and inventor. In 1894, Nobel purchased the Bofors iron and steel mill, which he made into a major armaments manufacturer. Nobel also invented ballistite. This invention was a precursor to many smokeless military explosives, especially the British smokeless powder cordite. As a consequence of his patent claims, Nobel was eventually involved in a patent infringement lawsuit over cordite. Nobel amassed a fortune during his lifetime, with most of his wealth coming from his 355 inventions, of which dynamite is the most famous.

There is a popular story about how, in 1888, Nobel was astonished to read his own obituary, titled "The Merchant of Death Is Dead", in a French newspaper. It was Alfred's brother Ludvig who had died; the obituary was eight years premature. The article disconcerted Nobel and made him apprehensive about how he would be remembered. This inspired him to change his will. Historians have been unable to verify this story and some dismiss the story as a myth. On 10 December 1896, Alfred Nobel died in his villa in San Remo, Italy, from a cerebral haemorrhage. He was 63 years old.

Nobel wrote several wills during his lifetime. He composed the last over a year before he died, signing it at the Swedish–Norwegian Club in Paris on 27 November 1895. To widespread astonishment, Nobel's last will specified that his fortune be used to create a series of prizes for those who confer the "greatest benefit on mankind" in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature, and peace. Nobel bequeathed 94% of his total assets, 31 million SEK (c. US$186 million, €150 million in 2008), to establish the five Nobel Prizes. Owing to skepticism surrounding the will, it was not approved by the Storting in Norway until 26 April 1897. The executors of the will, Ragnar Sohlman and Rudolf Lilljequist, formed the Nobel Foundation to take care of the fortune and to organise the awarding of prizes.

Nobel's instructions named a Norwegian Nobel Committee to award the Peace Prize, the members of which were appointed shortly after the will was approved in April 1897. Soon thereafter, the other prize-awarding organisations were designated. These were Karolinska Institute on 7 June, the Swedish Academy on 9 June, and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on 11 June. The Nobel Foundation reached an agreement on guidelines for how the prizes should be awarded; and, in 1900, the Nobel Foundation's newly created statutes were promulgated by King Oscar II. In 1905, the personal union between Sweden and Norway was dissolved.

Nobel Foundation

Formation of Foundation

Alfred Nobel's will, which stated that 94% of his total assets should be used to establish the Nobel Prizes

According to his will and testament read in Stockholm on 30 December 1896, a foundation established by Alfred Nobel would reward those who serve humanity. The Nobel Prize was funded by Alfred Nobel's personal fortune. According to the official sources, Alfred Nobel bequeathed most of his fortune to the Nobel Foundation that now forms the economic base of the Nobel Prize.

The Nobel Foundation was founded as a private organisation on 29 June 1900. Its function is to manage the finances and administration of the Nobel Prizes. In accordance with Nobel's will, the primary task of the foundation is to manage the fortune Nobel left. Robert and Ludvig Nobel were involved in the oil business in Azerbaijan, and according to Swedish historian E. Bargengren, who accessed the Nobel family archive, it was this "decision to allow withdrawal of Alfred's money from Baku that became the decisive factor that enabled the Nobel Prizes to be established". Another important task of the Nobel Foundation is to market the prizes internationally and to oversee informal administration related to the prizes. The foundation is not involved in the process of selecting the Nobel laureates. In many ways, the Nobel Foundation is similar to an investment company, in that it invests Nobel's money to create a solid funding base for the prizes and the administrative activities. The Nobel Foundation is exempt from all taxes in Sweden (since 1946) and from investment taxes in the United States (since 1953). Since the 1980s, the foundation's investments have become more profitable and as of 31 December 2007, the assets controlled by the Nobel Foundation amounted to 3.628 billion Swedish kronor (c. US$560 million).

