Encyclopedia about Chemistry

Nobel Prize winners

Since 1901, the Nobel Prize has been awarded to top scientists who have excelled in their fields in the previous year, to those who have done research which benefits mankind the most.

The Swedish chemist and industrial magnate Alfred Nobel (1833-1896) made a name for himself with the invention of dynamite, in the process making a fortune. In his last will and testament, he bequeathed some of that fortune to the founding of a foundation. The Nobel Prize is the oldest award for scientific achievement. It has been awarded since 1901, always on the anniversary of Nobel’s death, December 10. With the exception of a few years (during wars), Nobel prizes have been awarded ever since. Besides a financial reward, a gold medal and certificate are also presented.

The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded by the Norwegian king in Oslo, while the prizes for culture and the sciences are given by the Swedish king in Stockholm.

The financial prize, part of the overall award, is financed through annual interest earned on the estate of the Nobel Foundation. From 1970, when the award was around 288,000 German marks (DM), the prize rose to 1.8 million DM in 1999.

For scientists, the Nobel prize is a little like being knighted. It is one of, if not the, highest honor that can be bestowed on a scientist.

Year	Name	Nationality	Work
1901	Jacobus Henricus van ´t Hoff	Netherlands	Discovery of the law of chemical dynamics and osmotic pressure of solutions
1902	Emil H. Fischer	Germany	Syntheses in the field of sugars and purine bases
1903	Svante A. Arrhenius	Sweden	Theory of electrolytic dissociation
1904	Sir William Ramsay	G. Britain	Research on the atmosphere and the discovery of noble gases
1905	Adolf Ritter von Baeyer	Germany	Organic pigments and hydroaromatic compounds
1906	Henri Moissan	France	Research on and isolation of flourine
1907	Eduard Buchner	Germany	Biochemical studies, discovery of cell tissue fermentation
1908	Sir Ernest Rutheford	G. Britain	Element disintegration, chemistry of radioactive materials
1909	Wilhwlm Ostwald	Germany	Catalysis, chemical equilibrium and reaction speed
1910	Otto Wallach	Germany	Alicyclic compounds
1911	Marie Curie	France, Poland	Discovery of radium and polonium
1912	Victor Grignard, Paul Sabatier	France	Grignard reagents, hydration of organic compounds in the presence of slightly soluble metals
1913	Alfred Werner	Switzerland	Bonding of atoms in molecules (inorganic chemistry)
1914	Theodore W. Richards	USA	Determination of atomic mass
1915	Richard Martin Willstätter	Germany	Research on plant pigments, especially chlorophyll
1916	Not given
1917	Not given
1918	Fritz Haber	Germany	Synthesis of ammonia from elements
1919	Neudělena
1920	Walther H. Nernst	Germany	Thermodynamic studies
1921	Frederick Soddy	G. Britain	Chemistry of radioactive substances, occurrence and nature of isotopes
1922	Francis W. Aston	G. Britain	Discovery of a great number of isotopes, spectrograhpic atomic mass
1923	Fritz Pregl	Austria	Microanalysis of organic materials
1924	Neudělena
1925	Richard A. Zeigmondy	Germany,Austria	Colloidal chemistry (ultramicroscope)
1926	Theodor Svedberg	Sweden	Dispersal systems (ultracentrifuge)
1927	Heinrich O. Wieland	Germany	Production of gall bladder acids
1928	Adolf Windhaus
1929	Hans von Euler Chelpin	Sweden,Germany	Studies on the fermentation of sugars and enzymes
	Artur Harden	G. Britain
1930	Hans Fisher	Germany	Work with blood pigments and plant pigments, synthesis of hemine
1931	Friedrich Bergius	Germany	Development of experiments and techniques of high pressure chemistry
1932	Irwing Langmuir	USA	Chemistry of surface activity
1933	Neudělena
1934	Harold C. Urey	USA	Discovery of heavy hydrogen (deuterium)
1935	Frédéric Joliot	France	Synthesis of new radioactive elements (artificial radioactivity)
	Irene Joliot-Curie
1936	Peter J.W. Debye	Germany, Nl	Research on dipole moments and diffraction of X-rays and gamma rays in gases
1937	Sir Walter H. Haworth	G. Britain	Research on hydrocarbons and Vitamin C
	Paul Karrer	Switzerland	Research on carotines and flavines and Vitamins A and B2
1938	Richard Kuhn	Germany	Work on carotines and vitamins
1939	Adolf F.J. Butenandt	Germany	Studies on sexual hormones
	Leopold Ruzicka	Switzerland	Studies on polymethylene and higher terpenes
1940	Not given
1941	Not given
1942	Not given
1943	George de Hevesy	Hungary	Use of isotopes as indicators in the study of chemical processes
1944	Otto Hahn	Germany	Discovery of the splitting of the nucleus of the atom
1945	Arturi I Virtanen	FN	Discoveries in the fields of agriculture and food chemistry, methods of conservation of foods
1946	John H. Northrop	USA	Isolation of enzymes and viral proteins in pure form
	Wendell Meredith Stanley
	James B. Sumner		Crystallization of enzymes
1947	Sir Robert Robinson	G. Britain	Alkaloid research
1948	Arne W.K. Tiselius	Sweden	Electrophoretic and adsorption analyses, discovery of serum proteins
1949	William F. Giauque	USA	Contributions to chemical thermodynamics, characteristics at extremely low temperatures (adiabatic demagnetization)
1950	Kurt Alder	Germany	Development of synthetic dienes
	Otto P.H. Diels
1951	Edwin M. MCMillan	USA	Discovery of chemical transuranium
	Glenn Th. Seaborg
1952	Archer J.P. Martin	G. Britain	Invention of chromotography and isolation with the help of chromatography
	Richard L.M. Synge
