Nobel - Michael Worek

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Ostwald

      Born September 2, 1853, in Riga, Latvia, and died April 4, 1932, in Grossbothen, Germany. In recognition of his work on catalysis and for his investigations into the fundamental principles governing chemical equilibrium and rates of reaction.

      Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

      Emil Theodor Kocher

      Born August 25, 1841, in Bern, Switzerland, and died July 27, 1917, in Berne.For his work on the physiology, pathology and surgery of the thyroid gland.

      Nobel Prize in Literature

      Selma Ottilia Lovisa Lagerlöf

      Born November 20, 1858, in Östra Emterwik, Sweden, and died March 16, 1940, in Marbacka. In appreciation of the lofty idealism, vivid imagination and spiritual perception that characterize her writing.

      Nobel Peace Prize

      Auguste Marie François Beernaert

      Born July 26, 1829, in Ostend, Belgium, and died October 6, 1912, in Lucerne, Switzerland. [For] tireless efforts for peace in the last 30 years of his active life.

      &

      Paul Henri Benjamin Balluet d’Estournelles de Constant, Baron de Constant de Rebecque

      Born November 22, 1852, in La Flèche, France, and died May 15, 1924, in Paris. [For] services rendered to the international cause of peace and solidarity.

Selected Profiles of Nobel Laureates

      Wilhelm Wien (1864–1928)

      1911 Physics

      For his discoveries regarding the laws governing the radiation of heat.

      Wilhelm Carl Werner Otto Fritz Franz Wien was the son of a rural landowner in Fischhausen, East Prussia, and seemed likely to follow in his father’s footsteps until an economic crisis forced the family to uproot their lives. They moved to Drachstein in 1866, where the young Wilhelm attended school for the first time. Not long afterward, he transferred to The City School at Heidelberg. As Wien’s fascination with science grew, so did his ambitions of studying at university.

      In 1882 he entered the University of Göttingen and the University of Berlin to study mathematics and the natural sciences. Between 1883 and 1885 he worked in the laboratory of Hermann von Helmholtz, a noted German physicist, while continuing his studies. A year later, in 1886, Wien presented his thesis on experiments on the diffraction of light on sections of metal and the influence of materials on the color of refracted light and received his doctorate.

      When his father became ill, however, Wien was obliged to return home to help run the household. Despite this professional setback, he did not break his ties with the scientific world and managed to spend some time experimenting with Helmholtz. After a number of years the family estate was sold, allowing Wien to return to Helmholtz’s laboratory.

      Wien served as a professor of physics in Aix-la-Chapelle in 1896, and there he met Luise Mehler. The couple married in 1898 and had four children together.

      Wien’s scientific work during his life did not offer solutions to all the questions that science asked at the time, but his contributions were undeniable. In 1893 he proved that the length of a radioactive wave emitted by a black body varies with temperature and demonstrated the rule that would become known as the law of displacement. It was for this research into thermal radiation that he was eventually awarded the 1911 Nobel Prize in Physics.

      The prestige of this award soon allowed him to become a member of the science academies of Berlin, Göttingen, Vienna, Stockholm, Christiania and Washington and an honorary member of the Physical Society of Frankfurt. Wien also lectured in many cities, finally moving to Munich in 1920, where he stayed with his family until his death eight years later. Wien’s autobiography was posthumously published in 1930 and entitled Aus dem Leben und Wirken eines Physikers (The Life and Work of a Physicist), demonstrating how closely he identified himself with his occupation.

      Marie Curie (1867–1934)

      1903 Physics, 1911 Chemistry

      In recognition of her services to the advancement of chemistry by the discovery of the elements radium and polonium, by the isolation of radium and the study of the nature and compounds of this remarkable element.

      Marie Curie, the first woman to be awarded a Nobel Prize as well as the first person to win a second one, was born Maria Sklodowska in Warsaw, Poland. A healthy, intelligent child with a formidable memory, her first contact with the world of science came from her encouraging father. While still a youth, she became involved in a revolutionary student organization and decided to leave her native Poland for vibrant Paris, France.

      Although it took successive proposals, in 1895 Marie finally accepted the scientist Pierre Curie’s hand in marriage. The two rejected the traditional religious ceremony, however, as Pierre was agnostic and Marie, despite a catholic upbringing, was anticlerical at the time of their wedding. The couple settled in Paris, had two daughters and Marie, despite her dedication to research, showed herself to be a concerned and zealous mother.

      Only nine years after completing her studies at the Sorbonne, Curie won her first Nobel Prize, which she shared with her husband and Henri Becquerel, for the couple’s research into Becquerel’s discovery of the phenomenon of spontaneous radioactivity. The Curies’ research was arduously performed with primitive equipment as they had very little financial or logistical support available to them at the time.

      In 1906 the couple’s happiness unfortunately ended with the accidental death of Pierre. After this, Marie accepted an invitation to lecture at the Sorbonne, taking over from her husband and becoming the first woman to lecture at the prestigious institution. The 1911 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was given to Marie Curie in her own right, for her discovery of radium and polonium. Although in 1903, due to illness, neither Curie could travel to Stockholm to receive the Nobel Prize in Physics, on the occasion of her second award, Marie, accompanied by her daughter Irène and her sister, was proudly present at the ceremony.

      After receiving the second Nobel Prize, Marie Curie focused her attentions on the medical uses of radium to treat cancer. In this task she was aided by her daughter Irène and son-in-law Frédéric Joliot both of whom would be laureates in 1935 for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

      Marie Currie died in France, from cancer caused by prolonged exposure to radiation, a risk she understood during the research to perfect its beneficial use.

      Allvar Gullstrand (1862–1930)

      1911 Physiology or Medicine

      For his work on the dioptrics of the eye.

      Allvar Gullstrand, eldest son of Dr. Pehr and Sofia Gullstrand, was born in Landskrona, Sweden. He began his studies at an early age, first in his hometown and later in Jönköping, a city on the southern tip of Lake Vättern, about 100 miles (150 km) east of Gothenburg.

      In 1880 he enrolled in the prestigious Uppsala University, founded in 1477 and the oldest in the country. Gullstrand remained at this institution until 1885, when he decided to spend a year in Vienna, which at the time was the capital of powerful Austria-Hungary. From here he went on to Stockholm, where he resumed his studies. In 1888 he graduated with his degree in medicine, presented his doctoral thesis in 1890 and in 1891 was appointed a lecturer in ophthalmology. Three

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