Written by Nayantara Singh, a grade 9 student.

The Nobel Prize list is out. We cover it briefly here.

What is the Nobel Prize?

The Nobel Prize is a prestigious honour awarded for outstanding achievement in the fields of Chemistry, Literature, Physics, and Physiology or Medicine, as well as the Nobel Peace Prize.

It is awarded by a Swedish and Norwegian institute known as the Nobel Foundation, founded by the late Alfred Nobel. Each prize consists of 10 million kronor, which is close to 7.5 crore rupees, a diploma and a gold medal. 

Who was Alfred Nobel?

Alfred Bernhard Nobel was a Swedish businessman, chemist, engineer and inventor. While he invented many things, he is best known for inventing a high explosive called dynamite. He also owned an arms manufacturing company called Bofors. He created the Nobel Prize

The Nobel Prizes for 2023

Physics

This was awarded to Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz and Anne L’Huillier. These scientists aided humanity’s investigations into the movement of electrons. This was by their invention of a method to measure the movement and energy change of electrons, by generating very brief pulses of light.

Pierre Agostini is an 82 year old scientist, belonging to French Tunisia, who works as a scientist with Ohio State University.

Ferenc Krausz is a 62 year old physicist from Hungary,  who is the Director at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics, and is a Professor of Experimental Physics at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. 

Anne L’Huillier is a 65 year old, French physicist, working at the Lund University in Sweden. 

Chemistry

This was awarded to Moungi Bawendi, Louis Brus and Alexei Ekimov, for the discovery and production of quantum dots. Quantum dots are very small particles of a semiconducting substance, which have a diameter of 2-10 nanometers.

Alexie Ekimov and Louis Brus were separately able to create quantum dots, and Moungi Bawendi revolutionised their production.

Moungi Bawendi is a Professor of Chemistry and an Advisor for the Minor in Energy Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He even has a laboratory, named the Bawendi Lab after him at the university. Louis Brus was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and works as a Professor of Chemistry at Columbia University.

Alexei Ekimov is a 78 year old scientist, currently working in Nanocrystals Technology Inc., New York

Literature 

This was awarded to Jon Olav Fosse, for his creative plays and prose work, which bravely spoke of “unsayable” subjects. A famous example of this, is the book “Septology”, which explores ideas like alcoholism.

He is a 65 year old Norwegian contemporary novelist, whose work consists of 70 novels, poems, plays, essays etc. which are translated into over 50 languages. 

Physiology or Medicine

This was awarded to Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman, for their discoveries, which led to the creation of successful mRna vaccinations for COVID-19, and introduced developments in the research on mRna’s interaction with immune systems.

These discoveries were around the modification of nucleoside bases, which are crucial in mRna based vaccinations. Katalin Karikó is a Hungarian biochemist, working with Szeged University and  the University of Pennsylvania.

Drew Weissman is an American scientist, working as the director of vaccine research and the institute for RNA innovation at the University of Pennsylvania. 

Nobel Peace Prize

The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Narges Mohammadi, who fearlessly fought against women’s oppression in Iran. She advocated for freedom, courageously raising her voice.

Her journey was ridden with struggles, as she displayed admirable devotion, continuing her mission despite being arrested 13 times, convicted 5 times and being sentenced to 31 years in jail, and 154 lashes. Presently, she is in prison as well. 

Who was the first woman to receive a Nobel Prize?

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