History of Nobel
Alfred Bernhard Nobel
December 10, 1901 - the first Nobel Prizes are awarded in physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, and peace.
This was exactly five years after Nobel's death. His estate went to the creation of these prizes - he had misgivings about the use of his own inventions and so he wanted to focus on those "who have conferred the greatest benefit of mankind."
Nobel experimented with explosives. He invented a way to control detonation of nitroglycerin, and then a blasting cap. After his nitroglycerin factory exploded, he focused on combining nitroglycerin with kieselguhr, which was the development of dynamite. He later introduced ballistite, a smokeless nitroglycerin powder, with nitrocellulose and nitroglycerin.
1901 Winners:
Physics - Wilhelm Röntgen, for detecting x-rays.
Chemistry - Jacobus Henricus van't Hoff, for his role as a theoretical chemist. He is considered a founder of physical chemistry as it is known today.
Medicine - Emil von Behring, for his discovery of the diphtheria antitoxin.
Literature - Sully Prudhomme, for his poetic composition
Peace - Frédéric Passy, for founding several peace societies, including the Inter-Parliamentary Union.
In 1917, the Red Cross received the Nobel Peace Prize, for the establishment of the International Prisoner-of-War Agency and for transporting injured soldiers to neutral zones. They helped send more than 800,000 communications to soldier's families.
Winners from 2019 can be found here:
Comments
Post a Comment