1953	Hermann Staudinger	Germany	Discoveries in the field of macromolecular chemistry
1954	Linus Carl Pauling	USA	Research on the nature of chemical bonds
1955	Vincent du Vigneaud	USA	Synthesis of polypeptidic hormones
1956	Sir Cyril N. Hinshelwood	G. Britain	Mechanisms of chemical reactions
	Nikolaj Semjonov	USSR
1957	Sir Alexander R. Todd	G. Britain	Studies of nucleotides and their coenzymes
1958	Frederick Sanger	G. Britain	Structure of proteins, especially insulin
1959	Jaroslav Heyrovský	Czecho-slovakia	Polarography
1960	William F. Libby	USA	Use of the C14 isotope in age determination
1961	Melvin Calvin	USA	Research on the assimilation of acidic carbonic plants (photosynthesis)
1962	John Cowdery Kendrew	G. Britain	Studies on the structure of globulin proteins
	Max Ferdinand Perutz	G.Britain, Austria
1963	Giulio Natta	Italy	Chemistry and technology of high polymeric materials
	Karl Ziegler	Germany
1964	Dorothy Crawfoot-Hodgkin	G. Britain	Determination of the structure of biologically important materials with the help of X-ray equipment
1965	Robert Burns Woodward	USA	Synthesis of natural materials
1966	Robert S. Mulliken	USA	Work on chemical bonds and the introduction of electrons into molecules – the theory of electron orbitals
1967	Manfred Eigen	Germany	Research on very fast chemical reactions
	George Porter	G. Britain
	Ronald G.W.Norrish
1968	Lars Onsager	USA, Norway	Studies on thermodynamic irreversible processes
1969	Odd Hassel	Norway	Conformation theory
	Derek H. Barton	G. Britain
1970	Luis F. Leloir	Argentina	Discovery of sugars containing nucleotides and their functions in the biosynthesis of hydrocarbons
1971	Gerhard Heizberg	Canada	Electron structure and geometric models, especially free radicals (molecule spectroscopy)
1972	Christian B. Anfinsen	USA	Studies on ribonucleases
	Stanford Moore		Discovery of the active centre of ribonucleases
	William H. Stein
1973	Ernst Otto Fischer	Germany	Chemistry of sandwich metalorganic compounds
	Geoffrey Wilkinson	G. Britain
1974	Paul J. Flory	USA	Physical chemistry of macromolecules
1975	John W. Comforth	G. Britain	Stereochemistry of enzymatically catalysed reactions
	Vladimír Prelog	Switzerland, Yug.	Research on stereochemistry of organic molecules and their reactions
1976	William N. Lipscomb	USA	Structure of boran
1977	Ilja Prigogin	Belgium	Contributions to thermodymanic irreversible processes, especially to the theory of dissipated structures
1978	Peter D. Mirtchell	G. Britain	Research on biological transmission of energy, development of chemiosmotic theory
1979	Georg Wittig	Germany	Synthesis of organic compounds boron and phosphorus
	Herbert C. Brown	USA
1980	Paul Berg	USA	Work in the biochemistry of nucleic acids, especially hybrid DNA (technology of gene surgery)
	Walter Gilbert		Determination of the order of bases in nucleic acids
	Frederick Sanger	G. Britain
1981	Kenichi Fukui	Japan	Theory of the progress of chemical reactions (theory of outer orbitals)
	Roald Hoffman	USA
1982	Aaron Klug	G. Britain	Development of crystallography methods for the decoding of biologically important complexes of nucleic acids and proteins
1983	Henry Taube	Canada	Reaction mechanisms of electrons, especially in metal complexes
1984	Robert Bruce Merrifield	USA	Methods of isolation of peptides and proteins
1985	Herbert A. Hauptman	USA	Development of direct methods for the determination of crystalline structures
	Jerome Karle
1986	John C. Polanyi	Canada	Dynamics of basic chemical processes
	Dudley R. Herschbach	USA
	Yuan Tseh Lee
1987	Donald J. Cram	USA	Development of a molecule with structurally specific and various uses of high specificity
	Charles J. Pedersen
	Jean-Marie Lehn	France
1988	Johann Diesenhofer	Germany	Determination of three dimensional structures of the reaction centre of photosynthesis
	Robert Huber
	Hartmut Michel
1989	Sidney Altman	Canada	Discovery of the catalytic characteristics of RNA
	Thomas Robert Cech	USA
1990	Elias James Corey	USA	Development of new methods of synthesising complex natural materials (retrosynthetic analysis)
1991	Elias Robert Ernst	Switzerland	Development of highly specialised nuclear resonance spectography (NMR)
1992	Rudolph A. Marcus	USA	Contributions to the theory of electron transfer
1993	Kary Banks Mullis	USA	Discovery of the chain reaction of polymerases (PCR), with whose help copies of DNA can be made
	Michael Smith	CAN	Development of locally specific mutagenesis
1994	George A. Olah	USA	Cations of carbons
1995	Paul Crutzen	Netherlands	Revolutionary discoveries about the mechanisms which lead to the destruction of the ozone layer in higher levels of the atmosphere
	Mario Molina	Mexico
	Frank Sherwood Rowland	USA
1996	Robert F. Curl, Jr	USA	For the discovery of fulerene
	Sir Harold W. Croto	G. Britain
	Richard E. Smalley	USA
1997	Paul D. Boyer	USA	Explanation of enzymatic mechanisms which lead to the synthesis of ATP
	John E. Walker	G. Britain
	Jens C. Skou	Denmark	First discovery of enzyme transport of ions: Na+, K+, ATP
1998	Walter Kohn	USA	Discovery of theory of functional approximation
	John A. Pople	G. Britain USA	Development of a way to calculate in quantitative chemistry (Gauss computer program) – methods by which chemical reactions can be exactly determined
1999	Ahmed H. Zewail	Egypt	Work on femtosecund spectroscopy
2000	Alan J. Heeger		For the discovery of conductive polymers
	Alan G. Macdiamid
	Hideri Shirakawa

