Thursday, October 18, 2007
Somewhere Out There
I though it was about time to make a love song. SO I found Somewhere Out There by Linda Ronstadt and make another POTO video. Here are the lyrics.
Somewhere out there,
Beneath the pale moon night,
Someone's thinking of me,
And loving me tonight.
Somewhere out there,
Someone's saying a prayer,
Then we'll find one another,
In that big somewhere out there.
(Chorus 1)
And even though I know how very far apart we are,
It helps to think we might be wishing
On the same bright star,
And when the night will start to sing
A lonesome lullaby,
It helps to think we're sleeping underneath the
Same big sky.
(Chorus 2)
Somewhere out there,
If love can see us through,
Then, we'll be together,
Somewhere out there, out where dreams, come true.
(Repeat Chorus 1)
(Repeat Chorus 2)
Monday, October 15, 2007
隐形的翅膀，孤独中的坚强！
今天偶然之间在文学城的博客听到这首歌，觉得歌声好熟悉， 一查，原来自ANGELA, 仔细聆听，歌词好美，“每一次， 都在徘徊孤独中坚强” ， 这四年来，生活何尝不是这样，好希望， 有一天终于能看到所以梦想都开花。
特收集到这里行赏。
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Surface chemistry wins Nobel Prize
The 2007 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to German scientist Gerhard Ertl, on his 71st birthday. Ertl's groundbreaking research showed chemists it was possible to understand the fine details of what gas molecules do at the solid surfaces of metals. He worked out the role of metal catalysts in industrial reactions such as the making of artificial fertilizer. But he also pioneered the study of surfaces in many chemical processes: from ozone destruction in the atmosphere and cars' exhaust-cleaning catalytic converters, to the manufacture of pharmaceuticals, and materials for the electronics industry.
'Ertl's lifelong work has lifted the subject of molecular chemistry at surfaces from alchemy to cutting edge 21st century science,' said Ortwin Hess of the University of Surrey, UK.
Well before Ertl was born, chemists knew solid surfaces were key to catalysing reactions: as far back as 1912, Paul Sabatier shared the Nobel Prize for using nickel to help hydrogenate organic compounds. But the precise details of how molecules and atoms interacted with a surface evaded scientists: they didn't have the technology to look closely enough.
"Ertl's lifelong work has lifted the subject of molecular chemistry at surfaces from alchemy to cutting edge 21st century science"
- Ortwin Hess
In the 1960s, the right tools fell within reach, thanks to methods developed by the semiconductor industry, such as the ability to handle clean surfaces under almost perfect vacuum. An array of sophisticated techniques were developed by chemists, Ertl among them: injecting gas molecules onto surfaces and firing electrons, UV, infrared and x-rays at them in order to probe their structures using microscopy, spectroscopy and diffraction.
Ertl began by looking at how hydrogen atoms were organised on the surface of metals such as palladium, platinum and nickel. In the 1980s he studied the Haber-Bosch process, where ammonia is made by nitrogen and hydrogen gas molecules reacting on an iron surface. Ertl explained that nitrogen molecules split apart into atoms on the surface; where the atoms were adsorbed; why potassium promoted the reaction, and the step-by-step mechanism of ammonia production. In doing so he laid down a model of how to unravel any solid-gas catalytic mechanism.
In the 1980s and 90s Ertl tackled another classic reaction: how carbon monoxide is oxidised on a platinum surface to form carbon dioxide - one of the key reactions in the catalytic converter. This one was more complicated, since the kinetics of reaction were not dominated by one slow step. Again, he picked his way through a formidable series of methods to a comprehensive understanding; showing how molecules moved around on the platinum in complicated rhythms and patterns during the reaction.
Ertl, now emeritus professor at Berlin's Fritz Haber Institute, part of the Max Planck Society, was delighted with his award. 'This is the best birthday present you can give to somebody,' he told the Swedish Academy of Sciences.
Surface scientists were pleased with the recognition of their field, but at the same time surprised that other surface science pioneers, including David King, of Cambridge University, UK and Gabor Somorjai, of the University of California, Berkeley, had missed out.
'No doubt there will be disappointment in some quarters that the prize was not more widely shared,' said Andrea Sella, of University College London. But many surface scientists agreed with American Chemical Society President Katie Hunt: 'I am delighted that the prize recognizes a field of chemistry that often receives little public attention, and yet has transformed lives in so many ways.'
(From http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/News/2007/October/10100703.asp)
'Ertl's lifelong work has lifted the subject of molecular chemistry at surfaces from alchemy to cutting edge 21st century science,' said Ortwin Hess of the University of Surrey, UK.
Well before Ertl was born, chemists knew solid surfaces were key to catalysing reactions: as far back as 1912, Paul Sabatier shared the Nobel Prize for using nickel to help hydrogenate organic compounds. But the precise details of how molecules and atoms interacted with a surface evaded scientists: they didn't have the technology to look closely enough.
"Ertl's lifelong work has lifted the subject of molecular chemistry at surfaces from alchemy to cutting edge 21st century science"
- Ortwin Hess
In the 1960s, the right tools fell within reach, thanks to methods developed by the semiconductor industry, such as the ability to handle clean surfaces under almost perfect vacuum. An array of sophisticated techniques were developed by chemists, Ertl among them: injecting gas molecules onto surfaces and firing electrons, UV, infrared and x-rays at them in order to probe their structures using microscopy, spectroscopy and diffraction.
