The Nobel Prize, established in 1895 by Alfred Nobel, a Swedish industrialist, inventor, and philanthropist, is one of the world’s most prestigious awards.
It recognizes exceptional achievements in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, Peace, and since 1969, Economic Sciences.
Alfred Nobel, who invented the dynamite, wanted these prizes to honor those whose work benefits humanity.
His will stipulated that the prizes be awarded annually by different institutions in Sweden and Norway, with winners chosen through a confidential and rigorous process.
The Nobel Prize selection process begins with nominations from qualified individuals like previous laureates and experts in each field.
Committees then review the candidates with the input from global specialists, and the final decisions are made by institutions such as the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the Norwegian Nobel Committee.
Each prize recognizes the most significant contributions to science, literature, or peace.
For more details on the 2024 Nobel Prize winners across all fields, check the full list below, which is useful for Kerala PSC exam preparations.
Nobel Prize Winners 2024
Usually, the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded in Oslo, Norway and the other Nobel Prizes are presented in Stockholm, Sweden.
However, in a rare instance in 2024, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was also awarded in Oslo, reflecting the historical and political ties between Sweden and Norway when Alfred Nobel wrote his will.
2024 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are tiny molecules that help control how genes work by stopping certain proteins from being made. They act like switches, turning off specific genes when they are not needed, playing an important role in many bodily processes, like growth and disease.
2024 Nobel Prize in Physics
In Physics, John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton recognized for their groundbreaking work in neural networks and machine learning, which have vast applications in fields like artificial intelligence (AI).
It is interesting note that it was two computer scientists who laid the foundations for machine learning, went on to win the Nobel Prize for Physics this year.
Machine learning is a type of AI that allows computers to learn from data and improve their performance over time without being directly programmed.
It has a wide range of applications like in autonomous vehicles, image and speech recognition, scientific research, predictive analytics etc.
John Hopfield created the Hopfield Network in 1982, a type of recurrent artificial neural network that links physics and neural computation by applying principles from statistical mechanics.
While Geoffrey Hinton known as the 'Godfather of Deep Learning', popularized the backpropagation algorithm, which is fundamental to training neural networks.
His work on deep belief networks and Restricted Boltzmann Machines -- energy-based models that connect AI and physics -- revived neural networks in the 2000s and led to major advancements in AI applications like image recognition and natural language processing.
Both their contributions revolutionized fields like computer vision, speech recognition, natural language processing, and even autonomous driving.
2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
The Chemistry prize was shared by David Baker, Demis Hassabis, and John Jumper for their contributions to protein science, particularly in computational protein design and structure prediction.
It’s fascinating to note that the works of 2024's and 2023 Nobel Prize winners (CRISPR gene-editing technology & quantum dots) are closely connected and have connections to AI and machine learning.
In 2024, the winners used their knowledge of Machine language and AI to solve one of the greatest challenges in biology: how proteins fold.
Demis Hassabis, the co founder of DeepMind AI, developed an AI that combines neuroscience and AI to solve real-world problems. It was later acquired by Google in 2014.
Alongside John Jumper who came from a chemistry background, he led the AlphaFold project, which used a massive database of known protein structures to train AI to predict how proteins fold.
This resulted in AlphaFold2, an AI that can predict the 3D structure of proteins from their amino acid sequences with remarkable accuracy.
David Baker’s team at the University of Washington developed a method called “family-wide hallucination,” using AI to design entirely new proteins.
These "hallucinations" are new, plausible protein structures created by the AI. One such protein, a light-emitting enzyme, showed that AI can help create new proteins with unique functions that don’t naturally exist.
2024 Nobel Prize in Literature
In Literature, South Korean author Han Kang was recognized for her poetic prose that confronts historical trauma and human fragility.
2024 Nobel Prize in Peace
The 2024 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Nihon Hidankyo, a Japanese anti-nuclear organization, for its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons.
Nihon Hidankyo, or the Japan Confederation Against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs, is an organization made up of atomic bomb survivors (known as hibakusha), peace activists, and concerned citizens.
The organization has played a crucial role in mobilizing public opinion against nuclear proliferation and advocating for the ratification of international treaties such as the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).
Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences 2024
Summary: List of Nobel Prize Winners 2024
Following is a list of the Nobel prize winners in 2024 for the five categories including Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and Peace:
| Field | Nobel Laureates | Contribution |
|---|---|---|
| Physics | John J. Hopfield (USA) | for foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks. |
| Geoffrey E. Hinton (UK) | ||
| Chemistry | David Baker (USA) | for computational protein design. |
| for protein structure prediction | ||
| Demis Hassabis (UK) | ||
| John M. Jumper (USA) | ||
| Medicine | Victor Ambros (USA) | for the discovery of microRNA and its role in post-transcriptional gene regulation |
| Gary Ruvkun (USA) | ||
| Economic Sciences | Daron Acemoglu (USA) Simon Johnson (USA) James A. Robinson (USA) | for studies of how institutions are formed and affect prosperity |
| Literature | Han Kang (South Korea) | for his innovative plays and prose which give voice to the unsayable. |
| Peace | Nihon Hidankyo (Organization, Japan) | for its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again |
Nobel Prize Winners of 2023:
- Physics – Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz & Anne L’Huillier.
- Chemistry – Moungi Bawendi, Louis Brus & Aleksey Yekimov.
- Medicine – Katalin Karikó & Drew Weissman.
- Literature – Jon Fosse.
- Peace – Narges Mohammadi.
- Economic Sciences – Claudia Goldin.
Read More: Nobel Prize Winners of India
📝SideNotes:
- No. of Women who won Nobel Prize in Literature – 18.
- The First Woman to receive Nobel Prize in Literature – Selma Lagerlöf (Swedish writer, 1909).
- The famous works of the 2024 Nobel Laureate Han Sang – The Vegetarian, Greek Lessons, The White Book & Human Acts.
- The famous novel written by the South Korean author Han Sang which won the Man Booker International Prize of 2016 – The Vegetarian (Translated by Deborah Smith).
- The first India to receive Nobel Prize in Literature – Rabindranath Tagore (1913).
- The first South Korean to receive a Nobel Prize – Kim Dae-jung (Nobel Peace Prize, 2000).
- his efforts to promote democracy and human rights in South Korea and for his work towards reconciliation with North Korea, including his "Sunshine Policy" aimed at improving relations between the North & South Koreas.
- Founders of DeepMind AI – Demis Hassabis, Shane Legg & Mustafa Suleyman.
- The Youngest winner of Nobel Peace Prize – Malala Yousafzai (17 years old).
- The Oldest Nobel Peace Prize Laureate – Joseph Roblat (86 years old).
- What are the nicknames given to the atomic bombs that were dropped in Hiroshima & Nagasaki on August 6th and August 9th of 1945 respectively? Little Boy & Fat Man.
- First Indian to receive Nobel Prize in Economics – Amartya Sen (1998, for his contributions to welfare economy).
Thanks for reading!!!
Post a Comment
Post a Comment