The Impossible Takes Longer (26 page)

963. "How Do I Win the Nobel Prize?" in Bettina Stiekel, ed.,
The Nobel Book of Answers,
2003

964. Elie Wiesel,
Night, 1958

965. Nobel acceptance speech, December 10,1986

966. Nobel lecture, December 11,1986

967. Nobel lecture, December 11,1986

968. Imre Kertesz,
Kaddishfor a Child not Born,
1990

969. Nobel lecture, December 7, 2002

970. Remark in 1997, quoted in www.juedisches-leben-in-breisach.de

971. Nobel lecture, December 7, 2002

972. Interview,
Newsweek,
December 2002

973. Nobel acceptance speech, December 10, 2002

974. Nelly Sachs, quoted in www.raquelpartnoy.tripod.com.ve

975. Nobel autobiography, 2002

976. Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2004

977. BBC, 2006

978. www.anc.org.2a/ancdocs/history/mandela/1994/inaugpta.html

979.
New York Times,
September 14,1993

980. Speech in St. Louis, March 22,1964

981. Nobel lecture, December 11,195*7

982. Speech to the Parliament of India, New Delhi, November 28, 1986, quoted in
Time,
December 8, 1986

983. Nobel lecture, December 11, 1970

984. Speech in Stockholm, December 12, 1971

985.
New York Times,
September 10, 1993

986. George C. Marshall,
Biennial Report of the Chief of Staff, United States Army,
September 1, I945

987. Winston Churchill,
My Early Life,
1930

988. Address at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, London, May 10, 1982; reprinted in Henry Kissinger,
Observations: Selected Speeches and Essays, 1982-1984, 1985

989. Henry Kissinger,
White House Years,
1979

990. Henry Kissinger,
A World Restored: Metternich, Castelreagh, and the Problems of Peace,
1812-22,1957

991. Olga S. Opfell,
The Lady Laureates,
1986

992. William Baer, ed.,
Conversations with Derek Walcott,
1996

993. Nobel lecture, December 11,1987

994. Michael Bliss,
Banting: A Biography,
1984

995. James C. Humes,
The Wit and Wisdom of Winston Churchill,
1994

996. Alice Calaprice, ed.,
The Quotable Einstein,
1996

997. Speech in Memphis, Tennessee, April 3,1968

998. Tyler Wasson, ed.,
Nobel Prize Winners,
1987

999. Giorgos Seferis,
A Poet's Journal,
1974

1000. Alan Wade, ed.,
The Letters of W. B. Yeats, 1954

APPENDIX 1

ALFRED NOBEL AND
THE NOBEL PRIZES

Alfred Nobel was born in 1833 in Sweden, but he grew up in Russia, where his father was engaged in the manufacture of explosives. Nobel traveled widely; he spent four years in the United States, lived most of his life in France, and died in Italy. Like his father, he was primarily a manufacturer of explosives. Nitroglycerin, which was highly unstable, blew up one of his factories in 1864, killing one of his brothers and several employees. Nobel discovered ways of mixing nitroglycerin with other substances to produce the much safer dynamite, which he patented in 1867. He expressed the belief that the destructive force of his explosives would be such as to render future wars unthinkable. The rapid adoption of dynamite in construction and mining made Nobel very wealthy. Dynamite was not his only invention; during his lifetime, he took out over 350 patents, including those for artificial silk and artificial leather. Reclusive and ascetic, a lifelong bachelor, prone to depression but gracious to other people, Nobel spoke and wrote fluent Swedish, French, English, German, and Russian. An avid reader, he also wrote novels, plays, and poetry.

In 1895, the year before his death, Nobel drew up his will. He directed that the bulk of his fortune should be invested in a fund, the annual interest from which should be divided in five equal parts, to be awarded as follows:

One part to the person who shall have made the most important discovery or invention within the field of physics; one part to the person who shall have made the most important chemical discovery or improvement; one part to the person who shall have made the most important discovery within the domain of physiology or medicine; one part to the person who shall have produced in the field of literature the most outstanding work of an idealistic tendency; and one part to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity among nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies, and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.

Nobel added, "It is my express wish that in awarding the prizes no consideration whatever shall be given to the nationality of the candidates." Each prize could be shared by a maximum of three persons. A sixth prize was added in 1969, when, on its tercentenary, the Bank of Sweden established the "Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel." The names of the prizes are typically abbreviated to Chemistry, Economics, Literature, Medicine, Peace, and Physics.