Ertl began by looking at how hydrogen atoms were organised on the surface of metals such as palladium, platinum and nickel. In the 1980s he studied the Haber-Bosch process, where ammonia is made by nitrogen and hydrogen gas molecules reacting on an iron surface. Ertl explained that nitrogen molecules split apart into atoms on the surface; where the atoms were adsorbed; why potassium promoted the reaction, and the step-by-step mechanism of ammonia production. In doing so he laid down a model of how to unravel any solid-gas catalytic mechanism.
In the 1980s and 90s Ertl tackled another classic reaction: how carbon monoxide is oxidised on a platinum surface to form carbon dioxide - one of the key reactions in the catalytic converter. This one was more complicated, since the kinetics of reaction were not dominated by one slow step. Again, he picked his way through a formidable series of methods to a comprehensive understanding; showing how molecules moved around on the platinum in complicated rhythms and patterns during the reaction.
Ertl, now emeritus professor at Berlin's Fritz Haber Institute, part of the Max Planck Society, was delighted with his award. 'This is the best birthday present you can give to somebody,' he told the Swedish Academy of Sciences.
Surface scientists were pleased with the recognition of their field, but at the same time surprised that other surface science pioneers, including David King, of Cambridge University, UK and Gabor Somorjai, of the University of California, Berkeley, had missed out.
'No doubt there will be disappointment in some quarters that the prize was not more widely shared,' said Andrea Sella, of University College London. But many surface scientists agreed with American Chemical Society President Katie Hunt: 'I am delighted that the prize recognizes a field of chemistry that often receives little public attention, and yet has transformed lives in so many ways.'
(From http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/News/2007/October/10100703.asp)
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
And a time to every purpose under heaven
When I heard this song today, which made me move, and like tell me something. Exactly, there is a time for everything around you. So whatever happened to you everytime, positive? negative? Face it and Enjoy it with a common sence.
Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is a Season)
The Byrds
To everything - turn, turn, turn
There is a season - turn, turn, turn
And a time to every purpose under heaven
对于任何事物(-转变，转变，转变)
都有对应的季节(-转变，转变，转变)
天下的任何事情，都有对应的时间。
A time to be born, a time to die
A time to plant, a time to reap
A time to kill, a time to heal
A time to laugh, a time to weep
有出生时，有死亡时
有种植时，有收割时
有杀戮时，有治愈时
有欢笑时，有流泪时
To everything - turn, turn, turn
There is a season - turn, turn, turn
And a time to every purpose under heaven
对于任何事物(-转变，转变，转变)
都有对应的季节(-转变，转变，转变)
天下的任何事情，都有对应的时间。
A time to build up, a time to break down
A time to dance, a time to mourn
A time to cast away stones
A time to gather stones together
有建立时，有摧毁时
有跳舞时，有忧伤时
有抛弃石头时
有收聚石头时
To everything - turn, turn, turn
There is a season - turn, turn, turn
And a time to every purpose under heaven
对于任何事物(-转变，转变，转变)
都有对应的季节(-转变，转变，转变)
天下的任何事情，都有对应的时间。
A time of love, a time of hate
A time of war, a time of peace
A time you may embrace
A time to refrain from embracing
有热爱时，有痛恨时
有战争时，有和平时
有可能拥抱时
有避免拥抱时
To everything - turn, turn, turn
There is a season - turn, turn, turn
And a time to every purpose under heaven
对于任何事物(-转变，转变，转变)
都有对应的季节(-转变，转变，转变)
天下的任何事情，都有对应的时间。
A time to gain, a time to lose
A time to rend, a time to sew
A time for love, a time for hate
A time for peace, I swear it's not too late!
有收获时，有损失时
有撕碎时，有缝合时
有热爱时，有痛恨时
有和平时，我敢说不会太迟了。
The Byrds乐队的一首经典之作，曾经作为插曲出现在电影《阿甘正传》当中，歌名Turn! Turn! Turn!（To Everything There Is A Season）。To everything there is a season是宾，而turn turn turn是主，正如"诸行无常"中，"无常"为主一般。这首歌，说的也正是"诸行无常"的道理，非常切合电影的主题，无论是阿甘的一生，还是大背景的美国的那几十年，不都是在turn turn turn吗?
(From http://web.wenxuecity.com/BBSView.php?SubID=mysj&MsgID=12091)
Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is a Season)
The Byrds
To everything - turn, turn, turn
There is a season - turn, turn, turn
And a time to every purpose under heaven
对于任何事物(-转变，转变，转变)
都有对应的季节(-转变，转变，转变)
天下的任何事情，都有对应的时间。
A time to be born, a time to die
A time to plant, a time to reap
A time to kill, a time to heal
A time to laugh, a time to weep
有出生时，有死亡时
有种植时，有收割时
有杀戮时，有治愈时
有欢笑时，有流泪时
To everything - turn, turn, turn
There is a season - turn, turn, turn
And a time to every purpose under heaven
对于任何事物(-转变，转变，转变)
都有对应的季节(-转变，转变，转变)
天下的任何事情，都有对应的时间。
A time to build up, a time to break down
A time to dance, a time to mourn
A time to cast away stones
A time to gather stones together
有建立时，有摧毁时
有跳舞时，有忧伤时
有抛弃石头时
有收聚石头时
To everything - turn, turn, turn
There is a season - turn, turn, turn
And a time to every purpose under heaven
对于任何事物(-转变，转变，转变)
都有对应的季节(-转变，转变，转变)
天下的任何事情，都有对应的时间。
A time of love, a time of hate
A time of war, a time of peace
A time you may embrace
A time to refrain from embracing
有热爱时，有痛恨时
有战争时，有和平时
有可能拥抱时
有避免拥抱时
To everything - turn, turn, turn
There is a season - turn, turn, turn
And a time to every purpose under heaven
对于任何事物(-转变，转变，转变)
都有对应的季节(-转变，转变，转变)
天下的任何事情，都有对应的时间。
A time to gain, a time to lose
A time to rend, a time to sew
A time for love, a time for hate
A time for peace, I swear it's not too late!
