'बहादुर नेपाली'लाई अस्ट्रेलियाली पदक

ऋषि आचार्य, सिड्नी, चैत १३- हतियारधारी लुटेरा समातेर प्रहरीलाई बुझाउने एक नेपाली विद्यार्थी अस्टे्रलिया सरकारको 'बहादुरी' पदकबाट सम्मानित हुँदैछन्। काठमाडौं चाबहिलका सरोज खतिवडालाई अस्टे्रलिया सरकारले 'द अस्ट्रेलियन ब्रेभरी डेकोरेसन्स' दिने घोषणा गरेको हो। गभर्नरल जनरल (बेलायतकी महारानीका प्रतिनिधि) को कार्यालय, क्यानवेराले बहादुरी प्रदर्शन गरेबापत उक्त पदक प्रदान गर्न लागेको बेहोरासहित आफूलाई पत्र दिएको खतिवडाले नागरिकलाई बताए। 

अध्ययन सिलसिलामा अस्टे्रलिया रहेका खतिवडाले सन् २००८ मा अन्नाडाले आइजिए (अस्ट्रेलियन स्वामित्वमा सञ्चालित) नामक सुपरमार्केटमा लुटपाट गर्न खोज्ने हतियारधारी लुटेराबाट हतियार खोसेर उसलाई प्रहरीलाई बुझाइदिएका थिए।

प्रहरीले ज्यान जोखिममा राखेर सुपरमार्केटका ग्राहक तथा कर्मचारी सुरक्षा गरेको भन्दै पदकका लागि सिफारिस गरेको थियो। मुखमा स्कार्फ बाँधेको र सन ग्लास लगाएको लुटेरालाई उनले नियन्त्रणमा लिन उनले ज्यानको जोखिम मोलेका थिए। 

विदेशी नागरिकलाई पदक प्रदान गर्न सम्बन्धित देशको सरकारबाट अनुमति लिनुपर्ने प्रावधानअनुसार अस्ट्रेलिया सरकारले नेपाल सरकारबाट अनुमति लिइसकेको र गभर्नर कार्यालयले छिट्टै विशेष कार्यक्रमबीच पदक प्रदान गर्ने जानकारी गराएको खतिवडाले जनाए। 

नेपालको मन्त्रिपरिषद्ले बिहीबार उक्त पदक आफ्ना नागरिकलाई दिन गत बिहीबार स्विकृति दिएको छ।

'आइलाग्नेमाथि जाइलागेको हुँ,' उनले भने, 'अस्टे्रलिया सरकारले साहसको कदर गर्न लागेकोमा खुसी छु।'

तीन वर्षपछि आफूले पाउन लागेको पदकबाट राम्रो काम गर्नेको ढिलै भए कदर हुने विश्वास बढेको उनले बताए।

'द अस्ट्रेलियन ब्रेभरी डेकोरेसन्स' पदक पाउने उनी ५३औँ विदेशी हुन्। सन् १९७५ मा स्थापित यो पदक बहादुर व्यक्ति र संगठनलाई प्रदान गरिन्छ।

-नमस्ते हजुर

समाचार स्रोत : नागरिक न्यूज

The Last Leaf - O Henry [Henry]

In a little district west of Washington Square the streets have run crazy and broken themselves into small strips called "places." These "places" make strange angles and curves. One Street crosses itself a time or two. An artist once discovered a valuable possibility in this street. Suppose a collector with a bill for paints, paper and canvas should, in traversing this route, suddenly meet himself coming back, without a cent having been paid on account!

So, to quaint old Greenwich Village the art people soon came prowling, hunting for north windows and eighteenth-century gables and Dutch attics and low rents. Then they imported some pewter mugs and a chafing dish or two from Sixth Avenue, and became a "colony."

At the top of a squatty, three-story brick Sue and Johnsy had their studio. "Johnsy" was familiar for Joanna. One was from Maine; the other from California. They had met at the table d'hôte of an Eighth Street "Delmonico's," and found their tastes in art, chicory salad and bishop sleeves so congenial that the joint studio resulted.

That was in May. In November a cold, unseen stranger, whom the doctors called Pneumonia, stalked about the colony, touching one here and there with his icy fingers. Over on the east side this ravager strode boldly, smiting his victims by scores, but his feet trod slowly through the maze of the narrow and moss-grown "places."

Mr. Pneumonia was not what you would call a chivalric old gentleman. A mite of a little woman with blood thinned by California zephyrs was hardly fair game for the red-fisted, short-breathed old duffer. But Johnsy he smote; and she lay, scarcely moving, on her painted iron bedstead, looking through the small Dutch window-panes at the blank side of the next brick house.

One morning the busy doctor invited Sue into the hallway with a shaggy, gray eyebrow.

"She has one chance in - let us say, ten," he said, as he shook down the mercury in his clinical thermometer. " And that chance is for her to want to live. This way people have of lining-u on the side of the undertaker makes the entire pharmacopoeia look silly. Your little lady has made up her mind that she's not going to get well. Has she anything on her mind?"

"She - she wanted to paint the Bay of Naples some day." said Sue.

"Paint? - bosh! Has she anything on her mind worth thinking twice - a man for instance?"

"A man?" said Sue, with a jew's-harp twang in her voice. "Is a man worth - but, no, doctor; there is nothing of the kind."

"Well, it is the weakness, then," said the doctor. "I will do all that science, so far as it may filter through my efforts, can accomplish. But whenever my patient begins to count the carriages in her funeral procession I subtract 50 per cent from the curative power of medicines. If you will get her to ask one question about the new winter styles in cloak sleeves I will promise you a one-in-five chance for her, instead of one in ten."

After the doctor had gone Sue went into the workroom and cried a Japanese napkin to a pulp. Then she swaggered into Johnsy's room with her drawing board, whistling ragtime.

Johnsy lay, scarcely making a ripple under the bedclothes, with her face toward the window. Sue stopped whistling, thinking she was asleep.

She arranged her board and began a pen-and-ink drawing to illustrate a magazine story. Young artists must pave their way to Art by drawing pictures for magazine stories that young authors write to pave their way to Literature.

As Sue was sketching a pair of elegant horseshow riding trousers and a monocle of the figure of the hero, an Idaho cowboy, she heard a low sound, several times repeated. She went quickly to the bedside.

Johnsy's eyes were open wide. She was looking out the window and counting - counting backward.

"Twelve," she said, and little later "eleven"; and then "ten," and "nine"; and then "eight" and "seven", almost together.

Sue look solicitously out of the window. What was there to count? There was only a bare, dreary yard to be seen, and the blank side of the brick house twenty feet away. An old, old ivy vine, gnarled and decayed at the roots, climbed half way up the brick wall. The cold breath of autumn had stricken its leaves from the vine until its skeleton branches clung, almost bare, to the crumbling bricks.

"What is it, dear?" asked Sue.

"Six," said Johnsy, in almost a whisper. "They're falling faster now. Three days ago there were almost a hundred. It made my head ache to count them. But now it's easy. There goes another one. There are only five left now."

"Five what, dear? Tell your Sudie."

"Leaves. On the ivy vine. When the last one falls I must go, too. I've known that for three days. Didn't the doctor tell you?"

"Oh, I never heard of such nonsense," complained Sue, with magnificent scorn. "What have old ivy leaves to do with your getting well? And you used to love that vine so, you naughty girl. Don't be a goosey. Why, the doctor told me this morning that your chances for getting well real soon were - let's see exactly what he said - he said the chances were ten to one! Why, that's almost as good a chance as we have in New York when we ride on the street cars or walk past a new building. Try to take some broth now, and let Sudie go back to her drawing, so she can sell the editor man with it, and buy port wine for her sick child, and pork chops for her greedy self."

"You needn't get any more wine," said Johnsy, keeping her eyes fixed out the window. "There goes another. No, I don't want any broth. That leaves just four. I want to see the last one fall before it gets dark. Then I'll go, too."

"Johnsy, dear," said Sue, bending over her, "will you promise me to keep your eyes closed, and not look out the window until I am done working? I must hand those drawings in by to-morrow. I need the light, or I would draw the shade down."

"Couldn't you draw in the other room?" asked Johnsy, coldly.

"I'd rather be here by you," said Sue. "Beside, I don't want you to keep looking at those silly ivy leaves."

"Tell me as soon as you have finished," said Johnsy, closing her eyes, and lying white and still as fallen statue, "because I want to see the last one fall. I'm tired of waiting. I'm tired of thinking. I want to turn loose my hold on everything, and go sailing down, down, just like one of those poor, tired leaves."

"Try to sleep," said Sue. "I must call Behrman up to be my model for the old hermit miner. I'll not be gone a minute. Don't try to move 'til I come back."

Old Behrman was a painter who lived on the ground floor beneath them. He was past sixty and had a Michael Angelo's Moses beard curling down from the head of a satyr along with the body of an imp. Behrman was a failure in art. Forty years he had wielded the brush without getting near enough to touch the hem of his Mistress's robe. He had been always about to paint a masterpiece, but had never yet begun it. For several years he had painted nothing except now and then a daub in the line of commerce or advertising. He earned a little by serving as a model to those young artists in the colony who could not pay the price of a professional. He drank gin to excess, and still talked of his coming masterpiece. For the rest he was a fierce little old man, who scoffed terribly at softness in any one, and who regarded himself as especial mastiff-in-waiting to protect the two young artists in the studio above.

Sue found Behrman smelling strongly of juniper berries in his dimly lighted den below. In one corner was a blank canvas on an easel that had been waiting there for twenty-five years to receive the first line of the masterpiece. She told him of Johnsy's fancy, and how she feared she would, indeed, light and fragile as a leaf herself, float away, when her slight hold upon the world grew weaker.

Old Behrman, with his red eyes plainly streaming, shouted his contempt and derision for such idiotic imaginings.

