Background: The first Nobel Prizes were awarded in Stockholm, Sweden in 1901 on the fifth anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel. Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel invented dynamite and other high explosives.
Type of Nobel Prize: Originally, the prize was awarded in the fields of Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and Peace. Later in 1968, a sixth prize was added in the field of economic sciences, but it is not officially called Nobel Prize (Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences).
Important facts:
Prizes may be given only to individuals, except the Peace Prize, which may also be conferred upon an institution. However, 3 individuals at max, can share a prize.
All the Nobel Prizes are given in Stockholm, Sweden except for the Nobel Peace Prize which is awarded in Oslo, Norway.
Each Nobel Prize consists of a gold medal, a diploma bearing a citation, and a sum of money.
The first woman to win the Nobel Prize was Marie Curie, and she won the award twice.
Nobel Prize and India
Poet and writer Rabindranath Tagore was the first non-European and Indian to get a Nobel Prize in 1913 in literature.
India received its first Nobel Prize in physics in 1930 when scientist Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman was awarded “for his work on the scattering of light and for the discovery of the effect named after him”. This phenomenon is now known as Raman Effect.
