Excerpt from the Will of Alfred Nobel
"The whole of my remaining realizable estate shall be dealt with in the following
way: the capital, invested in safe securities by my executors, shall constitute a
fund, the interest on which shall be annually distributed in the form of prizes to
those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit
on mankind. The said interest shall be divided into five equal parts, which shall
be apportioned as follows: one part to the person who shall have made the most
important discovery or invention within the field of physics; one part to the
person who shall have made the most important chemical discovery or
improvement; one part to the person who shall have made the most important
discovery within the domain of physiology or medicine; one part to the person
who shall have produced in the field of literature the most outstanding work in
an ideal direction; and one part 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. The
prizes for physics and chemistry shall be awarded by the Swedish Academy of
Sciences; that for physiology or medical works by the Karolinska Institute in
Stockholm; that for literature by the Academy in Stockholm, and that for
champions of peace by a committee of five persons to be elected by the
Norwegian Storting. It is my express wish that in awarding the prizes no
consideration be given to the nationality of the candidates, but that the most
worthy shall receive the prize, whether he be Scandinavian or not."
For those of you that have been in a hole for the past week and half the Nobel committee has been awarding the Nobel prizes for the 2002-2003 year. The winners are as follows:
Economics: Robert Engle for "methods of analyzing economic time series with time-varying volatility (ARCH)"
and
Clive W. J. Granger for ""methods of analyzing economic time series with common trends (cointegration)"
Literature: John Maxwell Coetzee
Physiology or Medicine: Paul C. Lauterbur and Sir Peter Mansfield for "their discoveries concerning magnetic resonance imaging"
Chemistry: Peter Agre for "the discovery of water channels"
and
Roderick MacKinnon for "structural and mechanistic studies of ion channels"
Physics: Alexei A. Abrikosov, Vitaly L. Ginzburg and Anthony J. Leggett for " pioneering contributions to the theory of superconductors and superfluids"
Yes the Main one, the Peace prize has yet to be awarded...
for more information on this go to www.nobel.se and it isn't in sweedish so don't worry, you'll be able to read the information.
Posted by henry at October 8, 2003 10:48 PM