The beginning of October means
Nobel Prize time, when committees in Stockholm and Oslo announce the winners of
what many consider the most prestigious awards in the world.This year's Nobel
season kicks off Monday with the medicine award being announced for the 106th
time.Daily announcements will follow during the week with physics Tuesday,
chemistry Wednesday and probably, though the date has not been confirmed,
literature on Thursday.The 2015 Nobel Peace Prize will be announced on Friday
and, finally, the economics award on Oct. 12.Each prize is worth 8 million
Swedish kronor ($960,000) and will be handed out with a diploma and gold medal
on Dec. 10.
Here are five other things to know about the coveted prizes:
1. Who
created the Nobel prizes?
The
prizes in medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and peace were established
by the will of Alfred Nobel, a wealthy Swedish industrialist and the inventor
of dynamite.The first awards were handed out in 1901, five years after Nobel's
death.The economics award officially known as the Bank of Sweden
Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel wasn't created
by Nobel, but by Sweden's central bank in 1968.Though it's handed out along
with the other prizes and the criteria for selecting winners are the same, it's
not a Nobel Prize in the same sense.
2.Secrecy
The
Nobel statutes prohibit the judges from discussing their deliberations for 50
years. So it's probably going to be a while before we know for sure how judges
made their picks for 2015 and who was on their short lists.The judges try hard
to avoid dropping hints about the winners before the announcements, but
sometimes word gets out. Last year, there was a sudden surge in betting on
literature winner Patrick Modiano in the days leading up to the announcement.The
peace prize committee has accused its former secretary of breaching the code of
silence in a new book, which describes some of the discussions leading up to
the awards during his 25-year tenure.
3.Who can
nominate?
Thousands
of people around the world are eligible to submit nominations for the Nobel
Prizes. They include university professors, lawmakers, previous Nobel laureates
and the committee members themselves.Though the nominations are kept secret for
50 years, those who submit them sometimes announce their suggestions publicly,
particularly for the Nobel Peace Prize.That's how we know that German
Chancellor Angela Merkel, Pope Francis, former NSA contractor Edward Snowden
and imprisoned Saudi blogger Raif Badawi are among this year's 273 nominees.
4.The
Norwegian connection
The
Nobel Peace Prize is presented in Norway while the other awards are handed out
in Sweden. That's how Alfred Nobel wanted it.His exact reasons are unclear but
during his lifetime Sweden and Norway were joined in a union, which was
dissolved in 1905.Sometimes relations have been tense between the Nobel
Foundation in Stockholm, which manages the prize money, and the fiercely independent
peace prize committee in Oslo.
5.What
does it take to win a Nobel?
Patience,
for one. Scientists often have to wait decades to have their work recognized by
the Nobel judges, who want to make sure that any breakthrough withstands the
test of time.That's a departure from Nobel's will, which states that the awards
should endow "those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred
the greatest benefit to mankind."The peace prize committee is the only one
that regularly rewards achievements made in the previous year.According to
Nobel's wishes, that prize should go to "the person who shall have done
the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or
reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace
congresses."