The Nobel prizes are awarded by committees established by four institutions. The Royal Swedish Academy of Science is responsible for the prizes in Physics, Chemistry, and Economics. The Prize in Medicine is awarded by the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm. The Prize for Literature is the responsibility of the Swedish Academy. And the Peace Prize is awarded by a committee of the Norwegian parliament.

At the time of Nobel's death in 1896, his industrial empire included ninety factories in twenty countries, and his fortune totaled over 30 million Swedish kronor. The first prizes were worth about $20,000 in today's values, and with inflation the real value of the prizes did not pass this amount for many decades. The exemption of the Nobel Foundation from taxes in 1946 and the liberalization of the foundation's investment rules in 1953 resulted in a rapid growth in its capital. In 2006 the value of each prize stood at 10 million Swedish kronor, or about $1,457 million.

Those authorized to nominate people for the prize include previous laureates, members of the Swedish academies and the Norwegian parliament, and members of scientific institutions throughout the world. The processes of nomination and selection are conducted in strict secrecy, and the files remain closed for fifty years. Nominations must be received by February 1. Names of the laureates are normally announced during the first half of October, and the awards are presented each year in Stockholm and Oslo on December 10, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel's death. Award ceremonies are conducted with great pomp and dignity, in the presence of the royal families of Sweden and Norway. At the formal banquet on December 10, each prize winner makes a brief acceptance speech; in the case of multiple recipients of one prize, one of the winners does so. Each laureate is also required to deliver a lecture, which is normally given a few days before or after the prize ceremony. The events constitute a weeklong party for the citizens of Oslo and Stockholm in the middle of the dark Scandinavian winter. On Lucia Day, December 13, the laureate is woken by a choir, led by a girl wearing a crown of lighted candles. Many Nobel laureates have remarked that the experience was for themselves and their families like living in a fairy tale.

In its first 106 years, the Nobel Prize was awarded to 768 individuals; in addition, nineteen organizations received the Peace Prize. Four people have won two prizes: Marie Curie (Physics and Chemistry), Linus Pauling (Chemistry and Peace), Frederick Sanger (both in Chemistry), and John Bardeen (both in Physics). The Red Cross has been awarded the Peace Prize three times, and it has been given twice to the Office of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees.

APPENDIX 2

BIOGRAPHIES OF
NOBEL LAUREATES QUOTED

A
DDAMS,
J
ANE
(USA, 1860-1935). Peace, 1931. A pioneer social worker, feminist, pacifist, and internationalist, Addams founded a famous settlement house, Hull House, in Chicago. She was the moving spirit of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, president of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, and a founding member of the American Civil Liberties Union.

A
GNON,
S
HMUEL
(Poland, Israel; 1888-1970). Literature, 1966. Born to a Yiddish-speaking family in eastern Galicia, then part of the Austrian Empire, Agnon emigrated to Palestine in 1907, returning for long sojourns in Europe. His novels and stories, written in Hebrew, deal with the decline of Jewry in Galicia and with Jewish life in Palestine.

A
GRE,
P
ETER
(USA, born 1949). Chemistry, 2003. Peter Agre, a professor at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, was honored for his work on "water channels," showing how water enters and is utilized by cells. When Agre was a child in Minnesota, his father predicted that he would one day win a Nobel Prize. Agre started his career in medicine before he switched to biological research.

A
LEIXANDRE,
V
ICENTE
(Spain, 1898-1984). Literature, 1977. Aleixan-dre devoted his life to poetry. He spent the Spanish Civil War in the Republican zone, following which he was silenced by the Franco government for four years. The Swedish Academy cited his "creative poetic writing which illuminates man's condition in the cosmos and in present-day society."

A
LFVÉN,
H
ANNES
(Sweden, 1908-1995). Physics, 1970. Both of Alf Ven's parents were physicians, his mother one of the first women doctors in Sweden. He discovered antimatter and was much ahead of his time in his work on plasma physics and the evolution of the solar system; conse-quendy, his discoveries usually took years to be accepted. He was one of the few scientists to be a member of both the American and the Soviet academies of science.

AL-
S
ADAT,
A
NWAR
(Egypt, 1918-1981). Peace, 1978. Sadat shared the Peace Prize with Menachem Begin for the Camp David agreement between Egypt and Israel. An army officer, imprisoned for his opposition to British rule in Egypt, Sadat helped overthrow the Farouk monarchy and became president of Egypt in 1970. He was assassinated in 1981 by Muslim extremists.