有收获时，有损失时
有撕碎时，有缝合时
有热爱时，有痛恨时
有和平时，我敢说不会太迟了。
The Byrds乐队的一首经典之作，曾经作为插曲出现在电影《阿甘正传》当中，歌名Turn! Turn! Turn!（To Everything There Is A Season）。To everything there is a season是宾，而turn turn turn是主，正如"诸行无常"中，"无常"为主一般。这首歌，说的也正是"诸行无常"的道理，非常切合电影的主题，无论是阿甘的一生，还是大背景的美国的那几十年，不都是在turn turn turn吗?
(From http://web.wenxuecity.com/BBSView.php?SubID=mysj&MsgID=12091)
Giant magnetoresistance wins Nobel prize for physicists
(From http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/News/2007/October/09100703.asp)
The 2007 Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to Frenchman Albert Fert and German Peter Grünberg, for their discovery of giant magnetoresistance (GMR). The effect makes it possible to read densely-packed data storage devices, paving the way for today's tiny, high-capacity computer hard drives.
In 1988, Grünberg and Fert independently announced that thin multilayers of iron and chromium showed a huge change in electrical resistance when placed in magnetic fields. As both researchers quickly realised, the surprising effect meant that small magnetic changes in the materials greatly affected electron flow. The tool was perfect for reading data from hard disks, where information stored magnetically has to be converted to electric current. Grünberg quickly patented the discovery, and by 1997 the first read-out head based on GMR was launched by IBM.
'It's probably the most rapidly-developed scientific discovery ever, in terms of technology - within 5 or 6 years of the initial discovery, researchers were looking at commercial production,' Mark Blamire, who works on magnetic devices at the University of Cambridge, UK, told Chemistry World.
Hard drive
The hard drive: less than a decade from pure science to global impact
© Nobel Foundation
In Fert and Grünberg's original systems, a layer of non-magnetic chromium was sandwiched by layers of ferromagnetic iron. If the atomic spins in successive iron layers were oriented in the same direction, making the overall magnetisation of both layers parallel, electrons could also align their spins and pass through the material with little resistance.
But electrical resistance shot up when the second iron layer had its magnetisation aligned antiparallel to the first. That's because the electrons which had oriented their spins with one set of iron atoms were then scattered on encountering the next layer. Fert's team used a series of iron layers with alternating magnetisation, which strengthened the effect on electron flow.
This phenomenon - which Fert called giant magnetoresistance - provided a way to detect the magnetic field alignment of tiny segments of a magnetic disk, used to store bits of computer data. The giant magnetoresistive material in a read 'head', hovering over the spinning hard disk, has its magnetisation changed by the bits of data flying beneath it. This in turn alters the flow of electrical current through the read head, creating a relatively strong signal from a tiny magnetic field - and using smaller magnetic domains allows much denser data storage.
Chemical origins
In GMR's wake has come a more sensitive effect called tunnelling magnetoresistance (TMR), where an insulating material acts as the sandwich, which electrons can move through by quantum tunnelling. GMR also paved the way for a new field of electronics called spintronics, where an electron's spin - manipulated with magnetic fields - is used as the basic component of binary data.
Fert and Grünberg's success rested on chemical techniques that allowed them to make thin layers of different materials. 'The discovery depended on the ability to grow and deposit metallic films at nanometre length scales with high precision,' said Blamire. In the laboratory, the scientists built up the layers by depositing atoms from low-pressure gases of iron and chromium; but the technology really took off commercially when IBM's Stuart Parkin achieved the same effect with industrial-scale sputtering techniques.
'It serves as a timely reminder that important fundamental breakthroughs in physics can have long-lasting significance and that the results of research being undertaken now, in a wide range of areas, will no doubt be primary drivers in how we live and work in another thirty years' time,' said Peter Main, director of education and science at the Institute of Physics.
Monday, October 8, 2007
2007 Nobel Prize In Physiology or Medicine
Excerpts: citation for 2007 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine (From http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5jpfSf4Cx9_Up-zIolY5rS2Ox1UXw)
11 hours ago
Excerpts from the citation awarding the 2007 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine to U.S. citizens Mario Capecchi and Oliver Smithies and Briton Sir Martin Evans for groundbreaking discoveries that led to a technology known as gene targeting in mice.
The process has helped scientists develop models on mice of the human disorders heart disease, diabetes and cancer.
Gene targeting is often used to inactivate single genes. Such gene "knockout" experiments have elucidated the roles of numerous genes in embryonic development, adult physiology, aging and disease. To date, more than 10,000 mouse genes (approximately half of the genes in the mammalian genome) have been knocked out. Ongoing international efforts will make "knockout mice" for all genes available within the near future.
With gene targeting it is now possible to produce almost any type of DNA modification in the mouse genome, allowing scientists to establish the roles of individual genes in health and disease. Gene targeting has already produced more than 500 different mouse models of human disorders, including cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases, diabetes and cancer.
Gene targeting has helped us understand the roles of many hundreds of genes in mammalian fetal development. Capecchi's research has uncovered the roles of genes involved in mammalian organ development and in the establishment of the body plan. His work has shed light on the causes of several human inborn malformations.
Evans applied gene targeting to develop mouse models for human diseases. He developed several models for the inherited human disease cystic fibrosis and has used these models to study disease mechanisms and to test the effects of gene therapy.
