Interesting Nobel prize facts

October 19, 2009 | In: Science facts

Sweden was home to Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite and other explosives.

Prizes first awarded in five subjects: chemistry, physics, physiology or medicine, literature, and peace.

Jean Paul Sartre refused the prize for literature in 1964 for fear it would turn him into an institution.

Pierre and Marie Curie are the first and only husband and wife to receive the Nobel Prize in Physics (in 1903).

Barack Obama won the Nobel Prize fr peace in 2009 for his “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.

806 Laureates and 23 organizations have been awarded the Nobel Prize between 1901 and 2009.

Between 1901 and 2009, the Nobel Prizes and the Prize in Economic Sciences were awarded 537 times.

In 2007, 90-year-old professor Leonid Hurwicz became the oldest person to ever win (one-third of the Prize in Economics); .

Daniel Carleton Gajdusek, who won in 1976 for his research in human slow-virus infections, spent 19 months in jail after pleading guilty in 1997 to charges of child molestation.