"Vass!" he cried. "Is dere people in de world mit der foolishness to die because leafs dey drop off from a confounded vine? I haf not heard of such a thing. No, I will not bose as a model for your fool hermit-dunderhead. Vy do you allow dot silly pusiness to come in der brain of her? Ach, dot poor leetle Miss Yohnsy."

"She is very ill and weak," said Sue, "and the fever has left her mind morbid and full of strange fancies. Very well, Mr. Behrman, if you do not care to pose for me, you needn't. But I think you are a horrid old - old flibbertigibbet."

"You are just like a woman!" yelled Behrman. "Who said I will not bose? Go on. I come mit you. For half an hour I haf peen trying to say dot I am ready to bose. Gott! dis is not any blace in which one so goot as Miss Yohnsy shall lie sick. Some day I vill baint a masterpiece, and ve shall all go away. Gott! yes."

Johnsy was sleeping when they went upstairs. Sue pulled the shade down to the window-sill, and motioned Behrman into the other room. In there they peered out the window fearfully at the ivy vine. Then they looked at each other for a moment without speaking. A persistent, cold rain was falling, mingled with snow. Behrman, in his old blue shirt, took his seat as the hermit miner on an upturned kettle for a rock.

When Sue awoke from an hour's sleep the next morning she found Johnsy with dull, wide-open eyes staring at the drawn green shade.

"Pull it up; I want to see," she ordered, in a whisper.

Wearily Sue obeyed.

But, lo! after the beating rain and fierce gusts of wind that had endured through the livelong night, there yet stood out against the brick wall one ivy leaf. It was the last one on the vine. Still dark green near its stem, with its serrated edges tinted with the yellow of dissolution and decay, it hung bravely from the branch some twenty feet above the ground.

"It is the last one," said Johnsy. "I thought it would surely fall during the night. I heard the wind. It will fall to-day, and I shall die at the same time."

"Dear, dear!" said Sue, leaning her worn face down to the pillow, "think of me, if you won't think of yourself. What would I do?"

But Johnsy did not answer. The lonesomest thing in all the world is a soul when it is making ready to go on its mysterious, far journey. The fancy seemed to possess her more strongly as one by one the ties that bound her to friendship and to earth were loosed.

The day wore away, and even through the twilight they could see the lone ivy leaf clinging to its stem against the wall. And then, with the coming of the night the north wind was again loosed, while the rain still beat against the windows and pattered down from the low Dutch eaves.

When it was light enough Johnsy, the merciless, commanded that the shade be raised.

The ivy leaf was still there.

Johnsy lay for a long time looking at it. And then she called to Sue, who was stirring her chicken broth over the gas stove.

"I've been a bad girl, Sudie," said Johnsy. "Something has made that last leaf stay there to show me how wicked I was. It is a sin to want to die. You may bring a me a little broth now, and some milk with a little port in it, and - no; bring me a hand-mirror first, and then pack some pillows about me, and I will sit up and watch you cook."

And hour later she said:

"Sudie, some day I hope to paint the Bay of Naples."

The doctor came in the afternoon, and Sue had an excuse to go into the hallway as he left.

"Even chances," said the doctor, taking Sue's thin, shaking hand in his. "With good nursing you'll win." And now I must see another case I have downstairs. Behrman, his name is - some kind of an artist, I believe. Pneumonia, too. He is an old, weak man, and the attack is acute. There is no hope for him; but he goes to the hospital to-day to be made more comfortable."

The next day the doctor said to Sue: "She's out of danger. You won. Nutrition and care now - that's all."

And that afternoon Sue came to the bed where Johnsy lay, contentedly knitting a very blue and very useless woollen shoulder scarf, and put one arm around her, pillows and all.

"I have something to tell you, white mouse," she said. "Mr. Behrman died of pneumonia to-day in the hospital. He was ill only two days. The janitor found him the morning of the first day in his room downstairs helpless with pain. His shoes and clothing were wet through and icy cold. They couldn't imagine where he had been on such a dreadful night. And then they found a lantern, still lighted, and a ladder that had been dragged from its place, and some scattered brushes, and a palette with green and yellow colors mixed on it, and - look out the window, dear, at the last ivy leaf on the wall. Didn't you wonder why it never fluttered or moved when the wind blew? Ah, darling, it's Behrman's masterpiece - he painted it there the night that the last leaf fell."

The Rubber Plant's Story - O Henry [Henry]

We rubber plants form the connecting link between the vegetable kingdom and the decorations of a Waldorf-Astoria scene in a Third Avenue theatre. I haven't looked up our family tree, but I believe we were raised by grafting a gum overshoe on to a 30-cent table d'hote stalk of asparagus. You take a white bulldog with a Bourke Cockran air of independence about him and a rubber plant and there you have the fauna and flora of a flat. What the shamrock is to Ireland the rubber plant is to the dweller in flats and furnished rooms. We get moved from one place to another so quickly that the only way we can get our picture taken is with a kinetoscope. We are the vagrant vine and the flitting fig tree. You know the proverb: "Where the rubber plant sits in the window the moving van draws up to the door."

We are the city equivalent to the woodbine and the honeysuckle. No other vegetable except the Pittsburg stogie can withstand as much handling as we can. When the family to which we belong moves into a flat they set us in the front window and we become lares and penates, fly-paper and the peripatetic emblem of "Home Sweet Home." We aren't as green as we look. I guess we are about what you would call the soubrettes of the conservatory. You try sitting in the front window of a $40 flat in Manhattan and looking out into the street all day, and back into the flat at night, and see whether you get wise or not--hey? Talk about the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the garden of Eden--say! suppose there had been a rubber plant there when Eve--but I was going to tell you a story.

The first thing I can remember I had only three leaves and belonged to a member of the pony ballet. I was kept in a sunny window, and was generally watered with seltzer and lemon. I had plenty of fun in those days. I got cross-eyed trying to watch the numbers of the automobiles in the street and the dates on the labels inside at the same time.

Well, then the angel that was molting for the musical comedy lost his last feather and the company broke up. The ponies trotted away and I was left in the window ownerless. The janitor gave me to a refined comedy team on the eighth floor, and in six weeks I had been set in the window of five different flats I took on experience and put out two more leaves.

Miss Carruthers, of the refined comedy team--did you ever see her cross both feet back of her neck?--gave me to a friend of hers who had made an unfortunate marriage with a man in a store. Consequently I was placed in the window of a furnished room, rent in advance, water two flights up, gas extra after ten o'clock at night. Two of my leaves withered off here. Also, I was moved from one room to another so many times that I got to liking the odor of the pipes the expressmen smoked.

I don't think I ever had so dull a time as I did with this lady. There was never anything amusing going on inside--she was devoted to her husband, and, besides leaning out the window and flirting with the iceman, she never did a thing toward breaking the monotony.

When the couple broke up they left me with the rest of their goods at a second-hand store. I was put out in front for sale along with the jobbiest lot you ever heard of being lumped into one bargain. Think of this little cornucopia of wonders, all for $1.89: Henry James's works, six talking machine records, one pair of tennis shoes, two bottles of horse radish, and a rubber plant--that was me!

One afternoon a girl came along and stopped to look at me. She had dark hair and eyes, and she looked slim, and sad around the mouth.

"Oh, oh!" she says to herself. "I never thought to see one up here."

She pulls out a little purse about as thick as one of my leaves and fingers over some small silver in it. Old Koen, always on the lockout, is ready, rubbing his hands. This girl proceeds to turn down Mr. James and the other commodities. Rubber plants or nothing is the burden of her song. And at last Koen and she come together at 39 cents, and away she goes with me in her arms.

She was a nice girl, but not my style. Too quiet and sober looking. Thinks I to myself: "I'll just about land on the fire-escape of a tenement, six stories up. And I'll spend the next six months looking at clothes on the line."

But she carried me to a nice little room only three flights up in quite a decent street. And she put me in the window, of course. And then she went to work and cooked dinner for herself. And what do you suppose she had? Bread and tea and a little dab of jam! Nothing else. Not a single lobster, nor so much as one bottle of champagne. The Carruthers comedy team had both every evening, except now and then when they took a notion for pig's knuckle and kraut.

After she had finished her dinner my new owner came to the window and leaned down close to my leaves and cried softly to herself for a while. It made me feel funny. I never knew anybody to cry that way over a rubber plant before. Of course, I've seen a few of 'em turn on the tears for what they could get out of it, but she seemed to be crying just for the pure enjoyment of it. She touched my leaves like she loved 'em, and she bent down her head and kissed each one of 'em. I guess I'm about the toughest specimen of a peripatetic orchid on earth, but I tell you it made me feel sort of queer. Home never was like that to me before. Generally I used to get chewed by poodles and have shirt-waists hung on me to dry, and get watered with coffee grounds and peroxide of hydrogen.

This girl had a piano in the room, and she used to disturb it with both hands while she made noises with her mouth for hours at a time. I suppose she was practising vocal music.

One day she seemed very much excited and kept looking at the clock. At eleven somebody knocked and she let in a stout, dark man with towsled black hair. He sat down at once at the piano and played while she sang for him. When she finished she laid one hand on her bosom and looked at him. He shook his head, and she leaned against the piano. "Two years already," she said, speaking slowly--"do you think in two more--or even longer?"

The man shook his head again. "You waste your time," he said, roughly I thought. "The voice is not there." And then he looked at her in a peculiar way. "But the voice is not everything," he went on. "You have looks. I can place you, as I told you if--"

The girl pointed to the door without saying anything, and the dark man left the room. And then she came over and cried around me again. It's a good thing I had enough rubber in me to be water-proof.

About that time somebody else knocked at the door. "Thank goodness," I said to myself. "Here's a chance to get the water-works turned off. I hope it's somebody that's game enough to stand a bird and a bottle to liven things up a little." Tell you the truth, this little girl made me tired. A rubber plant likes to see a little sport now and then. I don't suppose there's another green thing in New York that sees as much of gay life unless it's the chartreuse or the sprigs of parsley around the dish.