Smithies also used gene targeting to develop mouse models for inherited diseases such as cystic fibrosis and the blood disease thalassemia. He has also developed numerous mouse models for common human diseases such as hypertension and atherosclerosis.
11 hours ago
Excerpts from the citation awarding the 2007 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine to U.S. citizens Mario Capecchi and Oliver Smithies and Briton Sir Martin Evans for groundbreaking discoveries that led to a technology known as gene targeting in mice.
The process has helped scientists develop models on mice of the human disorders heart disease, diabetes and cancer.
Gene targeting is often used to inactivate single genes. Such gene "knockout" experiments have elucidated the roles of numerous genes in embryonic development, adult physiology, aging and disease. To date, more than 10,000 mouse genes (approximately half of the genes in the mammalian genome) have been knocked out. Ongoing international efforts will make "knockout mice" for all genes available within the near future.
With gene targeting it is now possible to produce almost any type of DNA modification in the mouse genome, allowing scientists to establish the roles of individual genes in health and disease. Gene targeting has already produced more than 500 different mouse models of human disorders, including cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases, diabetes and cancer.
Gene targeting has helped us understand the roles of many hundreds of genes in mammalian fetal development. Capecchi's research has uncovered the roles of genes involved in mammalian organ development and in the establishment of the body plan. His work has shed light on the causes of several human inborn malformations.
Evans applied gene targeting to develop mouse models for human diseases. He developed several models for the inherited human disease cystic fibrosis and has used these models to study disease mechanisms and to test the effects of gene therapy.
Smithies also used gene targeting to develop mouse models for inherited diseases such as cystic fibrosis and the blood disease thalassemia. He has also developed numerous mouse models for common human diseases such as hypertension and atherosclerosis.
What is the Nobel Prize
Nobel Prize
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Nobel Prize
Original design of Nobel Prize medal. ®© The Nobel Foundation.
Awarded for Outstanding contributions in physics, chemistry, literature, peace, and physiology or medicine, and economics
Presented by Swedish Academy
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
Karolinska Institutet
Norwegian Nobel Committee
Country Flag of Sweden Sweden
First awarded 1901
Official website
The Nobel Prizes (Swedish: Nobelpriserna), as designated in Alfred Nobel's will in 1895, are awarded for physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature, and peace. A prize in economics in memory of Nobel was instituted by Sweden's central bank in 1968. The first five prizes were first awarded in 1901, while the first prize in economics was awarded in 1969. All six prizes are widely regarded as the supreme commendations in their subject areas. With the exception of the peace prize, which is handed out in Oslo, Norway, they are all handed out in Stockholm at an annual ceremony on December 10, the anniversary of Nobel's death.
The process of selecting Nobel Laureates is made in a screening process: for the Memorial Prize in Economics, a committee comprising six members; for the Prize in Literature, a committee of five; for the other four Nobel Prizes, a committee comprising five members respectively. In its first stage, several thousand people are asked to nominate candidates. These names are scrutinized and discussed by experts in their specific disciplines until only the winners remain. This slow and thorough process, insisted upon by Alfred Nobel, is arguably what gives the prize its importance. Despite this, there have been questionable awards and questionable omissions over the prize's century-long history.
Contents
[hide]
* 1 Award ceremonies
* 2 Alfred Nobel's will
* 3 Nomination and selection
o 3.1 Recognition time lag
* 4 Controversies and criticisms
o 4.1 Overlooked achievements
o 4.2 Mathematics prize
* 5 Uniquely distinguished laureates
* 6 See also
* 7 Notes
* 8 External links
[edit] Award ceremonies
The committees and institutions serving as selection boards for the Prizes typically announce the names of the laureates in October. The Prizes are then awarded at formal ceremonies held annually on December 10, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel's death. The Nobel Banquet is the banquet that is held every year in Stockholm City Hall in connection with the Nobel Prize.
The Peace Prize ceremony has been held at the Norwegian Nobel Institute (1905-1946); the Aula of the University of Oslo (1947-1990); and most recently at the Oslo City Hall. As of 2005, the other Prize ceremonies have been held at the Stockholm Concert Hall.
Each award can be given to a maximum of three recipients per year. Each consists of a gold medal; a diploma; the extension of Swedish citizenship; and a cash grant. The grant is currently approximately 10 million SEK, slightly more than €1 million (US$1.4 million). The original purpose of the grant was to fund laureates' further work, although nowadays many are retired at the time of award.
If there are two winners in a particular category, the award grant is divided equally amongst 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 not uncommon for recipients to donate prize money to benefit scientific, cultural or humanitarian causes.
Since 1902, the King of Sweden has, with the exception of the Peace Prize, presented all the prizes in Stockholm. At first King Oscar II did not approve of awarding grand prizes to foreigners, but is said to have changed his mind once his attention had been drawn to the publicity value of the prizes for Sweden.
Until the Norwegian Nobel Committee was established in 1904, the President of Norwegian Parliament made the formal presentation of the Nobel Peace Prize. The Committee's five members are entrusted with researching and adjudicating the Prize as well as awarding it. Although appointed by the Norwegian Parliament (Stortinget), they are independent and answer to no legislative authority. Members of the Norwegian government are not permitted to sit on the Committee.
[edit] Alfred Nobel's will
Alfred Nobel.
Alfred Nobel.
The five initial Prizes were instituted by the final will of Alfred Nobel, a Swedish chemist and industrialist, who was the inventor of the high explosive dynamite. Though Nobel wrote several wills during his lifetime, the last was written a little over a year before he died, and signed at the Swedish-Norwegian Club in Paris on November 27, 1895. Nobel's work had directly involved the creation of explosives, and he became increasingly uneasy with the military use of his inventions. It is said that this was motivated in part by his reading of a premature obituary of himself, published in error by a French newspaper on the occasion of the death of Nobel's brother Ludvig, and which condemned Nobel as a "merchant of death."[1] Nobel bequeathed 94% of his total assets, 31 million Swedish Kroner, for the establishment of five prizes.