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The History of Chemistry

Chemical processes known as such were first used long before the mechanisms which caused them to function were known. Many of the developed cultures of the ancient world used even complicated processes and chemical reactions to solve the various and complex dilemmas they faced.

The isolation of copper 5000 years ago may be improbable, but in 3200 B.C. the Egyptians were able to isolate the substance from its ores, with the help of brown coal.

Most of all, the Chinese and Greeks accelerated the development of the natural sciences.

Among other notable accomplishments, many of these ancient peoples were able to come up with complex models of how our world fit together, of what it was composed. The advanced nature of many of these theories can be seen in the fact that it often took later generations many years of scientific inquiry before they were finally able to, often through experiment and calculation, either verify or refute the theories that had been proposed.

The Middle Ages saw a slowdown in scientific advancement, because the Church and its often strong, even overbearing dogmas, refused to allow any doubt to be shed on the generally accepted truths that had been proposed.

At the end of the Middle Ages, however, development began to accelerate once again, and from that time forward, the avalanche of scientific knowledge has only gained strength. Let us reflect on the fact that around the year 1800, there were only a few elements known. In the 200 years that were to follow, however, this number rose to 103. It should be added, however, that this is very likely not a final tally, and that not all existing elements have as yet been discovered. Some of these elements, it should be said, are man-made, and do not occur in nature under normal conditions.

Of course, progress, scientific or otherwise, has to be driven by people, in all of the natural sciences as well as chemistry. Great and revolutionary chemists have walked this Earth, and they have been able to change our world, accelerating its development, with their discoveries. and other scientists from other natural science fields have helped along the way, discovering, rediscovering, probing and studying reality, either proving or refuting previously held theories and hypotheses.

In these modern times, the scientists whose revolutionary accomplishments and discoveries make the most lasting impressions on our society receive the Nobel Prize. These awards are given every year, and represent the highest honour that a scientist, researcher or other expert can attain.

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