When the girl opens the door in steps a young chap in a traveling cap and picks her up in his arms, and she sings out "Oh, Dick!" and stays there long enough to--well, you've been a rubber plant too, sometimes, I suppose.

"Good thing!" says I to myself. "This is livelier than scales and weeping. Now there'll be something doing."

"You've got to go back with me," says the young man. "I've come two thousand miles for you. Aren't you tired of it yet. Bess? You've kept all of us waiting so long. Haven't you found out yet what is best?"

"The bubble burst only to-day," says the girl. "Come here, Dick, and see what I found the other day on the sidewalk for sale." She brings him by the hand and exhibits yours truly. "How one ever got away up here who can tell? I bought it with almost the last money I had."

He looked at me, but he couldn't keep his eyes off her for more than a second. "Do you remember the night, Bess," he said, "when we stood under one of those on the bank of the bayou and what you told me then?"

"Geewillikins!" I said to myself. "Both of them stand under a rubber plant! Seems to me they are stretching matters somewhat!"

"Do I not," says she, looking up at him and sneaking close to his vest, "and now I say it again, and it is to last forever. Look, Dick, at its leaves, how wet they are. Those are my tears, and it was thinking of you that made them fall."

"The dear old magnolias!" says the young man, pinching one of my leaves. "I love them all."

Magnolia! Well, wouldn't that--say! those innocents thought I was a magnolia! What the--well, wasn't that tough on a genuine little old New York rubber plant?

-THE END-

The End of Something - Ernest Hemingway

In the old days Hortons Bay was a lumbering town. No one who lived in it was out of sound of the big saws in the mill by the lake. Then one year there were no more logs to make lumber. The lumber schooners came into the bay and were loaded with the cut of the mill that stood stacked in the yard. All the piles of lumber were carried away. The big mill building had all its machinery that was removable taken out and hoisted on board one of the schooners by the men who had worked in the mill. The schooner moved out of the bay toward the open lake, carrying the two great saws, the travelling carriage that hurled the logs against the revolving, circular saws and all the rollers, wheels, belts and iron piled on a hull-deep load of lumber. Its open hold covered with canvas and lashed tight, the sails of the schooner filled and it moved out into the open lake, carrying with it everything that had made the mill a mill and Hortons Bay a town.

The one-story bunk houses, the eating-house, the company store, the mill offices, and the big mill itself stood deserted in the acres of sawdust that covered the swampy meadow by the shore of the bay.

Ten years later there was nothing of the mill left except the broken white limestone of its foundations showing through the swampy second growth as Nick and Marjorie rowed along the shore. They were trolling along the edge of the channel-bank where the bottom dropped off suddenly from sandy shallows to twelve feet of dark water. They were trolling on their way to set night lines for rainbow trout.

"There's our old ruin, Nick," Marjorie said.

Nick, rowing, looked at the white stone in the green trees.

"There it is," he said.

"Can you remember when it was a mill?" Marjorie asked.

"I can just remember," Nick said.

"It seems more like a castle," Marjorie said.

Nick said nothing. They rowed on out of sight of the mill, following the shore line. Then Nick cut across the bay.

"They aren't striking," he said.

"No," Marjorie said. She was intent on the rod all the time they trolled, even when she talked. She loved to fish. She loved to fish with Nick.

Close beside the boat a big trout broke the surface of the water. Nick pulled hard on one oar so the boat would turn and the bait, spinning far behind, would pass where the trout was feeding. As the trout's back came up out of the water the minnows jumped wildly. They sprinkled the surface like a handful of shot thrown into the water. Another trout broke water, feeding on the other side of the boat.

"They're feeding," Marjorie said.

"But they won't strike," Nick said.

He rowed the boat around to troll past both the feeding fish, then headed it for the point. Marjorie did not reel in until the boat touched the shore.

They pulled the boat up the beach and Nick lifted out a pail of live perch. The perch swam in the water pail. Nick caught three of them with his hands and cut heir heads off and skinned them while Marjorie chased with her hands in the bucket, finally caught a perch, cut its head off and skinned it. Nick looked at her fish.

"You don't want to take the ventral fin out," he said. "It'll be all right for bait but it's better with the ventral fin in."

He hooked each of the skinned perch through the tail. There were two hooks attached to a leader on each rod. Then Marjorie rowed the boat out over the channel-bank, holding the line in her teeth, and looking toward Nick, who stood on the shore holding the rod and letting the line run out from the reel.

"That's about right," he called.

"Should I let it drop?" Marjorie called back, holding the line in her hand.

"Sure. Let it go." Marjorie dropped the line overboard and watched the baits go down through the water.

She came in with the boat and ran the second line out the same way. Each time Nick set a heavy slab of driftwood across the butt of the rod to hold it solid and propped it up at an angle with a small slab. He reeled in the slack line so the line ran taut out to where the bait rested on the sandy floor of the channel and set the click on the reel. When a trout, feeding on the bottom, took the bait it would run with it, taking line out of the reel in a rush and making the reel sing with the click on.

Marjorie rowed up the point a little way so she would not disturb the line. She pulled hard on the oars and the boat went up the beach. Little waves came in with it. Marjorie stepped out of the boat and Nick pulled the boat high up the beach.

"What's the matter, Nick?" Marjorie asked.

"I don't know," Nick said, getting wood for a fire.

They made a fire with driftwood. Marjorie went to the boat and brought a blanket. The evening breeze blew the smoke toward the point, so Marjorie spread the blanket out between the fire and the lake.

Marjorie sat on the blanket with her back to the fire and waited for Nick. He came over and sat down beside her on the blanket. In back of them was the close second-growth timber of the point and in front was the bay with the mouth of Hortons Creek. It was not quite dark. The fire-light went as far as the water. They could both see the two steel rods at an angle over the dark water. The fire glinted on the reels.

Marjorie unpacked the basket of supper.

"I don't feel like eating," said Nick.

"Come on and eat, Nick."

"All right."

They ate without talking, and watched the two rods and the fire-light in the water.

"There's going to be a moon tonight," said Nick. He looked across the bay to the hills that were beginning to sharpen against the sky. Beyond the hills he knew the moon was coming up.

"I know it," Marjorie said happily.

"You know everything," Nick said.

"Oh, Nick, please cut it out! Please, please don't be that way!"

"I can't help it," Nick said. "You do. You know everything. That's the trouble. You know you do."

Marjorie did not say anything.

"I've taught you everything. You know you do. What don't you know, anyway?"

"Oh, shut up," Marjorie said. "There comes the moon."

They sat on the blanket without touching each other and watched the moon rise.

"You don't have to talk silly," Marjorie said. "What's really the matter?"

"I don't know."

"Of course you know."

"No I don't."

"Go on and say it."

Nick looked on at the moon, coming up over the hills.

"It isn't fun any more."

He was afraid to look at Marjorie. Then he looked at her. She sat there with her back toward him. He looked at her back. "It isn't fun any more. Not any of it."

She didn't say anything. He went on. "I feel as though everything was gone to hell inside of me. I don't know, Marge. I don't know what to say."

He looked on at her back.

"Isn't love any fun?" Marjorie said.

"No," Nick said. Marjorie stood up. Nick sat there, his head in his hands.

"I'm going to take the boat," Marjorie called to him. "You can walk back around the point."

"All right," Nick said. "I'll push the boat off for you."

"You don't need to," she said. She was afloat in the boat on the water with the moonlight on it. Nick went back and lay down with his face in the blanket by the fire. He could hear Marjorie rowing on the water.

He lay there for a long time. He lay there while he heard Bill come into the clearing walking around through the woods. He felt Bill coming up to the fire. Bill didn't touch him, either.

"Did she go all right?" Bill said.

"Yes," Nick said, lying, his face on the blanket.

"Have a scene?"

"No, there wasn't any scene."

"How do you feel?"

"Oh, go away, Bill! Go away for a while."

Bill selected a sandwich from the lunch basket and walked over to have a look at the rods.

Three Days to See - by Hellen Keller

I

All of us have read thrilling stories in which the hero had only a limited and specified time to

live. Sometimes it was as long as a year; sometimes as short as twenty-four hours. But always

we were interested in discovering just how the doomed man chose to spend his last days or his

last hours. I speak, of course, of free men who have a choice, not condemned criminals whose

sphere of activities is strictly delimited.

Such stories set us thinking, wondering what we should do under similar circumstances. What

events, what experiences, what associations, should we crowd into those last hours as mortal

beings? What happiness should we find in reviewing the past, what regrets?

Sometimes I have thought it would be an excellent rule to live each day as if we should die

tomorrow. Such an attitude would emphasize sharply the values of life. We should live each

day with a gentleness, a vigor, and a keenness of appreciation which are often lost when time

stretches before us in the constant panorama of more days and months and years to come.

There are those, of course, who would adopt the epicurean motto of “Eat, drink, and be

merry,”but most people would be chastened by the certainty of impending death.

In stories, the doomed hero is usually saved at the last minute by some stroke of fortune,

but almost always his sense of values is changed. He becomes more appreciative of the

meaning of life and its permanent spiritual values. It has often been noted that those who

live, or have lived, in the shadow of death bring a mellow sweetness to everything they do.

Most of us, however, take life for granted. We know that one day we must die, but usually

we picture that day as far in the future. When we are in buoyant health, death is all but

unimaginable. We seldom think of it. The days stretch out in an endless vista. So we go

about our petty tasks, hardly aware of our listless attitude toward life.

The same lethargy, I am afraid, characterizes the use of all our faculties and senses. Only

the deaf appreciate hearing, only the blind realize the manifold blessings that lie in sight.

Particularly does this observation apply to those who have lost sight and hearing in adult

life. But those who have never suffered impairment of sight or hearing seldom make the

fullest use of these blessed faculties. Their eyes and ears take in all sights and sounds

hazily, without concentration and with little appreciation. It is the same old story of not

being grateful for what we have until we lose it, of not being conscious of health until we

are ill.