"The whole of my remaining realizable estate shall be dealt with in the following way:
The capital shall be invested by my executors in safe securities and 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 of an idealistic tendency; and one part to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity among 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 physiological or medical works by the Caroline 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 whatever shall be given to the nationality of the candidates, so that the most worthy shall receive the prize, whether he be Scandinavian or not."
– Alfred Nobel[2]
Although Nobel's will established the prizes, his plan was incomplete and, due to various other hurdles, it took five years before the Nobel Foundation could be established and the first prizes awarded on December 10, 1901.[3]
[edit] Nomination and selection
Compared with some other prizes, the Prize nomination and selection process is long and rigorous. This is a key reason why the Prizes have grown in importance over the years to become the most important prizes in their field.[4]
Forms, which amount to a personal and exclusive invitation, are sent to about three thousand selected individuals to invite them to submit nominations. For the peace prize, inquiries are sent to such people as governments of states, members of international courts, professors and rectors at university level, former Peace Prize laureates, current or former members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, among others. The Norwegian Nobel Committee then bases its assessment on nominations sent in before 3rd of February.[5] The submission deadline for nominations for Physics, Chemistry, Medicine, Literature and Economics is January 31.[6] Self-nominations and nominations of deceased people are disqualified.
The names of the nominees are never publicly announced, and neither are they told that they have been considered for the Prize. Nomination records are sealed for fifty years. In practice some nominees do become known. It is also common for publicists to make such a claim, founded or not.
After the deadline has passed, the nominations are screened by committee, and a list is produced of approximately two hundred preliminary candidates. This list is forwarded to selected experts in the relevant field. They remove all but approximately fifteen names. The committee submits a report with recommendations to the appropriate institution. The Assembly for the Medicine Prize, for example, has fifty members. The institution members then select prize winners by vote.
The selection process varies slightly between the different disciplines. The Literature Prize is rarely awarded to more than one person per year, whereas other Prizes now often involve collaborators of two or three.
While posthumous nominations are not permitted, awards can occur if the individual died in the months between the nomination and the decision of the prize committee. The scenario has occurred twice: The 1931 Literature Prize of Erik Axel Karlfeldt, and the 1961 Peace Prize to UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld. As of 1974, laureates must be alive at the time of the October announcement. There has been one laureate—William Vickrey (1996, Economics)—who died after the prize was announced but before it could be presented.
[edit] Recognition time lag
The interval between the accomplishment of the achievement being recognized and the awarding of the Nobel Prize for it varies from discipline to discipline. Prizes in Literature are typically awarded to recognize a cumulative lifetime body of work rather than a single achievement. In this case the notion of "lag" does not directly apply. Prizes in Peace, on the other hand, are often awarded within a few years of the events they recognize. For instance, Kofi Annan was awarded the 2001 Peace Prize just four years after becoming the Secretary-General of the UN.
Awards in the scientific disciplines of physics and chemistry require that the significance of achievements being recognized is "tested by time." In practice it means that the lag between the discovery and the award is typically on the order of 20 years and can be much longer. For example, 1/2 of the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar for his work on stellar structure and evolution that was done during the 1930s. As a downside of this approach, not all scientists live long enough for their work to be recognized. Some important scientific discoveries are never considered for a Prize, as all the discoverers are dead by the time their impact is seen.
[edit] Controversies and criticisms
Main article: Nobel Prize controversies
Since the first Nobel Prize was awarded in 1901, the proceedings, nominations, awardees and exclusions have generated criticism and engendered much controversy.
[edit] Overlooked achievements
Mahatma Gandhi was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize five times between 1937 and 1948 but never won it. Research indicates that it was likely the Authority would have given him the Prize in 1948, the year in which he was assassinated. The committee apparently considered a posthumous award but ultimately decided against it, instead choosing not to award the Nobel Peace Prize for that year.[7]
The strict rules against a Prize being awarded to more than three people at once is also a cause for controversy. Where a prize is awarded to recognise an achievement by a team of more than three collaborators, inevitably one or more will miss out. For example, in 2002, a Prize was awarded to Koichi Tanaka and John Fenn for the development of mass spectrometry in protein chemistry, an award that failed to recognise the achievements of Franz Hillenkamp and Michael Karas of the Institute for Physical and Theoretical Chemistry at the University of Frankfurt.[8]
Similarly, the prohibition of posthumous awards fails to recognise achievements by a collaborator who happens to die before the prize is awarded. Rosalind Franklin, who was key in the discovery of the structure of DNA in 1953, died of ovarian cancer in 1958, four years before Francis Crick, James D. Watson and Maurice Wilkins (one of Franklin's collaborators) were awarded the Prize for Medicine or Physiology in 1962.[9] Franklin's significant and relevant contribution was only briefly mentioned in Crick and Watson's Nobel Prize-winning paper: "We have also been stimulated by a knowledge of the general nature of the unpublished experimental results and ideas of Dr. M.H.F. Wilkins, Dr. R.E. Franklin, and co-workers..."[10]
In some cases, awards have arguably omitted similar discoveries made earlier. For example, the 2000 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for "the discovery and development of conductive organic polymers" (1977) ignored the much earlier discovery of highly-conductive charge transfer complex polymers: the 1963 series of papers by Weiss, et al. reported even higher conductivity in similarly iodine-doped oxidized polypyrrole.[11][12]
[edit] Mathematics prize
There are several possible reasons why Nobel did not create a prize for mathematics. Nobel's will speaks of prizes for those inventions or discoveries of greatest practical benefit to mankind, possibly having in mind practical rather than theoretical works. Because mathematics is not considered as practical a science as the others that are recognized, this would explain the lack of a mathematics prize.[13]
Another possible reason is that there was already a well-known Scandinavian prize for mathematicians. The existing mathematical awards at the time were mainly due to the work of Gösta Mittag-Leffler, who founded the Acta Mathematica, a century later still one of the world's leading mathematical journals. Through his influence in Stockholm he persuaded King Oscar II to endow prize competitions and honor distinguished mathematicians all over Europe, including Hermite, Bertrand, Weierstrass, and Poincaré.
