Nobel Prize Ceremony Held in Sweden

From October 7 through 12, the recipients of the 2013 Nobel Prizes were announced in Stockholm, Sweden.  This year, all six Nobel Prizes will be awarded on the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death, December 10, at ceremonies in Oslo, Norway and Stockholm.

On the first day, James E. Rothman and  Randy W. Schekman of the United States and Thomas C. Südhof of Germany were announced as this year’s joint-winners of the Nobel Prize in Medicine. Their work discovered how cells transport molecules from inside the cell to outside, and vice versa, and the signals that tell a cell when and where to release these molecules.

François Englert of Belgium and Peter W. Higgs of the United Kingdom were the next recipients announced, being this year’s Nobel Laureates in Physics.  They are receiving this prize for creating the mechanism that led to the discovery of the Higgs boson at the European Organization for Nuclear Research’s (CERN) Large Hadron Collider.  This discovery helped scientists to understand the origin of mass of subatomic particles.

October 9 saw the announcement for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry going to Martin Karplus of the U.S. and Austria, Michael Levitt of the U.S., the U.K. and Israel and Arieh Warshel of the U.S. and Israel.  Their efforts in making computer models of chemicals, including how they would react, has played a vital role in the advancement of the sciences, especially medicine, over the last few decades.

On October 10, The Nobel Prize in Literature went to to Alice Munro of Canada for her work in short stories and fiction.  She will receive the awards, but due to health reasons, Munro will not be in attendance at the ceremony in Stockholm.

This year’s Nobel Peace Prize was announced on October 11, and will be awarded to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).  This is the organization responsible for the biological and chemical-weapon disarmament of Syria, thus saving thousands of lives.

The final day of award announcements stated that the 2013 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel will be awarded to Eugene F. Fama, Lars Peter Hansen and Robert J. Shiller of the U.S. for laying a foundation of understanding for predicting trends in the asset market.  This follows and predicts long-term trends in the market based on the value of assets.

Therefore, on December 10, the ceremony and banquet in Oslo will award the Nobel Peace Prize, while in Stockholm, the prizes will be awarded in medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and economic sciences.

Source: nobelprize.org