I have often thought it would be a blessing if each human being were stricken blind and

deaf for a few days at some time during his early adult life. Darkness would make him

more appreciative of sight; silence would teach him the joys of sound.

Now and then I have tested my seeing friends to discover what they see. Recently I was

visited by a very good friend who had just returned from a long walk in the woods, and I

asked her what she had observed. "Nothing in particular," she replied. I might have been

incredulous had I not been accustomed to such responses, for long ago I became convinced

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that the seeing see little.

How was it possible, I asked myself, to walk for an hour through the woods and see nothing

worthy of note? I who cannot see find hundreds of things to interest me through mere

touch. I feel the delicate symmetry of a leaf. I pass my hands lovingly about the smooth

skin of a silver birch, or the rough, shaggy bark of a pine. In spring I touch the branches of

trees hopefully in search of a bud, the first sign of awakening Nature after her winter's

sleep. I feel the delightful, velvety texture of a flower, and discover its remarkable

convolutions; and something of the miracle of Nature is revealed to me. Occasionally, if I

am very fortunate, I place my hand gently on a small tree and feel the happy quiver of a

bird in full song. I am delighted to have the cool waters of a brook rush through my open

fingers. To me a lush carpet of pine needles or spongy grass is more welcome than the

most luxurious Persian rug. To me the pageant of seasons is a thrilling and unending

drama, the action of which streams through my finger tips.

At times my heart cries out with longing to see all these things. If I can get so much

pleasure from mere touch, how much more beauty must be revealed by sight. Yet, those

who have eyes apparently see little. The panorama of color and action which fills the world

is taken for granted. It is human, perhaps, to appreciate little that which we have and to

long for that which we have not, but it is a great pity that in the world of light the gift of

sight is used only as a mere convenience rather than as a means of adding fullness to life.

If I were the president of a university I should establish a compulsory course in "How to

Use Your Eyes.” The professor would try to show his pupils how they could add joy to

their lives by really seeing what passes unnoticed before them. He would try to awake their

dormant and sluggish faculties.

II

Perhaps I can best illustrate by imagining what I should most like to see if I were given the

use of my eyes, say, for just three days. And while I am imagining, suppose you, too, set

your mind to work on the problem of how you would use your own eyes if you had only

three more days to see. If with the oncoming darkness of the third night you knew that the

sun would never rise for you again, how would you spend those three precious intervening

days? What would you most want to let your gaze rest upon?

I, naturally, should want most to see the things which have become dear to me through my

years of darkness. You, too, would want to let your eyes rest long on the things that have

become dear to you so that you could take the memory of them with you into the night that

loomed before you.

If, by some miracle, I were granted three seeing days, to be followed by a relapse into

darkness, I should divide the period into three parts.

On the first day, I should want to see the people whose kindness and gentleness and

companionship have made my life worth living. First I should like to gaze long upon the

face of my dear teacher, Mrs. Anne Sullivan Macy, who came to me when I was a child and

opened the outer world to me. I should want not merely to see the outline of her face, so

that I could cherish it in my memory, but to study that face and find in it the living evidence

of the sympathetic tenderness and patience with which she accomplished the difficult task

of my education. I should like to see in her eyes that strength of character which has

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enabled her to stand firm in the face of difficulties, and that compassion for all humanity

which she has revealed to me so often.

I do not know what it is to see into the heart of a friend through that "window of the soul,"

the eye. I can only "see" through my finger tips the outline of a face. I can detect laughter,

sorrow, and many other obvious emotions. I know my friends from the feel of their faces.

But I cannot really picture their personalities by touch. I know their personalities, of

course, through other means, through the thoughts they express to me, through whatever of

their actions are revealed to me. But I am denied that deeper understanding of them which

I am sure would come through sight of them, through watching their reactions to various

expressed thoughts and circumstances, through noting the immediate and fleeting reactions

of their eyes and countenance.

Friends who are near to me I know well, because through the months and years they reveal

themselves to me in all their phases; but of casual friends I have only an incomplete

impression, an impression gained from a handclasp, from spoken words which I take from

their lips with my finger tips, or which they tap into the palm of my hand.

How much easier, how much more satisfying it is for you who can see to grasp quickly the

essential qualities of another person by watching the subtleties of expression, the quiver of

a muscle, the flutter of a hand. But does it ever occur to you to use your sight to see into

the inner nature of a friend or acquaintance? Do not most of you seeing people grasp

casually the outward features of a face and let it go at that?

For instance, can you describe accurately the faces of five good friends? Some of you can,

but many cannot. As an experiment, I have questioned husbands of long standing about the

color of their wives' eyes, and often they express embarrassed confusion and admit that

they do not know. And, incidentally, it is a chronic complaint of wives that their husbands

do not notice new dresses, new hats, and changes in household arrangements.

The eyes of seeing persons soon become accustomed to the routine of their surroundings,

and they actually see only the startling and spectacular. But even in viewing the most

spectacular sights the eyes are lazy. Court records reveal every day how inaccurately

"eyewitnesses" see. A given event will be "seen" in several different ways by as many

witnesses. Some see more than others, but few see everything that is within the range of

their vision.

Oh, the things that I should see if I had the power of sight for just three days!

The first day would be a busy one. I should call to me all my dear friends and look long

into their faces, imprinting upon my mind the outward evidences of the beauty that is

within them. I should let my eyes rest, too, on the face of a baby, so that I could catch a

vision of the eager, innocent beauty which precedes the individual's consciousness of the

conflicts which life develops.

And I should like to look into the loyal, trusting eyes of my dogs -- the grave, canny little

Scottie, Darkie, and the stalwart, understanding Great Dane, Helga, whose warm, tender,

and playful friendships are so comforting to me.

On that busy first day I should also view the small simple things of my home. I want to see

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the warm colors in the rugs under my feet, the pictures on the walls, the intimate trifles that

transform a house into home. My eyes would rest respectfully on the books in raised type

which I have read, but they would be more eagerly interested in the printed books which

seeing people can read, for during the long night of my life the books I have read and those

which have been read to me have built themselves into a great shining lighthouse, revealing

to me the deepest channels of human life and the human spirit.

In the afternoon of that first seeing day, I should take a long walk in the woods and

intoxicate my eyes on the beauties of the world of Nature, trying desperately to absorb in a

few hours the vast splendor which is constantly unfolding itself to those who can see. On

the way home from my woodland jaunt my path would lie near a farm so that I might see

the patient horses ploughing in the field (perhaps I should see only a tractor!) and the

serene content of men living close to the soil. And I should pray for the glory of a colorful

sunset.

When dusk had fallen, I should experience the double delight of being able to see by

artificial light, which the genius of man has created to extend the power of his sight when

Nature decrees darkness.

In the night of that first day of sight, I should not be able to sleep, so full would be my mind

of the memories of the day.

III

The next day -- the second day of sight -- I should arise with the dawn and see the thrilling

miracle by which night is transformed into day. I should behold with awe the magnificent

panorama of light with which the sun awakens the sleeping earth.

This day I should devote to a hasty glimpse of the world, past and present. I should want to

see the pageant of man's progress, the kaleidoscope of the ages. How can so much be

compressed into one day? Through the museums, of course. Often I have visited the New

York Museum of Natural History to touch with my hands many of the objects there

exhibited, but I have longed to see with my eyes the condensed history of the earth and its

inhabitants displayed there -- animals and the races of men pictured in their native

environment; gigantic carcasses of dinosaurs and mastodons which roamed the earth long

before man appeared, with his tiny stature and powerful brain, to conquer the animal

kingdom; realistic presentations of the processes of evolution in animals, in man, and in the

implements which man has used to fashion for himself a secure home on this planet; and a

thousand and one other aspects of natural history.

I wonder how many readers of this article have viewed this panorama of the face of living

things as pictured in that inspiring museum. Many, of course, have not had the opportunity,

but I am sure that many who have had the opportunity have not made use of it. There,

indeed, is a place to use your eyes. You who see can spend many fruitful days there, but I,

with my imaginary three days of sight, could only take a hasty glimpse, and pass on.

My next stop would be the Metropolitan Museum of Art, for just as the Museum of Natural

History reveals the material aspects of the world, so does the Metropolitan show the myriad

facets of the human spirit. Throughout the history of humanity the urge to artistic

expression has been almost as powerful as the urge for food, shelter, and procreation. And

here, in the vast chambers of the Metropolitan Museum, is unfolded before me the spirit of

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Egypt, Greece, and Rome, as expressed in their art. I know well through my hands the

sculptured gods and goddesses of the ancient Nile land. I have felt copies of Parthenon

friezes, and I have sensed the rhythmic beauty of charging Athenian warriors. Apollos and

Venuses and the Winged Victory of Samothrace are friends of my finger tips. The gnarled,

bearded features of Homer are dear to me, for he, too, knew blindness.

My hands have lingered upon the living marble of Roman sculpture as well as that of later

generations. I have passed my hands over a plaster cast of Michelangelo's inspiring and

heroic Moses; I have sensed the power of Rodin; I have been awed by the devoted spirit of

Gothic wood carving. These arts which can be touched have meaning for me, but even

they were meant to be seen rather than felt, and I can only guess at the beauty which

remains hidden from me. I can admire the simple lines of a Greek vase, but its figured

decorations are lost to me.

So on this, my second day of sight, I should try to probe into the soul of man through his

art. The things I knew through touch I should now see. More splendid still, the whole

magnificent world of painting would be opened to me, from the Italian Primitives, with

their serene religious devotion, to the Moderns, with their feverish visions. I should look

deep into the canvases of Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, Titian, Rembrandt. I should want to

feast my eyes upon the warm colors of Veronese, study the mysteries of El Greco, catch a

new vision of Nature from Corot. Oh, there is so much rich meaning and beauty in the art

of the ages for you who have eyes to see!