Myth has it that Nobel refused to endow a mathematics prize as his wife or his mistress had an affair with the mathematician Mittag-Leffler. However, this story is not supported by any historical evidence: Alfred Nobel never married.[14]
However, some mathematicians have won the Nobel Prize in other fields: Bertrand Russell for literature (1950), Max Born and Walther Bothe for physics (1954). Still others have won the related Nobel Memorial prize in Economics: Kenneth Arrow (1972), Leonid Kantorovich (1975), John Forbes Nash (1994), Clive W. J. Granger (2003), Robert J. Aumann and Thomas C. Schelling (2005)[15].
Several prizes in Mathematics have similarities to the Nobel Prize. The Fields Medal is often described as the Nobel Prize of mathematics, but it differs in being awarded only once every four years to people under forty years old. A comparison may be made with the Crafoord Prize, awarded by the Swedish Royal Academy since 1982. Other comparable prizes are the Abel Prize, awarded by the Norwegian government as of 2001; the Shaw Prize in mathematical sciences given since 2004; and the Gauss Prize, first introduced by the International Mathematical Union and the Deutsche Mathematiker-Vereinigung at the 2006 International Congress of Mathematicians for practical and applied mathematics research.
[edit] Uniquely distinguished laureates
Since the establishment of the Nobel Prize, four people have received two Nobel Prizes:
* Maria Skłodowska-Curie: in Physics 1903, for the discovery of radioactivity; and in Chemistry 1911, for the isolation of pure radium
* Linus Pauling: in Chemistry 1954, for the hybridized orbital theory; and Peace 1962, for nuclear test-ban treaty activism
* John Bardeen: in Physics 1956, for the invention of the transistor; and Physics 1972, for the theory of superconductivity
* Frederick Sanger: in Chemistry 1958, for structure of the insulin molecule; and in Chemistry 1980, for virus nucleotide sequencing
Otto Heinrich Warburg could have been among them, but he was prevented by the Nazi government from accepting his second Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1944.[16]
As a group, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has received the Nobel Peace Prize three times: in 1917, 1944, and 1963. The first two prizes were specifically in recognition of the group's work during the world wars. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has won the Peace Prize twice: in 1954 and 1981.
The Curie family claim the most Nobel Prizes, with five:
* Maria Skłodowska-Curie, Physics 1903 and Chemistry 1911
* Her husband Pierre Curie, Physics 1903
* Their daughter Irène Joliot-Curie, Chemistry 1935
* Their son in law Frederic Joliot-Curie, Chemistry 1935
Furthermore, Henry Labouisse, the husband of the Curies' second daughter Ève, was the director of UNICEF when it won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1965.
William Lawrence Bragg, who was only 25 when he won the 1915 Nobel Prize in Physics, is the youngest person ever to win a Nobel Prize. Raymond Davis Jr., who was 87 when he won the 2002 Physics Prize, is the oldest.
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Nobel Prize
Original design of Nobel Prize medal. ®© The Nobel Foundation.
Awarded for Outstanding contributions in physics, chemistry, literature, peace, and physiology or medicine, and economics
Presented by Swedish Academy
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
Karolinska Institutet
Norwegian Nobel Committee
Country Flag of Sweden Sweden
First awarded 1901
Official website
The Nobel Prizes (Swedish: Nobelpriserna), as designated in Alfred Nobel's will in 1895, are awarded for physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature, and peace. A prize in economics in memory of Nobel was instituted by Sweden's central bank in 1968. The first five prizes were first awarded in 1901, while the first prize in economics was awarded in 1969. All six prizes are widely regarded as the supreme commendations in their subject areas. With the exception of the peace prize, which is handed out in Oslo, Norway, they are all handed out in Stockholm at an annual ceremony on December 10, the anniversary of Nobel's death.
The process of selecting Nobel Laureates is made in a screening process: for the Memorial Prize in Economics, a committee comprising six members; for the Prize in Literature, a committee of five; for the other four Nobel Prizes, a committee comprising five members respectively. In its first stage, several thousand people are asked to nominate candidates. These names are scrutinized and discussed by experts in their specific disciplines until only the winners remain. This slow and thorough process, insisted upon by Alfred Nobel, is arguably what gives the prize its importance. Despite this, there have been questionable awards and questionable omissions over the prize's century-long history.
Contents
[hide]
* 1 Award ceremonies
* 2 Alfred Nobel's will
* 3 Nomination and selection
o 3.1 Recognition time lag
* 4 Controversies and criticisms
o 4.1 Overlooked achievements
o 4.2 Mathematics prize
* 5 Uniquely distinguished laureates
* 6 See also
* 7 Notes
* 8 External links
[edit] Award ceremonies
The committees and institutions serving as selection boards for the Prizes typically announce the names of the laureates in October. The Prizes are then awarded at formal ceremonies held annually on December 10, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel's death. The Nobel Banquet is the banquet that is held every year in Stockholm City Hall in connection with the Nobel Prize.
