Nobel Price started in 1901 and recognizes the greatest contribution to mankind in the fields of Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and Peace. We bring to you some very interesting facts about Nobel Prize, read on to know more. It began with a mistake Alfred Nobel was a Swedish businessman who made his fortune by creating a new type of explosive, dynamite and manufacturing armaments. However, in 1888 his name mistakenly appeared in a French newspaper obituary with the heading, “The merchant of death is dead”. This affected Alfred so much that to improve his image and for the sake of his legacy, he created Nobel Award. Nominees remain a secret for 50 years At each year’s Nobel Prize function, as the winner is awarded the nominees are never disclosed. In fact, the nominees remain a secret for 50 years after the year of the award. The Nobel committee updates the information of the nominee in the database after a time period of 50 years. The youngest and oldest Nobel winner Economist Leonid Hurwicz was the oldest person alive with a Nobel Prize in 2007 at the age of 90 years. On the other hand, Malala Yousafzai became the youngest person to win the 2014’s Nobel Prize for Peace at the age of 17 years. Sir William Lawrence Bragg is the second youngest person to win the Nobel Physics Prize in 1915 at the age of 25 years for his contributions on X-Ray. Most Nobels in a family The Curie family takes the crown in this regard. We all know that Marie 1903 won the Nobel prize in Physics with her husband, Pierre. They again won a Nobel in 1911 for Chemistry. Later on, Marie's daughter Irène Joliot-Curie and her husband Frédéric Joliot-Curie got the Nobel prize for physics in 1935. Henry Richardson Labouisse, Marie’s son in law also won a Nobel in 1965 on the Peace category on behalf of UNICEF. Can an organization win Nobel Prize? Nobel Prizes in the fields of medicine, chemistry, literature, and physics, as well as the economics prize is only awarded to individuals. Each Nobel Prize can be won by up to three individuals. However, the Nobel Peace Prize can be won by organizations too; in 2020, World Food Programme, in 2012, European Union won it. There is no provision to award Nobel Prize posthumously. GeirLundestad, a former director of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, recalled Mahatma Gandhi's omission from the Nobel laureates list as "the greatest omission" in the history of the prize.
