NOBEL PRIZE -----> AN OVERVIEW
Thalabathi
This time with some informations regarding Nobel Prize.....
Here is the post.......................
The Nobel Prizes (Swedish: Nobelpriset) are awards in physics,
chemistry, literature, peace, and physiology or medicine. With the
exception of the peace prize, which is handed out in Oslo, they are
all handed out in Stockholm at an annual ceremony on December 10. The
prizes were instituted by the Swedish scientist Alfred Nobel through
his will in 1895; they were first awarded in 1901.
A sixth prize for economics, The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic
Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, was instituted by Sweden's central
bank in 1968, with the first prize in economics awarded in 1969.[1]
Although commonly referred to as such, it is not a Nobel Prize.[2]
However, all six prizes are widely regarded as the supreme
commendations in their subject areas.
The process of selecting Nobel Laureates is made in a screening
process: for the Memorial Prize in Literature, 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.[3] 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 thorough process is arguably what gives the prize its importance.
However, the slow process together with the tough requirements set up
by Alfred Nobel has also led to several questionable awards, and
questionable omissions.
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.
Alfred Nobel's will
==============
Alfred Nobel.The 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 usage
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." Nobel
bequeathed 94 percent of his total assets, 31 million SEK (€3.4
million, US$4.4 million), for the establishment of five prizes.
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Alfred Nobel's Will:
"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."
****************************************************************************************************************
Although Nobel's will established the prizes, his plan was incomplete
and, due to various other hurdles, it was five years before the Nobel
Foundation could be established and the first prizes awarded on
December 10, 1901.
Nomination and selection
===================
Compared with some other prizes, the Prize nomination and selection
process is long and rigorous. This is an important reason why the
Prizes have grown in importance and prestige over the years to become
the most important prizes in their field.
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 1st of February.[6] The submission deadline for
nominations for Physics, Chemistry, Medicine, and Literature is
January 31.[7] 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 on to selected experts
in the relevant field. They remove all but circa 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.
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 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 4 years after becoming a Secretary-
General of the UN.
Awards in the scientific disciplines 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, as
in the case of 2004 Nobel Prize in Physics, which was awarded for a
1973 discovery. As a downside of this approach, not all scientists
live long enough for their work to be recognized. Some important
scientific discoveries are not considered for a Prize as all the
discoverers are dead by the time their impact is seen.
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.[14]
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. Also, Alfred Nobel never married.[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; and the Shaw Prize in mathematical sciences
given since 2004.
Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Prize
Yours,
Thalabathi..........