According to the statutes, the foundation consists of a board of five Swedish or Norwegian citizens, with its seat in Stockholm. The chairman of the board is appointed by the Swedish King in Council, with the other four members appointed by the trustees of the prize-awarding institutions. An Executive director is chosen from among the board members, a deputy director is appointed by the King in Council, and two deputies are appointed by the trustees. However, since 1995, all the members of the board have been chosen by the trustees, and the executive director and the deputy director appointed by the board itself. As well as the board, the Nobel Foundation is made up of the prize-awarding institutions (the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institute, the Swedish Academy, and the Norwegian Nobel Committee), the trustees of these institutions, and auditors.

Foundation capital and cost

The capital of the Nobel Foundation today is invested 50% in shares, 20% bonds and 30% other investments (e.g. hedge funds or real estate). The distribution can vary by 10 percent. At the beginning of 2008, 64% of the funds were invested mainly in American and European stocks, 20% in bonds, plus 12% in real estate and hedge funds.

In 2011, the total annual cost was approximately 120 million kronor, with 50 million kronor as the prize money. Further costs to pay institutions and persons engaged in giving the prizes were 27.4 million kronor. The events during the Nobel week in Stockholm and Oslo cost 20.2 million kronor. The administration, Nobel symposium, and similar items had costs of 22.4 million kronor. The cost of the Economic Sciences prize of 16.5 Million kronor is paid by the Sveriges Riksbank.

Inaugural Nobel prizes

Wilhelm Röntgen, who received the first Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery of the X-ray

Once the Nobel Foundation and its guidelines were in place, the Nobel Committees began collecting nominations for the inaugural prizes. Subsequently, they sent a list of preliminary candidates to the prize-awarding institutions.

The Nobel Committee's Physics Prize shortlist cited Wilhelm Röntgen's discovery of X-rays and Philipp Lenard's work on cathode rays. The Academy of Sciences selected Röntgen for the prize. In the last decades of the 19th century, many chemists had made significant contributions. Thus, with the Chemistry Prize, the academy "was chiefly faced with merely deciding the order in which these scientists should be awarded the prize". The academy received 20 nominations, eleven of them for Jacobus van 't Hoff. Van 't Hoff was awarded the prize for his contributions in chemical thermodynamics.

The Swedish Academy chose the poet Sully Prudhomme for the first Nobel Prize in Literature. A group including 42 Swedish writers, artists, and literary critics protested against this decision, having expected Leo Tolstoy to be awarded. Some, including Burton Feldman, have criticised this prize because they consider Prudhomme a mediocre poet. Feldman's explanation is that most of the academy members preferred Victorian literature and thus selected a Victorian poet. The first Physiology or Medicine Prize went to the German physiologist and microbiologist Emil von Behring. During the 1890s, von Behring developed an antitoxin to treat diphtheria, which until then had been causing thousands of deaths each year.

The first Nobel Peace Prize went to the Swiss Jean Henri Dunant for his role in founding the International Red Cross Movement and initiating the Geneva Convention, and jointly given to French pacifist Frédéric Passy, founder of the Peace League and active with Dunant in the Alliance for Order and Civilization.

Second World War

In 1938 and 1939, Adolf Hitler's Third Reich forbade three laureates from Germany (Richard Kuhn, Adolf Friedrich Johann Butenandt, and Gerhard Domagk) from accepting their prizes. They were all later able to receive the diploma and medal. Even though Sweden was officially neutral during the Second World War, the prizes were awarded irregularly. In 1939, the Peace Prize was not awarded. No prize was awarded in any category from 1940 to 1942, due to the occupation of Norway by Germany. In the subsequent year, all prizes were awarded except those for literature and peace.

During the occupation of Norway, three members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee fled into exile. The remaining members escaped persecution from the Germans when the Nobel Foundation stated that the committee building in Oslo was Swedish property. Thus it was a safe haven from the German military, which was not at war with Sweden. These members kept the work of the committee going, but did not award any prizes. In 1944, the Nobel Foundation, together with the three members in exile, made sure that nominations were submitted for the Peace Prize and that the prize could be awarded once again.