Upon my short visit to this temple of art I should not be able to review a fraction of that

great world of art which is open to you. I should be able to get only a superficial

impression. Artists tell me that for a deep and true appreciation of art one must educate the

eye. One must learn through experience to weigh the merits of line, of composition, of

form and color. If I had eyes, how happily would I embark upon so fascinating a study!

Yet I am told that, to many of you who have eyes to see, the world of art is a dark night,

unexplored and unilluminated.

It would be with extreme reluctance that I should leave the Metropolitan Museum, which

contains the key to beauty -- a beauty so neglected. Seeing persons, however, do not need a

Metropolitan to find this key to beauty. The same key lies waiting in smaller museums,

and in books on the shelves of even small libraries. But naturally, in my limited time of

imaginary sight, I should choose the place where the key unlocks the greatest treasures in

the shortest time.

The evening of my second day of sight I should spend at a theatre or at the movies. Even

now I often attend theatrical performances of all sorts, but the action of the play must be

spelled into my hand by a companion. But how I should like to see with my own eyes the

fascinating figure of Hamlet, or the gusty Falstaff amid colorful Elizabethan trappings!

How I should like to follow each movement of the graceful Hamlet, each strut of the hearty

Falstaff! And since I could see only one play, I should be confronted by a many-horned

dilemma, for there are scores of plays I should want to see. You who have eyes can see any

you like. How many of you, I wonder, when you gaze at a play, a movie, or any spectacle,

realize and give thanks for the miracle of sight which enables you to enjoy its color, grace,

and movement?

I cannot enjoy the beauty of rhythmic movement except in a sphere restricted to the touch

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of my hands. I can vision only dimly the grace of a Pavlowa, although I know something

of the delight of rhythm, for often I can sense the beat of music as it vibrates through the

floor. I can well imagine that cadenced motion must be one of the most pleasing sights in

the world. I have been able to gather something of this by tracing with my fingers the lines

in sculptured marble; if this static grace can be so lovely, how much more acute must be the

thrill of seeing grace in motion.

One of my dearest memories is of the time when Joseph Jefferson allowed me to touch his

face and hands as he went through some of the gestures and speeches of his beloved Rip

Van Winkle. I was able to catch thus a meagre glimpse of the world of drama, and I shall

never forget the delight of that moment. But, oh, how much I must miss, and how much

pleasure you seeing ones can derive from watching and hearing the interplay of speech and

movement in the unfolding of a dramatic performance! If I could see only one play, I

should know how to picture in my mind the action of a hundred plays which I have read or

had transferred to me through the medium of the manual alphabet.

So, through the evening of my second imaginary day of sight, the great figures of dramatic

literature would crowd sleep from my eyes.

IV

The following morning, I should again greet the dawn, anxious to discover new delights,

for I am sure that, for those who have eyes which really see, the dawn of each day must be

a perpetually new revelation of beauty.

This, according to the terms of my imagined miracle, is to be my third and last day of sight.

I shall have no time to waste in regrets or longings; there is too much to see. The first day I

devoted to my friends, animate and inanimate. The second revealed to me the history of

man and Nature. Today I shall spend in the workaday world of the present, amid the haunts

of men going about the business of life. And where can one find so many activities and

conditions of men as in New York? So the city becomes my destination.

I start from my home in the quiet little suburb of Forest Hills, Long Island. Here,

surrounded by green lawns, trees, and flowers, are neat little houses, happy with the voices

and movements of wives and children, havens of peaceful rest for men who toil in the city.

I drive across the lacy structure of steel which spans the East River, and I get a new and

startling vision of the power and ingenuity of the mind of man. Busy boats chug and scurry

about the river -- racy speed boats, stolid, snorting tugs. If I had long days of sight ahead, I

should spend many of them watching the delightful activity upon the river.

I look ahead, and before me rise the fantastic towers of New York, a city that seems to have

stepped from the pages of a fairy story. What an awe-inspiring sight, these glittering spires,

these vast banks of stone and steel -- structures such as the gods might build for

themselves! This animated picture is a part of the lives of millions of people every day.

How many, I wonder, give it so much as a second glance? Very few, I fear. Their eyes are

blind to this magnificent sight because it is so familiar to them.

I hurry to the top of one of those gigantic structures, the Empire State Building, for there, a

short time ago, I "saw" the city below through the eyes of my secretary. I am anxious to

compare my fancy with reality. I am sure I should not be disappointed in the panorama

spread out before me, for to me it would be a vision of another world.

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Now I begin my rounds of the city. First, I stand at a busy corner, merely looking at

people, trying by sight of them to understand something of their lives. I see smiles, and I

am happy. I see serious determination, and I am proud. I see suffering, and I am

compassionate.

I stroll down Fifth Avenue. I throw my eyes out of focus, so that I see no particular object

but only a seething kaleidoscope of color. I am certain that the colors of women's dresses

moving in a throng must be a gorgeous spectacle of which I should never tire. But perhaps

if I had sight I should be like most other women -- too interested in styles and the cut of

individual dresses to give much attention to the splendor of color in the mass. And I am

convinced, too, that I should become an inveterate window shopper, for it must be a delight

to the eye to view the myriad articles of beauty on display.

From Fifth Avenue I make a tour of the city -- to Park Avenue, to the slums, to factories, to

parks where children play. I take a stay-at-home trip abroad by visiting the foreign

quarters. Always my eyes are open wide to all the sights of both happiness and misery so

that I may probe deep and add to my understanding of how people work and live. My heart

is full of the images of people and things. My eye passes lightly over no single trifle; it

strives to touch and hold closely each thing its gaze rests upon. Some sights are pleasant,

filling the heart with happiness; but some are miserably pathetic. To these latter I do not

shut my eyes, for they, too, are part of life. To close the eye on them is to close the heart

and mind.

My third day of sight is drawing to an end. Perhaps there are many serious pursuits to

which I should devote the few remaining hours, but I am afraid that on the evening of that

last day I should again run away to the theatre, to a hilariously funny play, so that I might

appreciate the overtones of comedy in the human spirit.

At midnight my temporary respite from blindness would cease, and permanent night would

close in on me again. Naturally in those three short days I should not have seen all I

wanted to see. Only when darkness had again descended upon me should I realize how

much I had left unseen. But my mind would be so crowded with glorious memories that I

should have little time for regrets. Thereafter the touch of every object would bring a

glowing memory of how that object looked.

Perhaps this short outline of how I should spend three days of sight does not agree with the

programme you would set for yourself if you knew that you were about to be stricken blind.

I am, however, sure that if you actually faced that fate your eyes would open to things you

had never seen before, storing up memories for the long night ahead. You would use your

eyes as never before. Everything you saw would become dear to you. Your eyes would

touch and embrace every object that came within your range of vision. Then, at last, you

would really see, and a new world of beauty would open itself before you.

I who am blind can give one hint to those who see -- one admonition to those who would

make full use of the gift of sight: Use your eyes as if tomorrow you would be stricken

blind. And the same method can be applied to the other senses. Hear the music of voices,

the song of a bird, the mighty strains of an orchestra, as if you would be stricken deaf

tomorrow. Touch each object you want to touch as if tomorrow your tactile sense would

fail. Smell the perfume of flowers, taste with relish each morsel, as if tomorrow you could

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never smell and taste again. Make the most of every sense; glory in all the facets of

pleasure and beauty which the world reveals to you through the several means of contact

which Nature provides. But of all the senses, I am sure that sight must be the most

delightful.

Copyright © 1997 by Helen Keller. All rights reserved.

The Atlantic Monthly; January 1933; Three Days to See; Volume 151, No. 1; pages 35-42.

The story of Helen Keller (1880-1963) and her triumph, with the help of her teacher and

companion (Anne Sullivan Macy) over the twin handicaps of blindness and deafness has been

told many times. Once her mind had established contact with the outside world, Miss Keller

learned how to speak. In 1904, she graduated from Radcliff College (Harvard University) with

high honours, and proceeded to support herself by lecturing and writing. Always, she attempted

to interest the public in the problem of the handicapped, and to encourage the handicapped to

overcome their difficulties, to whatever extent they could. Although Helen Keller has published

several books, she is celebrated chiefly as a symbol of the strength of the high courage of the

human spirit.

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Nobel Prize - Awarded for Outstanding contributions in Physics, Chemistry, Literature, Peace, and Physiology or Medicine.

Nobel Prize

Awarded for Outstanding contributions in Physics, Chemistry, Literature, Peace, and Physiology or Medicine.