The Peace Prize ceremony has been held at the Norwegian Nobel Institute (1905-1946); the Aula of the University of Oslo (1947-1990); and most recently at the Oslo City Hall. As of 2005, the other Prize ceremonies have been held at the Stockholm Concert Hall.
Each award can be given to a maximum of three recipients per year. Each consists of a gold medal; a diploma; the extension of Swedish citizenship; and a cash grant. The grant is currently approximately 10 million SEK, slightly more than €1 million (US$1.4 million). The original purpose of the grant was to fund laureates' further work, although nowadays many are retired at the time of award.
If there are two winners in a particular category, the award grant is divided equally amongst 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 not uncommon for recipients to donate prize money to benefit scientific, cultural or humanitarian causes.
Since 1902, the King of Sweden has, with the exception of the Peace Prize, presented all the prizes in Stockholm. At first King Oscar II did not approve of awarding grand prizes to foreigners, but is said to have changed his mind once his attention had been drawn to the publicity value of the prizes for Sweden.
Until the Norwegian Nobel Committee was established in 1904, the President of Norwegian Parliament made the formal presentation of the Nobel Peace Prize. The Committee's five members are entrusted with researching and adjudicating the Prize as well as awarding it. Although appointed by the Norwegian Parliament (Stortinget), they are independent and answer to no legislative authority. Members of the Norwegian government are not permitted to sit on the Committee.
[edit] Alfred Nobel's will
Alfred Nobel.
Alfred Nobel.
The five initial Prizes were instituted by the final will of Alfred Nobel, a Swedish chemist and industrialist, who was the inventor of the high explosive dynamite. Though Nobel wrote several wills during his lifetime, the last was written a little over a year before he died, and signed at the Swedish-Norwegian Club in Paris on November 27, 1895. Nobel's work had directly involved the creation of explosives, and he became increasingly uneasy with the military use of his inventions. It is said that this was motivated in part by his reading of a premature obituary of himself, published in error by a French newspaper on the occasion of the death of Nobel's brother Ludvig, and which condemned Nobel as a "merchant of death."[1] Nobel bequeathed 94% of his total assets, 31 million Swedish Kroner, for the establishment of five prizes.
"The whole of my remaining realizable estate shall be dealt with in the following way:
The capital shall be invested by my executors in safe securities and 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 of an idealistic tendency; and one part to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity among 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 physiological or medical works by the Caroline 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 whatever shall be given to the nationality of the candidates, so that the most worthy shall receive the prize, whether he be Scandinavian or not."
– Alfred Nobel[2]
Although Nobel's will established the prizes, his plan was incomplete and, due to various other hurdles, it took five years before the Nobel Foundation could be established and the first prizes awarded on December 10, 1901.[3]
[edit] Nomination and selection
Compared with some other prizes, the Prize nomination and selection process is long and rigorous. This is a key reason why the Prizes have grown in importance over the years to become the most important prizes in their field.[4]
Forms, which amount to a personal and exclusive invitation, are sent to about three thousand selected individuals to invite them to submit nominations. For the peace prize, inquiries are sent to such people as governments of states, members of international courts, professors and rectors at university level, former Peace Prize laureates, current or former members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, among others. The Norwegian Nobel Committee then bases its assessment on nominations sent in before 3rd of February.[5] The submission deadline for nominations for Physics, Chemistry, Medicine, Literature and Economics is January 31.[6] Self-nominations and nominations of deceased people are disqualified.
The names of the nominees are never publicly announced, and neither are they told that they have been considered for the Prize. Nomination records are sealed for fifty years. In practice some nominees do become known. It is also common for publicists to make such a claim, founded or not.
After the deadline has passed, the nominations are screened by committee, and a list is produced of approximately two hundred preliminary candidates. This list is forwarded to selected experts in the relevant field. They remove all but approximately fifteen names. The committee submits a report with recommendations to the appropriate institution. The Assembly for the Medicine Prize, for example, has fifty members. The institution members then select prize winners by vote.
The selection process varies slightly between the different disciplines. The Literature Prize is rarely awarded to more than one person per year, whereas other Prizes now often involve collaborators of two or three.
While posthumous nominations are not permitted, awards can occur if the individual died in the months between the nomination and the decision of the prize committee. The scenario has occurred twice: The 1931 Literature Prize of Erik Axel Karlfeldt, and the 1961 Peace Prize to UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld. As of 1974, laureates must be alive at the time of the October announcement. There has been one laureate—William Vickrey (1996, Economics)—who died after the prize was announced but before it could be presented.
[edit] Recognition time lag
The interval between the accomplishment of the achievement being recognized and the awarding of the Nobel Prize for it varies from discipline to discipline. Prizes in Literature are typically awarded to recognize a cumulative lifetime body of work rather than a single achievement. In this case the notion of "lag" does not directly apply. Prizes in Peace, on the other hand, are often awarded within a few years of the events they recognize. For instance, Kofi Annan was awarded the 2001 Peace Prize just four years after becoming the Secretary-General of the UN.
Awards in the scientific disciplines of physics and chemistry require that the significance of achievements being recognized is "tested by time." In practice it means that the lag between the discovery and the award is typically on the order of 20 years and can be much longer. For example, 1/2 of the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar for his work on stellar structure and evolution that was done during the 1930s. As a downside of this approach, not all scientists live long enough for their work to be recognized. Some important scientific discoveries are never considered for a Prize, as all the discoverers are dead by the time their impact is seen.