Prize in Economic Sciences

Map of Nobel laureates by country

In 1968, Sweden's central bank Sveriges Riksbank celebrated its 300th anniversary by donating a large sum of money to the Nobel Foundation to be used to set up a prize in honour of Alfred Nobel. The following year, the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel was awarded for the first time. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences became responsible for selecting laureates. The first laureates for the Economics Prize were Jan Tinbergen and Ragnar Frisch "for having developed and applied dynamic models for the analysis of economic processes". The board of the Nobel Foundation decided that after this addition, it would allow no further new prizes.

Award process

The award process is similar for all of the Nobel Prizes, the main difference being who can make nominations for each of them.

Nominations

Nomination forms are sent by the Nobel Committee to about 3,000 individuals, usually in September the year before the prizes are awarded. These individuals are generally prominent academics working in a relevant area. Regarding the Peace Prize, inquiries are also sent to governments, former Peace Prize laureates, and current or former members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee. The deadline for the return of the nomination forms is 31 January of the year of the award. The Nobel Committee nominates about 300 potential laureates from these forms and additional names. The nominees are not publicly named, nor are they told that they are being considered for the prize. All nomination records for a prize are sealed for 50 years from the awarding of the prize.

Selection

The Nobel Committee then prepares a report reflecting the advice of experts in the relevant fields. This, along with the list of preliminary candidates, is submitted to the prize-awarding institutions. There are four awarding institutions for the six prizes awarded:

Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences – Chemistry; Physics; Economics
Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute – Physiology / Medicine
Swedish Academy – Literature
Norwegian Nobel Committee – Peace

The institutions meet to choose the laureate or laureates in each field by a majority vote. Their decision, which cannot be appealed, is announced immediately after the vote. A maximum of three laureates and two different works may be selected per award. Except for the Peace Prize, which can be awarded to institutions, the awards can only be given to individuals. The winners are announced by the awarding institutions during the first two weeks of October.

Posthumous nominations

Although posthumous nominations are not presently permitted, individuals who died in the months between their nomination and the decision of the prize committee were originally eligible to receive the prize. This has occurred twice: the 1931 Literature Prize awarded to Erik Axel Karlfeldt, and the 1961 Peace Prize awarded to UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld. Since 1974, laureates must be thought alive at the time of the October announcement. There has been one laureate, William Vickrey, who in 1996 died after the prize (in Economics) was announced but before it could be presented. On 3 October 2011, the laureates for the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine were announced; however, the committee was not aware that one of the laureates, Ralph M. Steinman, had died three days earlier. The committee was debating about Steinman's prize, since the rule is that the prize is not awarded posthumously. The committee later decided that as the decision to award Steinman the prize "was made in good faith", it would remain unchanged, and the prize would be awarded.

Recognition time lag

Nobel's will provided for prizes to be awarded in recognition of discoveries made "during the preceding year". Early on, the awards usually recognised recent discoveries. However, some of those early discoveries were later discredited. For example, Johannes Fibiger was awarded the 1926 Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his purported discovery of a parasite that caused cancer. To avoid repeating this embarrassment, the awards increasingly recognised scientific discoveries that had withstood the test of time. According to Ralf Pettersson, former chairman of the Nobel Prize Committee for Physiology or Medicine, "the criterion 'the previous year' is interpreted by the Nobel Assembly as the year when the full impact of the discovery has become evident."

The committee room of the Norwegian Nobel Committee

The interval between the award and the accomplishment it recognises varies from discipline to discipline. The Literature Prize is typically awarded to recognise a cumulative lifetime body of work rather than a single achievement. The Peace Prize can also be awarded for a lifetime body of work. For example, 2008 laureate Martti Ahtisaari was awarded for his work to resolve international conflicts. However, they can also be awarded for specific recent events. For instance, Kofi Annan was awarded the 2001 Peace Prize just four years after becoming the Secretary-General of the United Nations. Similarly Yasser Arafat, Yitzhak Rabin, and Shimon Peres received the 1994 award, about a year after they successfully concluded the Oslo Accords. A controversy was caused by awarding the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize to Barack Obama during his first year as US president.