The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, identified with the Nobel Prize, is awarded for outstanding contributions in Economics.
Presented by Swedish Academy
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
Karolinska Institutet
Norwegian Nobel Committee
Country Sweden, (Norway)
First awarded 1901
Official Website http://nobelprize.org


The Nobel Prize (Swedish: Nobelpriset) is an annual, international award originating in Sweden. The award was established in 1895 by the Swedish chemist and inventor of dynamite Alfred Bernhard Nobel.[1][2] It was first awarded in 1901 for achievements in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and Peace. An associated prize, the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, was instituted by Sweden's central bank in 1968 and first awarded in 1969.[3] Although the Nobel Prize in Economics is not technically a Nobel Prize, its winners are announced with the Nobel Prize recipients and it is presented at the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony. The Nobel Prizes in the specific disciplines (physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, and literature) and the Prize in Economics are widely regarded as the most prestigious award one can receive in those fields.[3]

A recipient of the Nobel Prize (called a laureate) earns a gold medal, a diploma bearing a citation and a sum of money.[4][5] The amount of money awarded depends on the income of the Nobel Foundation that year. In 2009, the amount was 10 million SEK (US$1.4 million) per prize.[6] If a prize is awarded to more than one laureate, the money is either split evenly among them or, for three laureates, it may be divided into a half and two quarters.[7]

The prizes are awarded by different associations. The Nobel Prize in Physics, Nobel Prize in Chemistry, and Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences are awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences; the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded by the Nobel Assembly at (the) Karolinska Institutet; and the Nobel Prize in Literature is granted by the Swedish Academy.[8][9] The Nobel Peace Prize is not awarded by a Swedish organisation, but rather by the Norwegian Nobel Committee.[8][9]

The Nobel Prize has been criticised for not always choosing the best candidates, the lack of a Nobel Peace prize for Mahatma Gandhi being a prime example.[10] Also controversial is the strict rule against a prize being awarded to more than three people at once. This inevitably means one or more people will not be recognised if a notable achievement is accomplished by a team of collaborators.[11] Similarly, the prohibition of posthumous awards fails to recognise achievements by a collaborator who happens to die before the prize is awarded.[12][13][14][15]

Alfred Nobel ( listen (help·info)) was born on 21 October 1833 in Stockholm, Sweden into a family of engineers.[16] He was a chemist, engineer, and inventor. In 1895 he purchased the Bofors iron and steel mill, which he converted into a major armaments manufacturer.[17] Nobel amassed a sizeable personal fortune during his lifetime, most of it from his 355 different inventions, with dynamite being the most famous.[17][18] In 1888 Alfred had the unpleasant surprise of discovering and reading his own obituary, titled ‘The merchant of death is dead’, in a Swedish newspaper.[19] The obituary was eight years premature as it was actually Alfred's brother Ludvig who had died.[19] Nevertheless, Alfred was disappointed with what he read and with how he would be remembered, inspiring him to change his will.[19] On the 10th of December 1896 Alfred Nobel died in his villa in San Remo, Italy at the age of sixty-three after suffering a cerebral haemorrhage.[20][21][22][23]

To the surprise of many,[22] Nobel requested in his last will and testament that his money be used to create a series of prizes for those who confer the "greatest benefit on mankind" in physics, chemistry, peace, physiology or medicine, and literature.[23][24] Though Nobel wrote several wills during his lifetime, the last was written a little over a year before he died, and signed at the Swedish-Norwegian Club in Paris on 27 November 1895.[25][26] Nobel bequeathed 94% of his total assets, 31 million Swedish kronor (US$186 million in 2008), to establish and endow the five Nobel Prizes.[27] Due to the level of scepticism surrounding the will it was not until April 26, 1897 that it was approved by the Storting (Norwegian Parliament).[1][28] The executors of his will were Ragnar Sohlman and Rudolf Lilljequist, who formed the Nobel Foundation to take care of Nobel's fortune and organise the prizes.[29]

The members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee that were to award the Peace Prize were appointed shortly after the will was approved. The prize-awarding organisations followed: the Caroline Medico-Chirurgical Institute (known as the Karolinska Institute) on 7 June, the Swedish Academy on 9 June, and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on 11 June.[30][31][32] The Nobel Foundation then reached an agreement on guidelines for how the Nobel Prize should be awarded. In 1900, the Nobel Foundation's newly created statutes were promulgated by King Oscar II.[22][28][29] In 1905, the Union between Sweden and Norway was dissolved, which meant the responsibility for awarding Nobel Prizes was split between the two countries.[28] Norway's Nobel Committee became responsible for awarding the Peace Prize, leaving Sweden with the other prizes.[1][28][29]“ The whole of my remaining realisable estate shall be dealt with in the following way:

The capital shall be invested by my executors in safe securities and shall constitute a fund, the interest on which shall be annually distributed in the form of prizes to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind. The said interest shall be divided into five equal parts, which shall be apportioned as follows: one part to the person who shall have made the most important discovery or invention within the field of physics; one part to the person who shall have made the most important chemical discovery or improvement; one part to the person who shall have made the most important discovery within the domain of physiology or medicine; one part to the person who shall have produced in the field of literature the most outstanding work of an idealistic tendency; and one part to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity among nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.

The prizes for physics and chemistry shall be awarded by the Swedish Academy of Sciences; that for physiological or medical works by Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm; that for literature by the Academy in Stockholm; and that for champions of peace by a committee of five persons to be elected by the Norwegian Storting. It is my expressed wish that in awarding the prizes no consideration whatever shall be given to the nationality of the candidates, so that the most worthy shall receive the prize, whether he be Scandinavian or not. ”

—Alfred Nobel, Alfred Nobel's Will[22][33]
 

The Nobel Foundation
Main article: Nobel Foundation

The Nobel Foundation was founded as a private organisation on 29 June 1900, specifically to manage the finances and administration of the Nobel Prizes.[34][35] In accordance with Nobel's will, the primary task of the Nobel Foundation is to manage the fortune Nobel left.[29][36] Another important task of the Nobel Foundation is to market the Nobel Prize internationally and to oversee informal administration related to the Prizes. The Nobel Foundation is not involved in any way in the process of selecting the Nobel laureates.[29][37] In many ways the Nobel Foundation is similar to an investment company, in that it invests Nobel's money to create a solid funding base for the prize and the administrative activities. The Nobel Foundation is exempt from all taxes in Sweden (since 1946) and from investment taxes in the United States (since 1953).[38] Since the 1980s, the Foundation's investments have become more profitable and as of December 31, 2007, the assets controlled by the Nobel Foundation amounted to 3.628 billion Swedish kronor (approx. US$560 million).[1][36][39][40]

The offices of the Nobel Foundation are located at Sturegatan 14 in Stockholm.

According to the statutes, the Foundation should consist of a board of five men, with its seat in Stockholm. The Chairman of the Board should be appointed by the King in Council,[41] with the other four members appointed by the trustees of the prize-awarding institutions. An Executive Director is then chosen from among the board members, a Deputy Director is appointed by the King in Council, and two deputies appointed by the trustees. However since 1995, all the members of the board have been chosen by the trustees and the Executive Director and the Deputy Director appointed by the board itself.[41] As well as the board, the Nobel Foundation is made up of the prize-awarding institutions, (the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Nobel Assembly, the Swedish Academy, and the Norwegian Nobel Committee), the trustees of these institutions, and auditors.[1][41]
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Nobel Prize during World War II

In 1938 and 1939, Adolf Hitler's Reich forbade three laureates from Germany (Richard Kuhn, Adolf Friedrich Johann Butenandt, and Gerhard Domagk) from accepting their prizes.[42][43] Each man was later able to receive the diploma and medal.[42] Even though Sweden was officially neutral during World War II, the Prizes were awarded irregularly during this period. In 1939 the Peace Prize was not awarded and between 1940 and 1942 no Nobel Prize was awarded in any category, due to the occupation of Norway by Germany from 9 April 1940.[44][45] In the subsequent year, all prizes were awarded except those for Literature and Peace.[46]

During the occupation of Norway, three members of the Nobel Committee fled the country into exile. The remaining members escaped persecution from the Nazis due to the Nobel Foundation stating that the Nobel Committee building in Oslo was Swedish property and thus a safe haven from the German Military which was not at war with Sweden. These members kept the work of the Committee going but did not award any prizes.[47] In 1944 the Nobel Foundation, together with the three members in exile, made sure that nominations were submitted for the Peace Prize and that the prize could be awarded once again.[45][47]
[edit]
Prize in Economic Sciences

The Sveriges Riksbank (Bank of Sweden) celebrated its 300th anniversary in 1968 by donating a very large sum of money to the Nobel Foundation.[48][49] The following year, the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences was awarded for the first time. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences became responsible for selecting a laureate for this prize.[48] Although not technically a Nobel Prize, it is identified with the award; its winners are announced with the Nobel Prize recipients, and the Prize in Economic Sciences is presented at the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony.[48][50][51] Subsequently, the Board of the Nobel Foundation decided that after this addition, it would allow no further new prizes.[48]
[edit]
Recent Laureates
Main article: List of Nobel laureates

In 2008 the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was shared between two French virologists who discovered HIV and a third German virologist who discovered that a virus causes cervical cancer.[52] Luc Montagnier and Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, together share half the prize for their discovery in 1983, which was that the virus now known as HIV causes AIDS.[52][53] Harald zur Hausen also shared this prize for discovering that the human papilloma virus causes cervical cancer.[52][54] The Nobel prize in Chemistry for that year was shared between three biologists.[55] Osamu Shimomura, Martin Chalfie and Roger Tsien isolated and developed a green fluorescent protein (GFP) from a jellyfish.[56][57] The GFP has a vast number of applications, from searching for a cure for deafness to developing treatments for Huntington's disease.[58][59] Martti Ahtisaari received the Peace Prize "for his important efforts, on several continents and over more than three decades, to resolve international conflicts".[60][61] The Prize in Physics was awarded to Yoichiro Nambu, Makoto Kobayashi and Toshihide Maskawa for the discovery of the mechanism of spontaneous broken symmetry in subatomic physics.[62][63] Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio received the Literature Prize with the motivation: "author of new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy, explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilization".[64][65] The Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded to Paul Krugman for his work on international trade and economic geography.[66][67]

In 2009 the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, Thomas Steitz, and Ada Yonath, for creating detailed structures of the ribosome.[68] The Physics Prize was awarded to Charles K. Kao for his research on how to transmit light through glass fibre and to Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith for inventing a sensor that turns light into electrical signals, thus making possible inventions such as the digital camera.[69][70] Elinor Ostrom and Oliver E. Williamson were awarded the prize in Economics for "their work in economic governance, especially the commons".[71][72] Elinor was the first woman to win the prize in Economics. The Physiology or Medicine Prize was awarded to Elizabeth H. Blackburn, Carol W. Greider, and Jack W. Szostak for their research on telomers.[73] The Literature Prize was awarded to Herta Müller "who, with the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose, depicts the landscape of the dispossessed".[74][75] The President of the United States, Barack Obama, was awarded the Peace Prize "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples".[76][77]
 

The Award Process

The award process is similar for each Nobel Prize, the main difference being the choice of individuals responsible for the nominations for a particular prize.[78][79][80]
[edit]
Nominations

