CD-B DIRECTORY

     COSMIC DATA-BANK

        PROJECT 5:    THE NOBEL LAUREATES

A Nobel Prize is an internationally recognized award for outstanding achievement in a select group of disciplines, a legacy of Alfred Nobel of Sweden. To say he was a very talented man would be an understatement of the first order. This acclaimed poet and writer was also the man who invented dynamite, and with a keen sense of business soon amassed a huge fortune. Alfred Nobel was inspired to award extraordinary excellence in a number of professional fields and so in his final Will, signed in 1895, he set the groundwork for the Nobel Foundation. Part of his last Will is reproduced on the internet and may be found through your favorite search engine.

1901 was the first year the prizes were distributed to worthy recipients and the following men were chosen to receive those honors:

• Chemistry - Jacobus H. Van 't Hoff, for the discovery of the laws of chemical dynamics.
• Literature - Sully Prudhomme, (pseudonym for Rene Francois Arnand), poet.
• Medicine & Physiology - Emil A. von Behring, for his breakthrough work in serum therapy.
• Peace - Jean Henry Dunant, founder of the Red Cross, and Frederic Passy, founder and president of the first French peace society.

In the original Will, a prize for Economics was not established and so the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Science in Memory of Alfred Nobel was created. It was awarded for the first time in 1969 to Ragnar Frisch and Jan Tinbergen for their "dynamic models for the analysis of economic processes".

The first woman to receive the Nobel Prize was Marie Sklodowska Curie who was co-recipient with her husband for the Prize in Physics in 1903. She received a second Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1911. Unfortunately, her breakthrough work in the field of radiation was directly responsible for her untimely death.

Reading through the lists of winners in all categories is a fascinating introduction to the dedicated women and men who through their perseverance and creativity have added to the excellence of the world for the benefit all humanity.

DATA COLLECTION

This project includes all but two of the Nobel Laureates up to and including the winners in 2008. The birth information for the missing two is not known. One of them is not even sure what year he was born. The Nobel website was the source of all the birth data.

For a look at the information proceed to The Nobel Data