Awards for physics, chemistry, and medicine are typically awarded once the achievement has been widely accepted. Sometimes, this takes decades – for example, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar shared the 1983 Physics Prize for his 1930s work on stellar structure and evolution. Not all scientists live long enough for their work to be recognised. Some discoveries can never be considered for a prize if their impact is realised after the discoverers have died.

Award ceremonies

Right: Giovanni Jona-Lasinio presenting Yoichiro Nambu's Nobel Lecture at Aula Magna in Stockholm in 2008; Left: Barack Obama after receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo City Hall from Norwegian Nobel Committee chairman Thorbjørn Jagland in 2009

Except for the Peace Prize, the Nobel Prizes are presented in Stockholm, Sweden, at the annual Prize Award Ceremony on 10 December, the anniversary of Nobel's death. The recipients' lectures are normally held in the days prior to the award ceremony. The Peace Prize and its recipients' lectures are presented at the annual Prize Award Ceremony in Oslo, Norway, usually on 10 December. The award ceremonies and the associated banquets are typically major international events. The Prizes awarded in Sweden's ceremonies are held at the Stockholm Concert Hall, with the Nobel banquet following immediately at Stockholm City Hall. The Nobel Peace Prize ceremony has been held at the Norwegian Nobel Institute (1905–1946), at the auditorium of the University of Oslo (1947–1989), and at Oslo City Hall (1990–present).

The highlight of the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony in Stockholm occurs when each Nobel laureate steps forward to receive the prize from the hands of the King of Sweden. In Oslo, the chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee presents the Nobel Peace Prize in the presence of the King of Norway and the Norwegian royal family. At first, King Oscar II did not approve of awarding grand prizes to foreigners.

Nobel Banquet

Table at the 2005 Nobel Banquet in Stockholm

After the award ceremony in Sweden, a banquet is held in the Blue Hall at the Stockholm City Hall, which is attended by the Swedish Royal Family and around 1,300 guests. The Nobel Peace Prize banquet is held in Norway at the Oslo Grand Hotel after the award ceremony. Apart from the laureate, guests include the president of the Storting, on occasion the Swedish prime minister, and, since 2006, the King and Queen of Norway. In total, about 250 guests attend.

Nobel lecture

According to the statutes of the Nobel Foundation, each laureate is required to give a public lecture on a subject related to the topic of their prize. The Nobel lecture as a rhetorical genre took decades to reach its current format. These lectures normally occur during Nobel Week (the week leading up to the award ceremony and banquet, which begins with the laureates arriving in Stockholm and normally ends with the Nobel banquet), but this is not mandatory. The laureate is only obliged to give the lecture within six months of receiving the prize, but some have happened even later. For example, US President Theodore Roosevelt received the Peace Prize in 1906 but gave his lecture in 1910, after his term in office. The lectures are organised by the same association which selected the laureates.

Military cemeteries in every corner of the world are silent testimony to the failure of national leaders to sanctify human life.

— Yitzhak Rabin, 1994 Nobel Peace Prize lecture

Prizes

Medals

Fritz Haber's diploma is shown, which he received for the development of a method to synthesise ammonia. Laureates receive a heavily decorated diploma together with a gold medal and prize money.

The Nobel Foundation announced on 30 May 2012 that it had awarded the contract for the production of the five (Swedish) Nobel Prize medals to Svenska Medalj AB. Between 1902 and 2010, the Nobel Prize medals were minted by Myntverket (the Swedish Mint), Sweden's oldest company, which ceased operations in 2011 after 107 years. In 2011, the Mint of Norway, located in Kongsberg, made the medals. The Nobel Prize medals are registered trademarks of the Nobel Foundation.

