Literature, peace, economics, medicine, physics and chemistry… Who are the winners of the 2024 Nobel Prizes?
Every year, the Nobel Prizes are awarded at the beginning of October. There are six of them: medicine, chemistry, physics, literature, peace and economy. Created by the Swedish Central Bank “in memory” of the inventor, the “latest” Nobel Prize was, for the record, added in 1969 to the five traditional prizes provided for in Alfred Nobel’s will.
For each discipline, a reward in the amount of 10 million Swedish crowns (around 920,000 euros) is awarded to the winner, or shared between several recipients. The prizes are awarded during ceremonies organized in mid-December in Stockholm (Sweden) and Oslo (Norway).
In 2024, the name(s) of the winners of each Nobel Prize were made official between Monday October 7 and Monday October 14, in Stockholm and Oslo as well as on the foundation’s website, nobelprize.org. As for the awarding of the Nobel Prizes, it takes place each year on December 10, the anniversary of the death of the “daddy” of the Nobels, the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel. An awards ceremony is then held at Konserthuset Stockholm (Stockholm’s concert hall) and a banquet takes place at the Swedish capital’s town hall.
The Nobel Prize in medicine or physiology was awarded to two American researchers, Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun for the discovery of microRNAa new class of tiny RNA molecules. The work has established the major role of these molecules in gene regulation for hundreds of millions of years.
Micro-RNA is an intermediary, which can start or stop the development of our muscle cells, intestinal cells and different types of nerve cells, so that they carry out their functions. The discoveries of Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun could have very practical uses in the future, notably for the treatment of serious illnesses such as cancer, diabetes or autoimmunity, but also of hearing or speech disorders. view.
The Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to the American John Hopfield and the British-Canadian Geoffrey Hinton. They received the award for “their fundamental discoveries and inventions enabling machine learning with artificial neural networks.” The first, aged 91, is a professor at Princeton University and the second, 76, at Toronto University.
Working on the subject since the 1980s, artificial neural networks are inspired by those in the human brain. They have advanced research in various fields such as particle physics, astrophysics and materials science. They are now essential in computing and in the development of artificial intelligence.
THE Americans David Baker and John M. Jumper and Briton Demis Hassabis have won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work on proteins. David Baker was awarded for “Computational Protein Design” while Demis Hassabis and John M. Jumper received the prize for their work on “Protein Structure Prediction via Artificial Intelligence”.
David Baker created the “first protein entirely different from all known existing proteins.” The other two have “succeeded in using artificial intelligence to predict the structure of almost all known proteins”. This knowledge of proteins and their creation can make it possible to produce new pharmaceutical products, develop vaccines or even lead to a greener industry.
The Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the Korean Han Kangfor “his intense poetic prose that confronts historical trauma and exposes the fragility of human life.” “Han Kang’s work is characterized by this double exposure of pain, a correspondence between mental torment and physical torment closely linked to Eastern thought,” writes the institution. She is the first Korean author to receive such an award.
The winner began her career in 1993 with poems in a literary magazine and then released a collection of short stories Yeosu’s love in 1995. She then broke through internationally in 2007 with her novel The Vegetarian. She has to date published six novels, the latest of which is Impossible goodbyes, in which she often takes the contemporary history of South Korea as a context.
The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the Japanese organization Nihon Hidankyo. This is the confederation of survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The organization is rewarded for “its efforts in favor of a world without nuclear weapons and for having demonstrated through testimonies that nuclear weapons must never be used again.”
Founded in 1956, the organization first worked to push the Japanese government to allocate rights to hibakushas, terms designating the victims of the atomic bombings, then focused on actions to denounce the use of nuclear bombs, as well as their testing and funding.
The Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences was awarded to Turkish-American Daron Acemoglu and British Simon Johnson and James Robinson “for their studies of how institutions form and affect prosperity.”
The three winners, who work in the United States, brought “new perspectives on why there are such large differences in prosperity between nations”, based on the observation that “the 20% of the richest countries in the world are today around 30 times richer than the poorest 20%. One of the main explanations put forward in their work is that of “persistent differences between social institutions”.
Born in 1896, this prestigious distinction was divided from the start into five categories – peace, literature, physics, chemistry and medicine – to which a sixth was later added (economics). The father of the Nobel Prize winner wanted to leave the image of a good man after his death. In his last wishes, via his will of November 27, 1895, which took up one page (opposite), the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, inventor of dynamite and seen by some as “a merchant of death”, therefore made a major wish: the proceeds of the inheritance will be distributed to those who, during the past year, have rendered “the greatest services to humanity”.
At the time of his death in 1896, Alfred Nobel was one of the richest men in the world. 32 million Swedish crowns (more than 3 million euros) are thus put at the service of a new foundation. The latter is responsible for paying each year the income accumulated via the millionaire’s capital to the holders of the five Nobel Prizes, created at the same time. Reserved for some of the best scientists, writers and peacemakers from around the world, the Nobel Prize has since gained international recognition. Today it is even considered the most prestigious Prize of all.
The very first five Nobel Prizes were awarded on December 10, 1901, by the King of Sweden and the Parliament of Norway, when the two countries still shared the same crown (since 1815). When they separated, in 1905, a distribution of prizes was made: a Nobel Peace Prize now awarded by Norway and Nobel Prizes in literature, physics, chemistry and medicine awarded by Sweden. As for the Nobel Prize in Economics, it was created in 1968 by the Bank of Sweden. Although it is not strictly speaking a “Nobel” prize because Alfred Nobel did not include it in his will, he is commonly referred to as a “Nobel in Economics”.
Following this integration, the Nobel Foundation decided to freeze the list of prizes so that no new discipline would be created. There will therefore never be a Nobel Prize in mathematics. On this subject, legend has it that the father of the Nobel wanted to take revenge on a rival in love, a mathematician named Gosta Mittag-Leffler who would have seduced his mistress, by not creating a Nobel in mathematics. But according to two Swedish authors published in the journal Mathematical Intelligencer, Lars Garding and Lars Hömander, this version is questionable. According to them, two reasons coexist to explain the absence of this key discipline in the Nobel panel: At the time of the creation of the Nobel Prize, there already existed a Scandinavian mathematics prize; and Alfred Nobel “didn’t really like” this discipline, which clashed with his practical nature.
The Nobel Prize was born from the last wishes of Alfred Nobel, a wealthy industrialist and chemist who invented dynamite (with the primary objective of using it in public works) but also a fervent defender of peace. Since then, the Nobel Prizes have been awarded each year to people “who have brought the greatest benefit to humanity”, through their inventions, discoveries and improvements in knowledge; by the most impactful literary work; or through their work to promote peace. Do you know the current amount of the Nobel Prize? The winners of each Nobel Prize share an amount of 10 million Swedish crowns (around 920,000 euros).