Nobel Prizes 2006

Medicine: Andrew Z. Fire and Craig C. Mello

Physics: John C. Mather and George F. Smoot

Chemistry: Roger D. Kornberg

Economics: Edmund S. Phelps

Literature: Orhan Pamuk

Peace: Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank

A Nobel family tradition

Husbands and wives
• Marie Curie and her husband Pierre: physics (1903)
• Irene Joliot-Curie (daughter of Pierre and Marie) and her husband Frederic Joliot: chemistry (1935)

Fathers-sons
• William Bragg and his son Lawrence: physics (1915)
• Niels Bohr: physics (1922)
• Aage Bohr: physics (1975)
• Hans von Euler-Chelpin: chemistry (1929)
• Ulf von Euler: medicine (1970)
• Manne Siegbahn: physics (1924)
• Kai Siegbahn: physics (1981)
• Joseph John Thomson: physics (1906)
• George Thomson: physics (1937)
• Arthur Kornberg: medicine (1959)
• Roger Kornberg: chemistry (2006)

Siblings
• Jan Tinbergen: economics (1969)
• Nikolaas Tinbergen: medicine (1973)

Mother Teresa. Yasser Arafat. Frederick Banting. Nelson Mandela. George Bernard Shaw. Marie Curie.

They've all won a Nobel Prize.

Controversial at times, the Nobel Prize, administered by the Nobel Foundation in Sweden, is one of the world's most coveted awards with its international prestige and hefty cash award.

Named after Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite, who established the prize in his will, the Nobel Prize has been awarded for achievements in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and for peace. It has been given out nearly every year since 1901, with breaks mostly during the First World War and Second World War.

In 1968, the Swedish national bank, Sveriges Riksbank, established the economics prize in memory of Alfred Nobel and first awarded it in 1969.

The selection process

When Nobel died in 1896, leaving his fortune to be used to create the Nobel prizes, his will stated he wanted to reward those "who during the preceding year shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind."

The will also named the groups that would award the prizes: the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm (medicine), the Swedish Academy of Sciences (chemistry and physics), the Swedish Academy (literature) and a committee of five people to be selected by the Norwegian parliament (peace).

Economics, which would be added as a separate prize in 1968, would be awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Science.

As outlined in the will, the prizes would be awarded without regard to nationality. Each prize consists of a medal, personal diploma and a cash award. The amount of money available for each prize varies from year to year. For 2006, the Nobel Prize amount is worth about 10 million Swedish kronor or about $1.5 million Cdn.

Arthur Kornberg, right, is seen in this Dec. 10, 1959 file photo receiving the Nobel Prize in medicine from King Gustaf VI Adolf of Sweden. Kornberg's son, Roger D. Kornberg, was awarded the 2006 Nobel Prize in chemistry, Oct. 4, 2006, for his studies of how cells take information from genes to produce proteins. (Pressens Bild/Associated Press)

There are rules for who can nominate, varying slightly depending on the award. Each year, the Nobel committees send invitations to thousands of members of academies, scientists from numerous countries, previous laureates and others, asking them to submit candidates for the Nobel Prizes in that year's competition.

Winners are announced in October, followed by the awards ceremony on Dec. 10, the anniversary of Nobel’s death. The peace prize is presented in Oslo and the others in Stockholm.

Criticism of the award

The Nobel Prize has had its controversial moments: the 1994 peace award to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat that he shared with Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin garnered widespread criticism.

The decision sparked demonstrations in Israel, and one Nobel judge resigned in protest, arguing that Arafat's violent past disqualified him.

Former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu called it "one of the low points of the Nobel Prize."

The Nobel committee's secretary, Geir Lundestad, told the Boston Globe: "The Nobel Prize isn't the granting of sainthood. There have been many winners with dark things about their past, but they have managed to raise themselves above them."

Quick facts

• In 1901, the award was worth 150,782 Swedish kronor ($22,994 Cdn). The 2006 prizes are worth 10 million kronors ($1.5 million Cdn).
• No posthumous prizes are allowed. Before 1974, someone who had been nominated but later died could get a prize. The rules were changed so a prize can only go to a deceased person who had won the prize, but died before receiving it, as in the case of William Vickrey, who won the economics prize in 1996.
• The youngest winner is Lawrence Bragg, who was 25 years old when he received the physics prize with his father in 1915.
• The oldest winner is Raymond Davis Jr., who was nearly 88 years old when he received the physics award in 2002.
• Linus Pauling is the only person to have been awarded two unshared Nobel Prizes (chemistry in 1954 and peace prize in 1962).
• George Bernard Shaw is the only person to have won both a Nobel Prize and an Oscar (Nobel for literature in 1925 and the Academy Award for best screenplay for the film adaptation of Pygmalion in 1938).

Source: The Nobel Foundation