Each medal features an image of Alfred Nobel in left profile on the obverse. The medals for physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, and literature have identical obverses, showing the image of Alfred Nobel and the years of his birth and death. Nobel's portrait also appears on the obverse of the Peace Prize medal and the medal for the Economics Prize, but with a slightly different design. For instance, the laureate's name is engraved on the rim of the Economics medal. The image on the reverse of a medal varies according to the institution awarding the prize. The reverse sides of the medals for chemistry and physics share the same design.

All medals made before 1980 were struck in 23 carat gold. Since then, they have been struck in 18 carat green gold plated with 24 carat gold. The weight of each medal varies with the value of gold, but averages about 175 grams (0.386 lb) for each medal. The diameter is 66 millimetres (2.6 in) and the thickness varies between 5.2 millimetres (0.20 in) and 2.4 millimetres (0.094 in). Because of the high value of their gold content and tendency to be on public display, Nobel medals are subject to medal theft. During World War II, the medals of German scientists Max von Laue and James Franck were sent to Copenhagen for safekeeping. When Germany invaded Denmark, Hungarian chemist (and Nobel laureate himself) George de Hevesy dissolved them in aqua regia (nitro-hydrochloric acid), to prevent confiscation by Nazi Germany and to prevent legal problems for the holders. After the war, the gold was recovered from solution, and the medals re-cast.

Diplomas

Nobel laureates receive a diploma directly from the hands of the King of Sweden, or in the case of the peace prize, the chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee. Each diploma is uniquely designed by the prize-awarding institutions for the laureates that receive them. The diploma contains a picture and text in Swedish which states the name of the laureate and normally a citation of why they received the prize. None of the Nobel Peace Prize laureates has ever had a citation on their diplomas.

Award money

The laureates are given a sum of money when they receive their prizes, in the form of a document confirming the amount awarded. The amount of prize money depends upon how much money the Nobel Foundation can award each year. The purse has increased since the 1980s, when the prize money was 880,000 SEK per prize (c. 2.6 million SEK altogether, US$350,000 today). In 2009, the monetary award was 10 million SEK (US$1.4 million). In June 2012, it was lowered to 8 million SEK. If two laureates share the prize in a category, the award grant is divided equally between the recipients. If there are three, the awarding committee has the option of dividing the grant equally, or awarding one-half to one recipient and one-quarter to each of the others. It is common for recipients to donate prize money to benefit scientific, cultural, or humanitarian causes.

Statistics

Youngest person to receive a Nobel Prize:

Malala Yousafzai; at the age of 17, received Nobel Peace Prize (2014).
Oldest person to receive a Nobel Prize:

John B. Goodenough; at the age of 97, received Nobel Prize in Chemistry (2019).
Only person to receive more than one unshared Nobel Prize:

Linus Pauling; received the prize twice. Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1954) and Nobel Peace Prize (1962).
Country with most Nobel laureates:

United States; 403 Nobel laureates, as of 2022.

Laureates who have received multiple Nobel Prizes: (by date of second Prize)
1. Marie Curie; received the prize twice. Nobel Prize in Physics (1903) and Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1911).
2. International Committee of the Red Cross; received the prize thrice. Nobel Peace Prize (1917, 1944, 1963).
3. Linus Pauling; received the prize twice. Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1954) and Nobel Peace Prize (1962).
4. John Bardeen; received the prize twice. Nobel Prize in Physics (1956, 1972).
5. Frederick Sanger; received the prize twice. Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1958, 1980).
6. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees; received the prize twice. Nobel Peace Prize (1954, 1981).
7. Karl Barry Sharpless; received the prize twice. Nobel Prize in Chemistry (2001, 2022).
Posthumous Nobel Prizes laureates:
1. Erik Axel Karlfeldt; received Nobel Prize in Literature (1931).
2. Dag Hammarskjöld; received Nobel Peace Prize (1961).
3. Ralph M. Steinman; received Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (2011).
Married couples to receive Nobel Prizes:

Marie Curie, Pierre Curie (along with Henri Becquerel). Received Nobel Prize in Physics (1903).
Irène Joliot-Curie, Frédéric Joliot. Received Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1935).
Gerty Cori, Carl Cori. Received Nobel Prize in Medicine (1947).
Gunnar Myrdal received Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics Sciences (1974), Alva Myrdal received Nobel Peace Prize (1982).
May-Britt Moser, Edvard I. Moser. Received Nobel Prize in Medicine (2014)
Esther Duflo, Abhijit Banerjee (along with Michael Kremer). Received Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics Sciences (2019).

