Category Famous Nobel Laureates

Nobel Prize: Some interesting facts

Since 1901, the Nobel prizes have been awarded to men, women and organisations for work that has led to great advances for mankind, in line with the wishes of inventor Alfred The winners of this years prizes are being announced daily from October 3 to October 10. Here are some interesting facts about the prizes and their creator

A misunderstanding?

On April 12, 1888, Alfred Nobel’s elder brother Ludvig died in Cannes, France. But newspaper Le Figaro mixed up the brothers and announced Alfred’s death on its front page under a rather inflammatory headline: “A man who can hardly be called a benefactor of humanity died yesterday in Cannes. He is Nobel, inventor of dynamite”. Many credit this slight as the inspiration for Nobel’s creation of the prizes, pointing to the wording in his will that the awards should go to those who “have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind”.

“But we can only imagine” that this is what happened because the incident is not mentioned in his correspondence, his biographer Ingrid Carlberg said. As for the visitors who came to offer their condolences at the inventor’s Parisian mansion, they were surprised to be greeted by a very much alive Alfred, as reported by Le Figaro the following day.

A fortune for a Nobel

The Nobel Prizes come with a tidy prize sum, currently set at 10 million kronor ($895,000) per discipline, along with an 18-carat gold medal.

Auction surprise

The 2021 Peace Prize laureate, Dmitry Muratov, turned his gold disc into a fortune to benefit Ukrainian children displaced by the war. In June, his 196-gram medal including 150 grams of gold-sold at auction for a whopping $103.5 million to an anonymous philanthropist. That smashed the previous record for a Nobel medal 21-fold.

Posthumous awards

Since 1974, the statutes of the Nobel Foundation stipulate that the prize may not be given posthumously. But a person may be awarded if she or he dies between the time of the announcement in October and the formal prize ceremony in December. Before the change, only two people had won a Nobel posthumously. One was Dag Hammarskjold, the Swedish secretary general of the United Nations who died in a plane crash in 1961 but was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize later the same year. And in 1931, the Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded posthumously to another Swede. Erik Axel Karlfeldt. In 2011, the medicine prize committee selected Ralph Steinman of Canada, unaware that he had passed away just three days before the prize announcement. Nevertheless, the foundation decided to give him the award.

New prizes

With 120 years under their belt and a name associated throughout the world with excellence, the Nobel prizes are considered the creme de la creme of awards. But some critics consider them to be archaic, often honouring discoveries made decades ago and not taking into account newer scientific fields. The Right Livelihood Award was therefore created in 1980 by a German-Swedish philanthropist after the Nobel Foundation refused to create two new prizes for the environment and international development. Finland created the one-million-euro Millennium Technology Prize in 2002 to recognise the role technology plays in solving global challenges, while the $1 million Kavli Prizes in Norway have since 2008 honoured discoveries in the fields of astrophysics, nanoscience and neuroscience. But the richest prize of them all is the most recent one, the Breakthrough Prize created in 2010 by a group of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs. Dubbed the “Oscars for Science, they come with a cheque for $3 million. more than three times the winnings of a Nobel Prize AFP.

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WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF TONI MORRISON’S NOBEL PRIZE SPEECH?

Toni Morrison was an acclaimed author whose literary works animated the experiences of black women wit power, humanity, humour, and poetry. Her compelling narratives and fresh vivid language transformed the world of countless readers and writers. Let’s look back at this academician’s 1993 acceptance speech for the nobel prize in literature.

In 1993, acclaimed African-American writer Toni Morrison created history by becoming the first black recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature. She dedicated her life to crafting narratives that highlighted the experiences and realities of black women in America. The visionary force and poetic inputs that embellished her landmark speech on the occasion not only paid homage to her racial and cultural identity but also presented a critique of the use and misuse of language.

Fiction: educational or merely entertaining

Morisson began her speech by declaring that fiction is more than just entertainment. She expanded on her hypothesis by claiming that the oral traditions of storytelling bear evidence of the fact that narratives have always been a principal way we “acquire, hold and digest information”. Recalling how the most memorable sentence of one’s childhood is the phrase, ‘once upon a time she narrated a fable of the black blind clairvoyant woman and the dead bird to elaborate on how all the citizens of a nation are collectively responsible for creating an equal world that does not use language to discriminate, oppress or violate the minorities.