First, nomination forms are sent out by the Nobel Committee to about 3000 qualified individuals, usually in September the year before the prize is awarded.[81][82] These individuals are often professors working in the same area as the prize they provide nominations for.[81][82] For the Peace Prize, inquiries are sent to various nominating bodies, including: governments, members of international courts, professors and rectors, former Peace Prize laureates and current or former members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee.[81][82] The deadline for the return of the nomination forms is 31 January of the year the prize is to be awarded.[81][82] The Nobel Committee looks at the forms and selects preliminary candidates. The Nobel Committee may also add additional names and often about 300 potential laureates are nominated.[81][83] The names of the nominees are never publicly announced, and neither are they told that they have been considered for the Prize. All nomination records for a prize are sealed for 50 years from the awarding of that prize.[81]
 

Selection

The Nobel Committee then consults experts in the relevant fields about the list of preliminary candidates. Using advice from the experts the Nobel Committee then writes a report, which along with the list is signed and then submitted to the different prize awarding institutions: the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet, the Swedish Academy, and the Norwegian Nobel Committee.[84] The prize-awarding institutions meet to consider the lists and vote on who will become the laureate or laureates in each field. This is done through a majority vote and their decision is final and not subject to appeal.[80] The names of the Nobel Laureates are announced immediately after the vote.[84] A maximum of three laureates and two different works may be selected per award. Except for the Peace Prize, which can be awarded to institutions, the awards can only be given to individuals.[85]
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Posthumous nominations

While posthumous nominations are not permitted, individuals who died in the months between their nomination and the decision of the prize committee were originally still eligible to receive the prize. This occurred twice: the 1931 Literature Prize awarded to Erik Axel Karlfeldt, and the 1961 Peace Prize awarded to UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld. This changed in 1974 and now laureates must be alive at the time of the October announcement. There has been one laureate, William Vickrey (1996, Economics), who died after the prize was announced but before it could be presented.[85]
 

Recognition time lag

The committee room of the Norwegian Nobel Committee

Nobel's will provides for prizes to be awarded in recognition of discoveries made "during the preceding year" and during the early years of the awards the discoveries recognised were often recent.[86][87] However, some awards were made for discoveries that were later discredited.[88] Taking the discrediting of a recognised discovery as an embarrassment, the awards committees began to recognise scientific discoveries that had withstood the test of time.[89][90][91] Since the first years the discrepancy between award and initial discovery has happened more often.[87] According to Ralf Pettersson, former chairman of the Nobel Prize Committee for Physiology or Medicine, "the criterion ‘the previous year’ is interpreted by the Nobel Assembly as the year when the full impact of the discovery has become evident".[92]

The interval between the accomplishment of the achievement being recognised and the awarding of the Nobel Prize varies from discipline to discipline. The prizes in Literature are typically awarded to recognise a cumulative lifetime body of work rather than a single achievement.[93][94] In this case the notion of "lag" does not directly apply. The prizes in Peace can also be awarded for a lifetime body of work, for example 2008 winner Martti Ahtisaari won it "for his important efforts, on several continents and over more than three decades, to resolve international conflicts".[95][96] However, they can also be awarded for specific events. In this case, they are generally awarded within a few years of the event, sometimes within the one-year timeframe.[97] For instance, Kofi Annan was awarded the 2001 Peace Prize just four years after becoming the Secretary-General of the United Nations;[98] Yasser Arafat, Yitzhak Rabin, and Shimon Peres received the 1994 award, about a year after they successfully concluded the Oslo Accords.[99]

Awards in the scientific disciplines of physics, chemistry, and medicine require that the significance of the achievement being recognised is "tested by time." In practice, this means that the lag between the discovery and the award is typically 20 or more years. For example, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar shared the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on stellar structure and evolution from the 1930s.[100][101] Not all scientists live long enough for their work to be recognised. Some important scientific discoveries can never be considered for a Prize if the discoverers have died by the time the impact of their work is realised.[102][103][104]
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Award ceremonies


Left: Melvin Calvin receiving the Nobel Prize at the Stockholm concert hall in 1961; Right: Giovanni Jona-Lasinio presenting Yoichiro Nambu's Nobel Lecture at Aula Magna, Stockholm in 2008

The Nobel Prizes, with the exception of the Nobel Peace Prize, are presented in Stockholm, Sweden, at the annual Prize Award Ceremony on the 10th of December, the anniversary of Nobel's death. The recipients' lectures are held in the days prior to the award ceremony. The Nobel Peace Prize and its recipients' lectures are presented at the annual Prize Award Ceremony in Oslo, Norway, also on the 10th of December. The award ceremonies and the associated banquets are typically major international events.[105][106][107] The Prizes awarded in Sweden's ceremonies' are held at the Stockholm Concert Hall, with the Nobel Banquet following immediately at Stockholm City Hall. The Nobel Peace Prize ceremony has been held at the Norwegian Nobel Institute (1905–1946); at the auditorium of the University of Oslo (1947–1989); and most recently at Oslo City Hall (1990-).[107][108]

The highlight of the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony in Stockholm occurs when each Nobel Laureate steps forward to receive the prize from the hands of His Majesty the King of Sweden. In Oslo, the Chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee presents the Nobel Peace Prize in the presence of the King of Norway. The Nobel Laureate receives three things: a diploma, a medal, and a document confirming the prize amount.[107][109]

Since 1902, the King of Sweden has presented all the prizes in Stockholm. At first King Oscar II did not approve of awarding grand prizes to foreigners, but is said to have changed his mind once his attention had been drawn to the publicity value of the prizes for Sweden.[110]
[edit]
Nobel Banquet
After the award ceremonies banquets are held at the Stockholm City Hall and the Grand Hotel in Oslo. Around 1,300 guests attend the Swedish banquet, which features a three-course dinner (four courses during the 90th anniversary of the prize[111]), entertainment and dancing. The banquet is attended by the Swedish Royal Family and is extensively covered by local and international media.[107][112][113] Before 1930, the banquet was held in the ballroom of Stockholm’s Grand Hotel.[114]

The 250 guests at the Peace Prize banquet in Norway enjoy a five-course meal. As well as the winner, other notable guests include the President of the Storting, the Prime Minister and (since 2006) the King and Queen of Norway.[115][116] For the first time in its history, the Nobel banquet was canceled in Oslo in 1979 because Mother Teresa refused to attend saying the money would be better spent on the poor.[117] Mother Teresa used the US$7,000 that was to be spent on the banquet to hold a dinner for 2,000 homeless people on Christmas Day.[118][119]

At the Nobel Prize Award Ceremonies in both Stockholm and Oslo the dress-code is formal, with gentlemen required to wear a dark suit and ladies required to wear dresses. The Nobel Banquet that follows in Stockholm is a strictly formal affair and gentlemen are required to wear a white tie and tailcoat, while ladies should be clad in an evening gown.[120] Wearing one's national costume is an alternative to tailcoat or evening gown.[120] If one is invited to both gatherings, the most strictly formal attire applies.[106][109][113][120]
[edit]
Nobel Lectures

According to the statutes of the Nobel Foundation, each laureate is required to hold a public lecture on a subject related to the topic for which they will be awarded the Nobel Prize.[121][122][123] All of the lectures occur during Nobel Week, before the award ceremony.[124] The lectures are organised by the same association who selected the laureates.[125][126]
[edit]
Prizes

Front side (obverse) of one of the Nobel Prize medals in Physiology or Medicine awarded in 1950 to researchers at the Mayo Clinic

A Nobel Prize laureate, earns a gold medal, a diploma bearing a citation, and a sum of money.[127] The amount of money awarded depends on the income of the Nobel Foundation that year.[6] If a prize is awarded jointly to two or more laureates the money is split among them.[7]
[edit]
Nobel Prize Medals

The Nobel Prize medals, minted by Myntverket[128] in Sweden and the Mint of Norway since 1902, are registered trademarks of the Nobel Foundation. Each medal feature an image of Alfred Nobel in left profile on the obverse (front side of the medal). The Nobel Prize medals for Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, and Literature have identical obverses, showing the image of Alfred Nobel and the years of his birth and death (1833–1896). Nobel's portrait also appears on the obverse of the Nobel Peace Prize medal and the Medal for the Prize in Economics, but with a slightly different design.[129][130] The image on the reverse of a medal varies according to the institution awarding the prize. The reverse sides of the Nobel Prize medals for Chemistry and Physics share the same design.[131]

All medals made before 1980 were struck in 23 carat gold. Now, they are made from 18 carat green gold plated with 24 carat gold. The weight of each medal varies with the value of gold, but averages about 175 g for each medal. The diameter is 66 mm and the thickness varies between 5.2 and 2.4 mm.[130][132] Due to the high value of their gold content and tendency to be on public display, Nobel medals are subject to medal theft.[133][134][135] During World War II, the medals of German scientists Max von Laue and James Franck were (illegally) sent to Copenhagen for safekeeping. When Germany invaded Denmark, chemist George de Hevesy dissolved them in aqua regia, to prevent confiscation by Nazi Germany and to prevent legal problems for the holders. After the war, the gold was recovered from solution, and the medals re-cast.[136]
[edit]
Nobel Prize Diplomas

Marie Curie's Diploma

Nobel laureates receive a Diploma directly from the hands of the King of Sweden. Each Diploma is uniquely designed by the prize-awarding institutions for the laureate that receives it.[137] The Diploma contains a picture and text which states the name of the laureate and normally a citation of why they received the prize. No Nobel Peace Prize has ever had a citation on its diplomas.[137]
[edit]
Award Money