Years without prizes:

Physics: 1916, 1931, 1934, 1940, 1941, 1942

Chemistry: 1916, 1917, 1919, 1924, 1933, 1940, 1941, 1942

Physiology or Medicine: 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918, 1921, 1925, 1940, 1941, 1942

Literature: 1914, 1918, 1935, 1940, 1941, 1942, 1943

Peace: 1914, 1915, 1916, 1918, 1923, 1924, 1928, 1932, 1939, 1940, 1941, 1942, 1943, 1948, 1955, 1956, 1966, 1967, 1972

Specially distinguished laureates

Multiple laureates

Marie Curie, one of five people who have received the Nobel Prize twice (Physics and Chemistry)

Five people have received two Nobel Prizes. Marie Curie received the Physics Prize in 1903 for her work on radioactivity and the Chemistry Prize in 1911 for the isolation of pure radium, making her the only person to be awarded a Nobel Prize in two different sciences. Linus Pauling was awarded the 1954 Chemistry Prize for his research into the chemical bond and its application to the structure of complex substances. Pauling was also awarded the Peace Prize in 1962 for his activism against nuclear weapons, making him the only laureate of two unshared prizes. John Bardeen received the Physics Prize twice: in 1956 for the invention of the transistor and in 1972 for the theory of superconductivity. Frederick Sanger received the prize twice in Chemistry: in 1958 for determining the structure of the insulin molecule and in 1980 for inventing a method of determining base sequences in DNA. Karl Barry Sharpless was awarded the 2001 Chemistry Prize for his research into chirally catalysed oxidation reactions, and the 2022 Chemistry Prize for click chemistry.

Two organisations have received the Peace Prize multiple times. The International Committee of the Red Cross received it three times: in 1917 and 1944 for its work during the world wars; and in 1963 during the year of its centenary. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has been awarded the Peace Prize twice for assisting refugees: in 1954 and 1981.

Family laureates

The Curie family has received the most prizes, with four prizes awarded to five individual laureates. Marie Curie received the prizes in Physics (in 1903) and Chemistry (in 1911). Her husband, Pierre Curie, shared the 1903 Physics prize with her. Their daughter, Irène Joliot-Curie, received the Chemistry Prize in 1935 together with her husband Frédéric Joliot-Curie. In addition, the husband of Marie Curie's second daughter, Henry Labouisse, was the director of UNICEF when he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in 1965 on that organisation's behalf.