[edit] Controversies and criticisms
Main article: Nobel Prize controversies
Since the first Nobel Prize was awarded in 1901, the proceedings, nominations, awardees and exclusions have generated criticism and engendered much controversy.
[edit] Overlooked achievements
Mahatma Gandhi was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize five times between 1937 and 1948 but never won it. Research indicates that it was likely the Authority would have given him the Prize in 1948, the year in which he was assassinated. The committee apparently considered a posthumous award but ultimately decided against it, instead choosing not to award the Nobel Peace Prize for that year.[7]
The strict rules against a Prize being awarded to more than three people at once is also a cause for controversy. Where a prize is awarded to recognise an achievement by a team of more than three collaborators, inevitably one or more will miss out. For example, in 2002, a Prize was awarded to Koichi Tanaka and John Fenn for the development of mass spectrometry in protein chemistry, an award that failed to recognise the achievements of Franz Hillenkamp and Michael Karas of the Institute for Physical and Theoretical Chemistry at the University of Frankfurt.[8]
Similarly, the prohibition of posthumous awards fails to recognise achievements by a collaborator who happens to die before the prize is awarded. Rosalind Franklin, who was key in the discovery of the structure of DNA in 1953, died of ovarian cancer in 1958, four years before Francis Crick, James D. Watson and Maurice Wilkins (one of Franklin's collaborators) were awarded the Prize for Medicine or Physiology in 1962.[9] Franklin's significant and relevant contribution was only briefly mentioned in Crick and Watson's Nobel Prize-winning paper: "We have also been stimulated by a knowledge of the general nature of the unpublished experimental results and ideas of Dr. M.H.F. Wilkins, Dr. R.E. Franklin, and co-workers..."[10]
In some cases, awards have arguably omitted similar discoveries made earlier. For example, the 2000 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for "the discovery and development of conductive organic polymers" (1977) ignored the much earlier discovery of highly-conductive charge transfer complex polymers: the 1963 series of papers by Weiss, et al. reported even higher conductivity in similarly iodine-doped oxidized polypyrrole.[11][12]
[edit] Mathematics prize
There are several possible reasons why Nobel did not create a prize for mathematics. Nobel's will speaks of prizes for those inventions or discoveries of greatest practical benefit to mankind, possibly having in mind practical rather than theoretical works. Because mathematics is not considered as practical a science as the others that are recognized, this would explain the lack of a mathematics prize.[13]
Another possible reason is that there was already a well-known Scandinavian prize for mathematicians. The existing mathematical awards at the time were mainly due to the work of Gösta Mittag-Leffler, who founded the Acta Mathematica, a century later still one of the world's leading mathematical journals. Through his influence in Stockholm he persuaded King Oscar II to endow prize competitions and honor distinguished mathematicians all over Europe, including Hermite, Bertrand, Weierstrass, and Poincaré.
Myth has it that Nobel refused to endow a mathematics prize as his wife or his mistress had an affair with the mathematician Mittag-Leffler. However, this story is not supported by any historical evidence: Alfred Nobel never married.[14]
However, some mathematicians have won the Nobel Prize in other fields: Bertrand Russell for literature (1950), Max Born and Walther Bothe for physics (1954). Still others have won the related Nobel Memorial prize in Economics: Kenneth Arrow (1972), Leonid Kantorovich (1975), John Forbes Nash (1994), Clive W. J. Granger (2003), Robert J. Aumann and Thomas C. Schelling (2005)[15].
Several prizes in Mathematics have similarities to the Nobel Prize. The Fields Medal is often described as the Nobel Prize of mathematics, but it differs in being awarded only once every four years to people under forty years old. A comparison may be made with the Crafoord Prize, awarded by the Swedish Royal Academy since 1982. Other comparable prizes are the Abel Prize, awarded by the Norwegian government as of 2001; the Shaw Prize in mathematical sciences given since 2004; and the Gauss Prize, first introduced by the International Mathematical Union and the Deutsche Mathematiker-Vereinigung at the 2006 International Congress of Mathematicians for practical and applied mathematics research.
[edit] Uniquely distinguished laureates
Since the establishment of the Nobel Prize, four people have received two Nobel Prizes:
* Maria Skłodowska-Curie: in Physics 1903, for the discovery of radioactivity; and in Chemistry 1911, for the isolation of pure radium
* Linus Pauling: in Chemistry 1954, for the hybridized orbital theory; and Peace 1962, for nuclear test-ban treaty activism
* John Bardeen: in Physics 1956, for the invention of the transistor; and Physics 1972, for the theory of superconductivity
* Frederick Sanger: in Chemistry 1958, for structure of the insulin molecule; and in Chemistry 1980, for virus nucleotide sequencing
Otto Heinrich Warburg could have been among them, but he was prevented by the Nazi government from accepting his second Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1944.[16]
As a group, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has received the Nobel Peace Prize three times: in 1917, 1944, and 1963. The first two prizes were specifically in recognition of the group's work during the world wars. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has won the Peace Prize twice: in 1954 and 1981.
The Curie family claim the most Nobel Prizes, with five:
* Maria Skłodowska-Curie, Physics 1903 and Chemistry 1911
* Her husband Pierre Curie, Physics 1903
* Their daughter Irène Joliot-Curie, Chemistry 1935
* Their son in law Frederic Joliot-Curie, Chemistry 1935
Furthermore, Henry Labouisse, the husband of the Curies' second daughter Ève, was the director of UNICEF when it won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1965.
William Lawrence Bragg, who was only 25 when he won the 1915 Nobel Prize in Physics, is the youngest person ever to win a Nobel Prize. Raymond Davis Jr., who was 87 when he won the 2002 Physics Prize, is the oldest.
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