The laureate is also given a sum of money when they receive the Nobel Prize, in the form of a document confirming the amount awarded; in 2009 the monetary award was 10 million SEK (US$1.4 million).[6] The amount of prize money may differ depending on how much money the Nobel Foundation can award that year. The purse has increased since the 1980s, when the prize money was 880 000 SEK (approximately 2.6 million SEK or US$350 000 today).[6][7][138] If there are two winners in a particular category, the award grant is divided equally between the recipients. If there are three, the awarding committee has the option of dividing the grant equally, or awarding one-half to one recipient and one-quarter to each of the others.[139][140][141][142] It is not uncommon for recipients to donate prize money to benefit scientific, cultural, or humanitarian causes.[143][144]
[edit]
Controversies and criticisms
Main article: Nobel Prize controversies

Since the first Nobel Prize was awarded in 1901, the proceedings, nominations, awards, and exclusions have generated criticism and engendered much controversy. The Prizes in Literature and Peace have tended to generate the most criticism, while the other Prizes have generally received less.[145]
[edit]
Overlooked achievements

Mahatma Gandhi, one of the more controversial omissions from the Nobel Peace Prize

The Norwegian Nobel Committee confirmed that Mahatma Gandhi was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1937, 1938, 1939, 1947 and, finally, a few days before he was murdered in January 1948.[146] The omission has been publicly regretted by later members of the Nobel Committee.[147] In 1948, the year of Gandhi's death, the Nobel Committee declined to award a prize on the grounds that "there was no suitable living candidate" that year.[147][148] Later, when the Dalai Lama was awarded the Peace Prize in 1989, the chairman of the committee said that this was "in part a tribute to the memory of Mahatma Gandhi".[149] Over the years there have been other notable omissions to the Nobel Peace Prize. High profile individuals with widely recognised contributions to peace have been missed out. As well as Gandhi, Foreign Policy magazine lists Eleanor Roosevelt, Václav Havel, Ken Saro-Wiwa, Sari Nusseibeh, Corazon Aquino and Liu Xiaobo as people who "never won the prize, but should have".[150] Other notable omissions that have drawn criticism include Abdul Sattar Edhi,[151] Irena Sendler,[152] Pope John Paul II[153] and Dorothy Day.[154]

Along with the Peace Prize, the Prize in Literature has some of the most controversial omissions. Marjorie Kehe has suggested that many notable writers have missed out on the award for political or extra-literary reasons.[155] The heavy focus on European authors, and authors from Sweden in particular, has been a subject of criticism.[156][157] The Eurocentric nature of the award was acknowledged by Peter Englund, the 2009 Secretary of the Swedish Academy, as a problem with the Award and was attributed to the tendency for the academy to relate more to European authors.[158] Other notable writers that have been overlooked for the Nobel Prize in Literature include; Henrik Ibsen, Émile Zola, André Malraux, Jorge Luis Borges, Marcel Proust, Ezra Pound, James Joyce, Vladimir Nabokov, August Strindberg, John Updike, Arthur Miller and Mark Twain.[159]

The strict rule against a prize being awarded to more than three people at once is also a cause for controversy.[160] When a prize is awarded to recognise an achievement by a team of more than three collaborators, inevitably one or more will miss out. For example, in 2002, a Prize was awarded to Koichi Tanaka and John Fenn for the development of mass spectrometry in protein chemistry, an award that failed to recognise the achievements of Franz Hillenkamp and Michael Karas of the Institute for Physical and Theoretical Chemistry at the University of Frankfurt.[11][161][162] Similarly, the prohibition of posthumous awards fails to recognise achievements by an individual or collaborator who happens to die before the prize is awarded. Rosalind Franklin, who was a key contributor in the discovery of the structure of DNA in 1953, died of ovarian cancer in 1958, four years before the achievement was recognised by awarding Francis Crick, James D. Watson, and Maurice Wilkins the Prize for Medicine or Physiology in 1962.[13] In some cases, awards have arguably omitted similar discoveries made earlier. For example, the 2000 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for "the discovery and development of conductive organic polymers" in 1977 ignored the much earlier discovery of highly conductive charge transfer complex polymers by Donald Weiss.[163][164]
[edit]
Lack of a Nobel Prize in Mathematics

There is no Nobel Prize in Mathematics, which has led to speculation about why Alfred Nobel omitted it.[165][166] An early theory was that Alfred Nobel was jealous of the mathematician Gösta Mittag-Leffler and did not want to institute a prize that Mittag-Leffler might receive.[167][168] This has been refuted by Lars Garding and Lars Hörmander because of timing inaccuracies; they suggest that the reason for the lack of Nobel Prize in mathematics is that Nobel did not consider mathematics as a "practical" enough discipline.[169][170] Several prizes in mathematics have similarities to the Nobel Prize, with both the Fields Medal and the Abel Prize being described as the "Nobel Prize of mathematics".[171][172]
[edit]
Emphasis on discoveries over inventions

Alfred Nobel left his fortune to finance annual prizes to be awarded "to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind". One part, he stated, should be given "to the person who shall have made the most important 'discovery' or 'invention' within the field of physics". Nobel did not emphasise discoveries, but they have historically been held in higher respect by the Nobel Prize committee than inventions: 77% of Nobel prizes in physics have been given to discoveries, compared with only 23% to inventions. Christoph Bartneck and Matthias Rauterberg, in papers published in Nature and Technoetic Arts, have argued this emphasis on discoveries has moved the Nobel prize away from its original intention of rewarding the greatest contribution to society in the preceding year.[173][174]

One example where 'discovery' has been preferred over 'invention' (or theory) is in the case of Albert Einstein's Nobel Prize. In 1922 Einstein was awarded the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics,[175][176] but not for his Special Theory of Relativity which he had postulated 16 years earlier. His award was actually given "for his services to Theoretical Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect".[175][177][178] This discovery was one proof for his Theory of Relativity.[179]
[edit]
Specially distinguished laureates

Maria Skłodowska-Curie, one of four people who has received the Nobel Prize twice
[edit]
Multiple laureates

Since the establishment of the Nobel Prize, four people have received two Nobel Prizes.[180] Maria Skłodowska-Curie received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903 for the discovery of radioactivity and in 1911 the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the isolation of pure radium.[181][182][183] Linus Pauling won the 1954 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his research into the nature of the chemical bond and its application to the elucidation of the structure of complex substances. Pauling also won the Peace Prize in 1962 for his anti-nuclear activism. He is the only person to have won two unshared Nobel Prizes.[184] John Bardeen received the Physics Prize twice: the first time for the invention of the transistor in 1956[185] and the second time in 1972 for the theory of superconductivity.[186][187] Frederick Sanger received the prize twice in chemistry: in 1958 for the structure of the insulin molecule and in 1980 for virus nucleotide sequencing.[188]

There have been two organisations which have received the Peace Prize several times. As a group, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has received the Nobel Peace Prize three times: in 1917, 1944, and 1963. The first two prizes were specifically in recognition of the group's work during the world wars, and the third was awarded during the year of its 100-Year Anniversary.[189] The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has won the Peace Prize twice: in 1954 and 1981 for assisting refugees.[190][191]
[edit]
Family laureates

There have been multiple laureates who belonged to the same family. The family which has received the most prizes is the Curie family, with five Nobel Prizes. Maria Skłodowska-Curie received the prizes in Physics (1903) and Chemistry (1911). Her husband, Pierre Curie, shared the 1903 Physics prize with her.[192][193] Their daughter, Irène Joliot-Curie, received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1935 together with her husband Frederic Joliot-Curie.[194] In addition, the husband of Maria Curie's second daughter, Henry Labouisse, was the director of UNICEF when it won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1965.[195]

Many families have received two laureates. Gunnar Myrdal received the prize in Economics 1974 and his wife received the Peace Prize in 1982.[196] J. J. Thomson was awarded the Nobel prize for Physics in 1906.[197] His son, George Paget Thomson, received the same prize in 1937.[198] William Henry Bragg and his son, William Lawrence Bragg, shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1915.[199] Niels Bohr won the Nobel prize in Physics in 1922, and his son, Aage Bohr, won the Nobel prize in Physics in 1975.[200][201] Manne Siegbahn, who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1924, was the father of Kai Siegbahn, who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1981.[202] Hans von Euler-Chelpin, who received the Nobel prize in Chemistry in 1929, was the father of Ulf von Euler, who was awarded the Nobel prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1970.[203] C.V. Raman won the Nobel prize in Physics in 1930 and was the uncle of Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, who won the Nobel prize in Physics in 1983.[204] Arthur Kornberg received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1959. Kornberg's son, Roger later received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2006.[205][206] Jan Tinbergen, who won the first Nobel Prize for Economics in 1969, was the brother of Nikolaas Tinbergen, who received the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.[207]
[edit]
Refusals and constraints
 There have been two laureates who voluntarily declined the Nobel Prize. Jean Paul Sartre was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 1964 but refused stating, "A writer must refuse to allow himself to be transformed into an institution, even if it takes place in the most honourable form."[208][209] The second person who has refused to accept the prize is Lê Đức Thọ, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973 for his role in the Paris Peace Accords. He declined, claiming there was no actual peace in Vietnam.[208][210]

During the Third Reich, Adolf Hitler forbade Richard Kuhn, Adolf Butenandt, and Gerhard Domagk from accepting their Nobel Prizes. Kuhn was awarded his diploma and gold medal after World War II.[208][210][211] In 1958, Boris Pasternak declined his prize in literature due to fear of what the Soviet Union government would do if he travelled to Stockholm to accept his prize.[212][213] In return the Swedish Academy, who had awarded Pasternak the prize, refused his refusal, saying "this refusal, of course, in no way alters the validity of the award".[208] The Academy announced with regret that the presentation of the Literature Prize could not take place that year, holding it until 1989 when Boris Pasternak's son accepted the prize on behalf of his father.[210][212][213]
[edit]
See also
Alternative Nobel Prize
List of Nobel laureates
List of Nobel laureates by country
List of female Nobel laureates
List of prizes, medals, and awards
Nobel Conference
Nobel laureates by university affiliation
Nobel laureates per capita
Nobel Library
Nobel Museum
Nobel Peace Center
Norwegian Nobel Committee
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References
[edit]
Bibliography
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