The Ultimate Nobel Prize Quiz

Alfred Nobel, a Swedish chemist, engineer and industrialist, established the Nobel Prizes in 1895 to be awarded to those who have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind in the preceding year. The prizes are awarded in the fields of Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and Peace, with a Prize in Economic Sciences added in 1968. The prize ceremonies take place annually, with each recipient receiving a green gold medal, diploma, and monetary award of 10,000,000 SEK in 2021. The Nobel Foundation was established to manage the finances and administration of the prizes. Nobel's last will specified that his fortune be used to create a series of prizes for those who confer the greatest benefit on mankind in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature, and peace. The first Nobel Prizes were awarded in 1901, and since then, 609 prizes have been awarded to 975 people and 25 organizations. In 1939, the Peace Prize was not awarded, and no prizes were awarded in any category from 1940 to 1942 due to the occupation of Norway by Germany. In 1968, Sweden's central bank donated a large sum of money to the Nobel Foundation, leading to the creation of the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. Nomination forms are sent by the Nobel Committee to about 3,000 individuals, usually in September the year before the prizes are awarded. There are four awarding institutions for the six prizes awarded. Posthumous nominations are not presently permitted, and laureates must be thought alive at the time of the October announcement. Nobel's will provided for prizes to be awarded in recognition of discoveries made "during the preceding year."Overview of Nobel Prizes and Controversies

• The Nobel Prizes increasingly recognize scientific discoveries that have withstood the test of time, rather than recent discoveries that may later be discredited.

• The interval between the award and the accomplishment it recognizes varies from discipline to discipline, with the Literature and Peace Prizes being awarded for lifetime bodies of work or specific recent events.

• The Nobel Prizes are presented in Stockholm, Sweden, for all except the Peace Prize, which is presented in Oslo, Norway.

• Each laureate is required to give a public lecture on a subject related to the topic of their prize, which normally occurs during Nobel Week.

• The Nobel Prize medals feature an image of Alfred Nobel on the obverse, with a different image on the reverse depending on the institution awarding the prize. All medals made before 1980 were struck in 23 carat gold, and since then, they have been struck in 18 carat green gold plated with 24 carat gold.

• Nobel laureates receive a diploma directly from the hands of the King of Sweden or the chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, which is uniquely designed by the prize-awarding institutions.

• The amount of prize money awarded depends on how much money the Nobel Foundation can award each year, with the purse increasing since the 1980s. The laureates are given a sum of money when they receive their prizes, with the amount varying depending on the number of recipients.

• The Nobel Committees have been accused of having a political agenda, Eurocentrism, and omitting more deserving candidates, with controversial recipients including Henry Kissinger, Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Rabin, and Barack Obama.

• Some individuals with widely recognized contributions to peace and literature have been overlooked, including Mahatma Gandhi, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Leo Tolstoy.

• The focus on European and Swedish authors for the Literature Prize has been a subject of criticism, with notable omissions including J.R.R. Tolkien, James Joyce, and Mark Twain.Controversies and Disparities in the Nobel Prizes

• Individuals who have been frequently nominated for Nobel Prizes but have never been awarded

• The controversy surrounding the three-person limit for Nobel Prizes

• The issue of posthumous awards and how they are handled by the Nobel committee

• The emphasis on discoveries over inventions in the selection of Nobel laureates

• The gender disparity in the Nobel Prizes, particularly in STEM fields

• The controversy surrounding the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel

• The statistics surrounding multiple laureates, family laureates, and refusals and constraints

• The cultural impact of the Nobel Prize and its portrayal in fiction

• The issue of Nobel laureates embracing unsupported and pseudoscientific concepts