Nobel prizes are the most prestigious international awards for intellectual performance. The awards are administered by the Nobel Foundation in Sweden. They have been awarded for great achievements in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and peace since 1901. Later in 1968, achievements for economics were added in memory of Alfred Nobel, the founder of the Nobel Prize.
Nobel Prize in Physics
The Nobel Prize in physics is 2010 was awarded jointly to Andre Gelm and Konstantin Novoselov. The prize money was distributed between them equally. They were awarded for work on groundbreaking experiments regarding the two-dimensional material ‘Graphene’.
Graphene is a form of carbon which is just one atom thick. It is an excellent conductor of heat and electricity. Andre Gelm and Konstantin Novoselov extracted thin layers of particles from graphite of a pencil making a new material called Graphene. They found the unique properties of Graphene. It can now be used for practical applications in the development of electronic devices.
Nobel Prize in Chemistry
Richard F. Heck, Ei-ichi Negishi and Akira Suzuki were awarded jointly the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 2010. The work for which they were awarded was ‘palladium-catalyzed cross couplings in organic synthesis’. Every organic synthesis laboratory and industrial processes across the world uses the Heck, Negishi and Suzuki reactions.
During the initial years, it was a challenge to combine carbon atoms together because carbon does not react with other similar atoms due to its structural configuration. Certain reactions were discovered by the scientists using Palladium as a catalyst so that carbon reacts more easily.
In 1968, a series of papers were published by Heck reporting the addition of methyl and phenylpalladium halides to olefins at room temperature. A further step allowed the unprecedented alkylation of an olefin. Later, in 1976 the palladium-catalyzed cross-coupling of organometallic species with organohalides was investigated by Negishi. This demonstrates the permission of highly selective reactions by organozinc compounds under mild conditions in the presence of a range of functional groups. In 1979, Suzuki demonstrated that organoboron compounds in the presence of a base could be cross coupled with vinyl and aryl halides using palladium as a catalyst.
Further modification and improvement was made in these reactions in subsequent years for use in synthesis of a wide range of complex natural products.
Nobel Prize in Medicine
The Nobel Prize in 2010 in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Robert G. Edwards for the development of in vitro fertilization. He was called the father of test tube baby. Since 1955, he had been working on the process of in vitro fertilization along with his colleague, Patrick Steptoe, and achieved it by 1968.
A human culture media was developed by Edwards to allow the fertilization and early embryo culture. His colleague worked on laprosopy for recovering oocytes from patients with tubal infertility. About four million babies were born by in vitro fertilization technique because of their huge efforts. Edwards was awarded the Albert Lasker Clinical Medical Research Award by the Lasker Foundation in 2001 for the development of in vitro fertilization.
Nobel Prize in Literature
In 2010, Mario Vargas Llosa was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature. He was awarded for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual’s resistance, revolt, and defeat. Through his work The Time of the Hero, he became popular in the world.
Some of his well-known works are Conversation in the Cathedral, The War of the End of the World, and The Feast of the Goat. He is the first South American winner of the prestigious 10 million kronor, or $1.5 million, Nobel Prize in literature since Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez won in 1982.
Nobel Peace Prize
Liu Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize 2010 for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China. Announcement of the Nobel Peace Prize for Liu created a huge angry response from China.
He was a literary critic in 1980s. He took part in the Tiananmen protests in 1989 for advocating the fundamental rights in China. He had been arrested several times since spending 20 months in detention after the 1989 protests. He was sentenced in 2009 in prison for 11 years for subversion of state power. There were people who received Nobel Prize who were under house arrest and prison before receiving it. However, Liu was the first one who was honored with Nobel Peace Prize while being in prison.
Nobel Prize in Economics
The Nobel Prize in economics in 2010 was awarded jointly to Peter A. Diamond, Dale T. Mortensen and Christopher A. Pissarides. They were awarded for their work on analysis of markets with search frictions.
Demand and supply are the two factors on which a market is based. There are situations in market where a lot of people are there who are looking for employment and companies having vacancies, but still the vacancies are not being filled. Also, we find many people who want to buy and sell a house at the same time, but still do not find a solution.
The work of the Nobel Prize Winners helped in providing better solutions in these areas. A theoretical framework was formulated by them for search markets. Peter Diamond focused on the analysis of foundations of search markets. The theory was expanded and applied to labor market by Dale Mortensen and Christopher Pissarides. This theory however can also be applicable to house, monitory theory and various areas of economics.