Although no family matches the Curie family's record, there have been several with two laureates. The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to the husband-and-wife team of Gerty Cori and Carl Ferdinand Cori in 1947, and to the husband-and-wife team of May-Britt Moser and Edvard Moser in 2014 (along with John O'Keefe). The Physics Prize in 1906 was won by J. J. Thomson for showing that electrons are particles, and in 1937 by his son, George Paget Thomson, for showing that they also have the properties of waves. William Henry Bragg and his son, William Lawrence Bragg, shared the Physics Prize in 1915 for inventing X-ray crystallography. Niels Bohr was awarded the Physics Prize in 1922, as was his son, Aage Bohr, in 1975. The Physics Prize was awarded to Manne Siegbahn in 1924, followed by his son, Kai Siegbahn, in 1981. Hans von Euler-Chelpin, who received the Chemistry Prize in 1929, was the father of Ulf von Euler, who was awarded the Physiology or Medicine Prize in 1970. C. V. Raman was awarded the Physics Prize in 1930 and was the uncle of Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, who was awarded the same prize in 1983. Arthur Kornberg received the Physiology or Medicine Prize in 1959; Kornberg's son Roger later received the Chemistry Prize in 2006. Arthur Schawlow received the 1981 Physics prize, and was married to the sister of 1964 Physics laureate Charles Townes. Two members of the Hodgkin family received Nobels in consecutive years: Sir Alan Lloyd Hodgkin shared in the Nobel for Physiology or Medicine in 1963, followed by Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin, the wife of his first cousin, who won solo for Chemistry in 1964. Jan Tinbergen, who was awarded the first Economics Prize in 1969, was the brother of Nikolaas Tinbergen, who received the 1973 Physiology or Medicine Prize. Gunnar Myrdal, who was awarded the Economics Prize in 1974, was the husband of Alva Myrdal, Peace Prize laureate in 1982. Economics laureates Paul Samuelson (1970) and Kenneth Arrow (1972; shared) were brothers-in-law. Frits Zernike, who was awarded the 1953 Physics Prize, was the great-uncle of 1999 Physics laureate Gerard 't Hooft. In 2019, married couple Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo were awarded the Economics Prize. Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard was awarded the Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1995, and her nephew Benjamin List received the Chemistry Prize in 2021. Sune Bergström was awarded the Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1982, and his son Svante Pääbo was awarded the same prize in 2022. Edwin McMillan, who shared the Prize in Chemistry in 1951, was the uncle of John Clauser, who was awarded the Prize in Physics in 2022.

Refusals and constraints

Richard Kuhn, who was forced to decline his Nobel Prize in Chemistry

Two laureates have voluntarily declined the Nobel Prize. In 1964, Jean-Paul Sartre was awarded the Literature Prize, 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." Lê Đức Thọ, chosen for the 1973 Peace Prize for his role in the Paris Peace Accords, declined, stating that there was no actual peace in Vietnam. George Bernard Shaw attempted to decline the prize money while accepting the 1925 Literature Prize; eventually it was agreed to use it to found the Anglo-Swedish Literary Foundation.

During the Third Reich, Adolf Hitler hindered Richard Kuhn, Adolf Butenandt, and Gerhard Domagk from accepting their prizes. All of them were awarded their diplomas and gold medals after World War II.

In 1958, Boris Pasternak declined his prize for literature due to fear of what the Soviet Union government might do if he travelled to Stockholm to accept his prize. In return, the Swedish Academy refused his refusal, saying "this refusal, of course, in no way alters the validity of the award." The academy announced with regret that the presentation of the Literature Prize could not take place that year, holding it back until 1989 when Pasternak's son accepted the prize on his behalf.

Aung San Suu Kyi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, but her children accepted the prize because she had been placed under house arrest in Burma; Suu Kyi delivered her speech two decades later, in 2012. Liu Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010 while he and his wife were under house arrest in China as political prisoners, and he was unable to accept the prize in his lifetime.

Impact

Cultural

Being a symbol of scientific or literary achievement that is recognisable worldwide, the Nobel Prize is often depicted in fiction. This includes films such as The Prize (1963), Nobel Son (2007), and The Wife (2017) about fictional Nobel laureates, as well as fictionalised accounts of stories surrounding real prizes such as Nobel Chor, a 2012 film based on the theft of Rabindranath Tagore's prize. It has also been depicted in television shows such as The Big Bang Theory.

The statue and memorial symbol Planet of Alfred Nobel was opened in Alfred Nobel University of Economics and Law in Dnipro, Ukraine in 2008. On the globe, there are 802 Nobel laureates' reliefs made of a composite alloy obtained when disposing of military strategic missiles.

Despite the symbolism of intellectual achievement, some recipients have embraced unsupported and pseudoscientific concepts, including various health benefits of vitamin C and other dietary supplements, homeopathy, HIV/AIDS denialism, and various claims about race and intelligence. This is sometimes referred to as Nobel disease.