After last week’s extraordinary leak, all of this year’s Nobel Prize winners have been officially announced by the prize committee. Their contributions to the sciences and humanities range from life-saving vaccinations to plays and novels that explore the human condition to the fight for human rights in Iran.
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physiology or medicine
The 2023 Nobel Prize in Medicine has been awarded to Katalin Carrico and Drew Wiseman, two scientists who paved the way for mRNA vaccines against COVID-19 that have saved countless lives.
“Through groundbreaking discoveries that fundamentally changed our understanding of how mRNA interacts with the immune system, the laureates are addressing one of the greatest threats to human health in our time. “This has contributed to the unprecedented speed of vaccine development,” the committee said in its paper. press release.
The messenger RNA (mRNA) in vaccines uses a piece of genetic code that provides instructions for making proteins. Once the appropriate viral proteins are selected for the vaccine, the body will generate its own defenses against the virus. One of the main advantages of mRNA vaccines is that they can be manufactured in very large quantities because the main components of these vaccines are manufactured in a laboratory.
Physics
Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Kraus and Anne Lhuillier will jointly receive the prestigious Nobel Prize in Physics. The trio received the award for their work exploring the world of electronics.
“Their experiments have given humanity new tools to explore the world of electrons within atoms and molecules,” the Nobel Prize committee said on Tuesday. “Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krauss and Anne Lhuillier have demonstrated how to create very short pulses of light that can be used to measure rapid processes in which electrons move or energy changes. ”
When perceived by humans, fast-moving events flow into each other, much like a static flip book is perceived as continuous movement. In the electronic world, these changes occur in attoseconds, or just one millionth of a trillionth of a second. Attoseconds are so short that the number of attoseconds in one second is the same as the number of seconds since the universe began about 13.8 billion years ago.
The movement of electrons within atoms and molecules is measured in attoseconds. According to the award committee, Agostini, Krausch and Lhuillier conducted experiments that demonstrate how attosecond pulses can actually be observed and measured.
[Related: mRNA vaccine innovators win the Nobel Prize in medicine.]
chemistry
The Chemistry Prize was awarded jointly to Moungi Bawendi, Louis Brus and Alexei Ekimov for their discovery and development of quantum dots. These nanoparticles are so small that their size determines their properties. Quantum dots can now be seen on computer monitors and television screens, and they can also help biochemists and surgeons map tissues and remove tumors.
“For a long time, no one thought that it would actually be possible to make particles this small,” Johann Oqvist, chairman of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, told a news conference. “But this year’s winners were successful.”
Quantum dots are one of the smallest components of nanotechnology. The properties of an element are usually determined by the number of electrons it has. When that material is reduced to nano-dimensionality, quantum phenomena occur. This means that the properties of an element are governed by the size of the material rather than the number of electrons it has.
Ekimov created size-dependent quantum effects in colored glass and demonstrated that particle size influences the color of the glass via quantum effects. Bruce then became the first scientist in the world to demonstrate that size-dependent quantum effects in particles are floating freely in a fluid. In 1993, Bawendi revolutionized the chemical production of quantum dots. His technique yielded the near-perfect particles needed to use quantum dots in a wide range of applications.
literature
Norwegian author John Master won the literary prize for his “innovative plays and prose that give voice to the voiceless,” according to the literary prize committee. Fosse wrote approximately 40 plays, in addition to numerous short stories, novels, children’s books, essays, and poetry.His 2021 works New name: Septology VI-VII It has been hailed as “Foss’s masterpiece” and was a finalist for the 2022 International Man Booker Prize.
In an interview in 2022 los angeles book reviews, the master said: This silent word tells us what it means. It’s not a story, but you hear something in the background—a silent voice speaking. ”
Fosse’s cultural importance in Norway is so great that there is even a suite named after him in Oslo.
[Related: Rosalind Franklin missed out on a Nobel, but now she’ll help look for life on Mars.]
peace
The Norwegian Nobel Committee awards the 2023 Peace Prize to imprisoned Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi for her “struggle against the oppression of women and the promotion of human rights and freedoms for all in Iran.” did.
Mohammadi is deputy director of the Center for Human Rights Defenders, a non-governmental organization led by 2003 Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi.
In September 2022, a young Kurdish woman named Mahsa Zina Amini was killed in the custody of Iran’s moral police. Her death sparked the largest political demonstration against Iran’s theocracy since it took power in 1979. Thousands of Iranians took to the streets in peaceful protests under the slogan “Women – Life – Freedom”. The regime’s crackdown on protests has resulted in at least 20,000 protesters being jailed, thousands injured, and 500 demonstrators killed.
The committee said the motto “Women – Life – Freedom” aptly expressed Narges Mohammadi’s dedication and achievements. She is serving multiple sentences in Tehran’s Evin Prison, amounting to approximately 12 years in prison.
economy
The Nobel Prize in Economics went to Harvard University’s Claudia Goldin, who provided the first comprehensive report on “women’s earnings and labor market participation over the centuries,” including intensive research on the gender wage gap. Awarded to Professor.
Goldin is the third woman in history to win the Nobel Prize in Economics, and the first to win it alone.
“Understanding women’s roles in the workforce is important for society. Thanks to Claudia Goldin’s groundbreaking research, we now know the underlying factors and what barriers to address in the future. We now know more about what is needed,” Jacob Svensson, chair of the Economic Sciences Prize Committee, said in the release.
The Physics, Chemistry, Physiology/Medicine, Economic Sciences, and Literature awards will be awarded on December 10 in Stockholm, Sweden. The Peace Prize will be awarded on the same day in Oslo, Norway. December 10th marks the 127th anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death.