Since 1901, the Nobel Prize has been awarded for outstanding achievements in Physics, Chemistry, Medicine or Physiology, Literature and Peace. In 1968, the Sveriges Riksbank prize in Economic Science was established by Sveriges Riksbank in memory of Alfred Nobel.
The Nobel Prize is an international award which is administered by the Nobel Foundation in Stockholm. The foundations of the prize were laid in 1895.
In this year, Alfred Nobel, who invented dynamite, wrote his last will in which he left most of his wealth to establish the Nobel Prize. Nobel was not just an inventor. He was also a scientist, author, entrepreneur and pacifist who spoke against war. The Nobel Foundation was established in 1900.
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It manages the assets provided by Nobel for awarding the prizes. Each prize includes a medal, a cash award and a personal diploma. The Nobel Laureates also present their Nobel lectures before a huge audience in the days preceding the award ceremony.
The Nobel prizes embody a lot of prestige. In fact they are the most prestigious awards in the designated fields. Except for the Nobel Peace Prize, all the prizes are presented in Stockholm, Sweden, at the annual Award ceremony on December 10. This day is also the anniversary of Nobel’s death.
The Nobel Peace Prize and its recipients’ lectures are presented in Oslo on the same day. The reason why the awards are presented in Sweden and Norway is because both countries were joined together in a personal union called the Swedish – Norwegian union when Alfred Nobel died.
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Mahatma Gandhi was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize five times between 1937 and 1948. He never received it however, and fell to an assassin’s bullets on 30 January 1948, 2 days before the closing date for the 1948 Peace prize nominations.
That year the Peace prize was not awarded as perhaps he had been the likely choice. There is no Nobel Prize for Mathematics. The Nobel Prize has been awarded to families too with the Curie family getting the most (five).