A
LTMAN,
S
IDNEY
(Canada, USA; born 1939). Chemistry, 1989. Born in Montreal, Altman worked as a screenwriter and poetry editor before spending "four years of overstimulation" at MIT and a period of "scientific heaven" working with Francis Crick in Cambridge. In 1971, he moved to Yale, where he became dean of Yale College. Altman started as a physicist, ended as a biologist, and won his Nobel Prize in chemistry for his studies of RNA.

A
LVAREZ,
L
UIS
(USA, 1911-1988). Physics, 1968. A classic type A personality, Alvarez was a pioneer in many areas, ranging from designing the detonators for the atomic bomb to inventing the ground control approach system for blind aircraft landing. He flew as an observer of the Hiroshima bomb. He worked in optics, cosmic rays, radar, high-energy physics, and elementary particle physics, for which he won the Nobel Prize. He later proposed the asteroid theory of the extinction of the dinosaurs.

A
NDERSON,
P
HILIP
(USA, born 1923). Physics, 1977. Anderson interrupted his studies at Harvard to serve in the U.S. Navy in World War II and afterward spent most of his career at Bell Laboratories; he also taught at Princeton, Cambridge, and Kyoto. His areas of research included crystals, superconductors, and low-temperature physics. He shared the Nobel Prize for "investigations of the electronic structure of magnetic and disordered systems." He spoke out frequendy against both the Vietnam War and "Star Wars."

A
NFINSEN,
C
HRISTIAN
(USA, 1916-1995). Chemistry, 1972. A pioneer in the study of enzymes and the genetic basis of protein organization, Anfinsen was awarded the Nobel Prize for his work on ribonuclease. He subsequendy pioneered research in interferon. Anfinsen spent his career at the National Institutes of Health, with visiting appointments in Denmark, Sweden, and Britain. In 1981, as chair of the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Human Rights, he led a delegation to Argentina to free twelve scientists imprisoned by the Videla dictatorship.

A
NGELL,
N
ORMAN
(Britain, 1872-1967). Peace, 1933. Born in England, Angell spent several years working as a cowboy and at other jobs in California. He then moved to Paris as a journalist, correspondent, and editor. His 1910 antiwar book,
The Great Illusion,
sold 2 million copies. Thereafter, Angell divided his time between Britain and the United States, writing a book a year, opposing the policy of appeasement, and promoting peace, European unity, and international control of atomic energy.

A
PPLETON,
E
DWARD
(Britain, 1892-196$). Physics, 1947. Son of a Yorkshire mill worker, Appleton became an atmospheric physicist, proved the existence of the ionosphere, and contributed to the development of radar and cathode ray oscillography. An officer in the Royal Engineers in World War I, in World War II he was administrative head of the British atom bomb project. After professorships at London and Cambridge, he became vice-chancellor of the University of Edinburgh.

A
RAFAT,
Y
ASSER
(Palestine, 1929-2004). Peace, 1994. Born in Cairo, Arafat fought in the 1947 Arab-Israel War and in 1958 founded Al Fatah, an armed underground network, which absorbed the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1969. In 1988, he renounced terrorism and recognized Israel's right to exist. He shared the Nobel Prize with Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres for their work toward the 1993 Oslo Accords on the development of Palestinian self-rule. The award to Arafat was controversial, and one member of the Nobel Committee resigned in protest. In 1996, Arafat was elected president of the Palestine Authority.

A
RIAS
S
ANCHEZ,
O
SCAR
(Costa Rica, born 1941). Peace, 1987. After taking a doctorate in Britain, Arias Sanchez entered politics in Costa Rica, becoming head of the National Liberation Party in 1979 and president of Costa Rica from 1986 to 1990. He received the Nobel Prize for negotiating peace in 1987 among Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua.

A
RNOLDSON,
K
LAS
P
ONTUS
(Sweden, 1844-1916). Peace, 1908. Arnold-son spent twenty years working for the Swedish railways before devoting himself to journalism and the cause of peace. He won election to parliament, where he worked for religious toleration, arms reduction, Swedish neutrality, and widening the suffrage. Arnoldson was honored for his work toward the peaceful separation of Norway and Sweden, the permanent neutrality of Sweden, and the founding of the Swedish Peace and Arbitration Society.

A
STURIAS,
M
IGUEL
A
NGEL
(Guatemala, 1899-1967). Literature, 1967. The works of Asturias reflected his interest in the South American Indian tradition and his support for the underdog. He wrote his best-known novel,
El Senor Presidente,
during ten years in Paris. His career rose and fell with Guatemalan politics: an ambassador under left-wing governments, an exile under right-wing dictators.