The vitality of language

She believed that the vitality of language lies in its attempt to describe what is actual, imagined and possible in the lives of its speakers, readers and writers. Referring back to Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, she said ” language can never live up to life once and for all. Nor should it. Language can never “pin down” slavery, genocide, war. Nor should it year for the arrogance to be able to do so. Its force, its felicity is in its reach toward the ineffable… unmolested language surges toward knowledge, not its destruction…Word-work is sublime…it is generative; it makes meaning that secures our difference, our human difference – the way in which we are like no other life. We die. That may the meaning of life. But we do be language. That may be the measure of our lives.” (excerpt from the speech)

Key takeaways from the speech

1. We acquire, hold and digest information via narrative.

2. It is our responsibility to wield language to create a more equal world.

3. Language is the measure of our lives

DID YOU KNOW?

1. Toni Morisson was born Chloe Ardelia Wofford, but she changed it after she converted to catholicism.

2. Morisson was a college professor and an editor at Random House, before becoming a celebrated author.

3. Morisson was 39 years old when her debut novel The Bluest Eyes was published.

4. Morrison’s 1987 novel Beloved won a Pulitzer Prize.

5. Morrison was honoured with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012 by then-President Barack Obama.

6. The novelist’s birthday February 18 is celebrated as Toni Morrison Day in her home-state Ohio.

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What is the life story of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle?

Arthur Conan Doyle’s “Sherlock Holmes” stories are considered to be milestones in detective fiction. However, it’s not widely known that Doyle also helped investigate a real-life crime in the 20th Century and came to the rescue of a British Indian lawyer who was wrongfully convicted. In a new book, “The Mystery of the Parsee Lawyer: Arthur Conan Doyle, George Edalji and the case of the foreigner in the English village,” which released on March 10, London-based author and historian Shrabani Basu digs up details about this long forgotten case.

According to the book, George Edalji, a barrister, wrote to Doyle in 1907 asking for his help. Edalji was jailed for allegedly committing a series of mysterious crimes in Staffordshire in England. But Edalji claimed to be innocent.

Doyle, who published “A Study in Scarlet”, had become a household name in England and was often flooded with letters from fans asking him to help investigate crimes. Usually, Doyle did not take up any of these cases, but made an exception for Edalji. In a true Holmes like fashion, Doyle gathered all the clues and successfully proved that Edalji was wrongly convicted and framed on account of racism.

Rings a Bell?

Doyle was born in Edinburgh on May 22, 1859. He developed a love for storytelling from his mother Mary Doyle. Surprisingly, he chose to pursue medicine instead of arts-his family consisted of reputed artists. At med school, Doyle met his mentor, Professor Dr. Joseph Bell, whose keen powers of observation inspired him to create the famed fictional detective Sherlock Holmes.

Writing and cricket

Although a doctor by profession, Doyle’s interests lay in writing and cricket. He frequently contributed to magazines and newspapers. One day, inspiration struck and he started writing a mystery novel, which would later become “A Study in Scarlet” marking the birth of the brilliant detective Sherlock Holmes.

Cricket too played an important role in Doyle’s life. He joined a team of cricketers named Allahakbarries, which translates to Heaven Help US. The side was made up of literary luminaries such as Jerome K. Jerome, PG Wodehouse as well as the son of Alfred Lord Tennyson.

In fact Doyle named Sherlock Holmes after two county cricketers – Sherrinford and Shacklock. Sherlock’s mysterious brother, Mycroft too is named after another cricketer and so is his archenemy. Moriarty.

A remarkable legacy

Doyle passed away on July 7, 1930 at the age of 71. But his legacy is unparalled. The genre of detective fiction grew leaps and bounds because of his contribution.

WHAT’S NEW?

  • Sherlock Holmes has been adapted to the screen multiple times. But the latest eight-part series by Netflix, gives Sherlock a supernatural twist. “The Irregulars”, set to release on March 26 follows a group of teenagers who and embark on dark adventures. They are manipulated into solving crimes by a sinister Dr. Watson.
  • In October 2020, the estate of Arthur Conan Doyle filed a lawsuit against the creators of the film “Enola Holmes” for portraying Sherlock’s softer side. The estate claimed that the film about Sherlock’s sister infringed the copyright by depicting a warmer and emotional Sherlock. The lawsuit was subsequently dismissed.

OH REALLY?

  • The other side of the coin: Although Doyle gained recognition writing tales of the analytical and rational detective, he became obsessed with supernatural phenomena in the latter part of his life. This was a result of the untimely deaths of his children and brother in World War I.
  • Doyle was a first-class cricketer and is famous for taking the wicket of the legendary W.B. Grace. But did you know that Doyle even played football? He played as a goalkeeper for Portsmouth FC under the pseudonym AC Smith
  • Doyle brought back dinosaurs! His book, “The Lost World” was the inspiration behind films such as “King Kong” and “Jurassic Park.”

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