World Great Nobel Laureates

About the Nobel Prize

The Nobel Prize is an annual international award. It is bestowed in a number of categories by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895. The prizes in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and Peace were first awarded in 1901. The Peace Prize is awarded in Oslo, Norway, while the other prizes are awarded in Stockholm, Sweden. Baruch Aba Shalev, author of a book on the Nobel Prize, has said “the Nobel Prize has come to be regarded as the best-known and most prestigious award available in the fields of literature, medicine, physics, chemistry, peace and economics.”

In 1968, Sveriges Riksbank instituted an award that is often associated with the Nobel prizes, the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. The first such prize was awarded in 1969. Although it is not an official Nobel Prize, its announcements and presentations are made along with the other prizes.