The Nobel Prizes are five separate prizes which are awarded in the fields of Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and Peace that, according to Alfred Nobel’s will of 1895, are awarded to “those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind.” The most well-known accomplishment of the Swedish chemist, engineer, and industrialist Alfred Nobel is the creation of dynamite. He passed away in 1896. He left instructions in his will for all of his “remaining realizable assets” to be used to establish five awards that were later known as “Nobel Prizes.” The first Nobel Prize was awarded in 1901.
This year, 2022, for their contributions to the field of quantum information science, the Physics Nobel Prize 2022 has been given to John F. Clauser of J.F. Clauser & Association in California, USA, Alain Aspect of Université Paris-Saclay and École Polytechnique in Palaiseau, France, and Anton Zeilinger of the University of Vienna, Austria.
Groundbreaking experiments have been performed by Alain Aspect, John Clauser, and Anton Zeilinger employing entangled quantum states, in which two particles behave as a single unit even though they are separated. Their discoveries have set the stage for new quantum information-based technology.
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for this year was given for groundbreaking research on human evolution that made use of priceless DNA snippets found in tens of thousands of years old fossils.
The Neanderthal genome was sequenced, a new group of hominins known as the Denisovans was discovered, and the fiercely competitive field of palaeogenomics was birthed thanks to the work of geneticist Svante Pääbo at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (MPI-EVA) in Leipzig, Germany.
Researchers have been able to determine the migration patterns of ancient hominin populations as well as the origins of several parts of current human physiology, such as immune system features and methods for adapting to life at high altitudes.
“Ernaux does not so much reveal the past—she does not pretend to have any authoritative access to it—as unpack it.” – The Nobel Prize Committee
The Nobel Prize in literature has been awarded to French author Annie Ernaux, who is renowned for her deceptively simple works that draw on personal experiences of class and gender.
Ernaux was honored “for the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements and collective restraints of personal memory”, the jury at the Swedish Academy in Stockholm said.
The 82-year-old writer is known for works that blur the line between memoir and fiction. During his announcement, the permanent secretary also mentioned that they had been unable to get in touch with Ernaux to inform her of the award, which was worth about $900,000.
Simple solutions are often the best. Because they established click chemistry and ushered in the functionalism era in chemistry, Barry Sharpless and Morten Meldal received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2022. They share the honor with Carolyn Bertozzi, whose use of click chemistry to map cells opened it up to new possibilities. Among many other uses, her biorthogonal reactions are now assisting in the development of more focused cancer treatments.
Ales Bialiatski, a Belarusian human rights advocate, Memorial, a Russian human rights organization, and Center for Civil Liberties, a Ukrainian human rights organization, share the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize. The recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize are representatives of domestic civil society. They have long supported the freedom to challenge the status quo and defend citizens’ basic rights. They have worked extremely hard to gather evidence of power abuse, war crimes, and violations of human rights. Together, they serve as an example of the importance of civil society to democracy and peace.
The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, officially the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel is an economics award administered by the Nobel Foundation.
It is commonly referred to as the Nobel Prize in Economics even though it is not one of the five Nobel Prizes that Alfred Nobel established in his will in 1895. Similar criteria are used to select the recipients of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, who are then announced alongside the Nobel Prize winners and awarded the prize at the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony.
The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2022 was awarded to Ben S. Bernanke, Douglas W. Diamond, Philip H. Dybvig “for research on banks and financial crises”.
