Announcements week of October 3-10, 2003

The Nobel Prize in Literature for 2003 is awarded to the South African writer John Maxwell Coetzee

"who in innumerable guises portrays the surprising involvement of the outsider".

"J.M. Coetzee’s novels are characterised by their well-crafted composition, pregnant dialogue and analytical brilliance. But at the same time he is a scrupulous doubter, ruthless in his criticism of the cruel rationalism and cosmetic morality of western civilisation. His intellectual honesty erodes all basis of consolation and distances itself from the tawdry drama of remorse and confession. Even when his own convictions emerge to view, as in his defence of the rights of animals, he elucidates the premises on which they are based rather than he argues for them..."

Source: Press release on the Nobel Prize in Literature 2003, Svenska Akademien

The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet has today decided to award The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for 2003 jointly to Paul C Lauterbur and Peter Mansfield

for their discoveries concerning "magnetic resonance imaging"

"Imaging of human internal organs with exact and non-invasive methods is very important for medical diagnosis, treatment and follow-up. This year's Nobel Laureates in Physiology or Medicine have made seminal discoveries concerning the use of magnetic resonance to visualize different structures. These discoveries have led to the development of modern magnetic resonance imaging, MRI, which represents a breakthrough in medical diagnostics and research."

Source: Press release on the Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology 2003, Karolinska Institutet

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Physics for 2003 "for pioneering contributions to the theory of superconductors and superfluids" jointly to

Alexei A. Abrikosov Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Illinois, USA,

Vitaly L. Ginzburg P.N. Lebedev Physical Institute, Moscow, Russia, and

Anthony J. Leggett University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois, USA.

"This year's Nobel Prize in Physics is awarded to three physicists who have made decisive contributions concerning two phenomena in quantum physics: superconductivity and superfluidity. Superconducting material is used, for example, in magnetic resonance imaging for medical examinations and particle accelerators in physics. Knowledge about superfluid liquids can give us deeper insight into the ways in which matter behaves in its lowest and most ordered state."

Source: Press release on the Nobel Prize in Physics 2003, Swedish Academy of Sciences

Peter Agre
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, USA

"for the discovery of water channels"

and one half of the prize to

Roderick MacKinnon
Howard Hughes Medical Institute, The Rockefeller University, New York, USA

"for structural and mechanistic studies of ion channels".

"We human beings consist to about 70% of salt water. This year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry rewards two scientists whose discoveries have clarified how salts (ions) and water are transported out of and into the cells of the body. The discoveries have afforded us a fundamental molecular understanding of how, for example, the kidneys recover water from primary urine and how the electrical signals in our nerve cells are generated and propagated. This is of great importance for our understanding of many diseases of e.g. the kidneys, heart, muscles and nervous system."

Source: Press release on the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2003, The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

Robert F. Engle
New York University, USA

"for methods of analyzing economic time series with time-varying volatility (ARCH)"

Clive W. J. Granger
University of California at San Diego, USA

"for methods of analyzing economic time series with common trends (cointegration)".

"Researchers use data in the form of time series, i.e., chronological sequences of observations, when estimating relationships and testing hypotheses from economic theory. Such time series show the development of GDP, prices, interest rates, stock prices, etc. During the 1980s, this year's Laureates devised new statistical methods for dealing with two key properties of many economic time series: time-varying volatility and nonstationarity."

Source: Press release on the Nobel Prize in economics 2003, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

Shirin Ebadi

for her efforts for democracy and human rights.

"... She has focused especially on the struggle for the rights of women and children.

As a lawyer, judge, lecturer, writer and activist, she has spoken out clearly and strongly in her country, Iran, and far beyond its borders. She has stood up as a sound professional, a courageous person, and has never heeded the threats to her own safety....

Source: Press release on the Nobel Prize in Peace 2003, Norwegian Nobel Committee

Princeton Ten Previous Nobel Laureates

Physics ('45,'57,'63,'80,'93,'98,'04), Chemistry ('46), Medicine/Physiology('95), Economic Sciences ('79,'94,'02)

Physics 1945

"for the discovery of the Exclusion Principle, also called the Pauli Principle"

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Physics 1957

LEE, TSUNG-DAO, China, Columbia University, New York, NY, U.S.A., b. 1926:

"for their penetrating investigation of the so-called parity laws which has led to important discoveries regarding the elementary particles"

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Physics 1963

WIGNER, EUGENE P., U.S.A., Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, b. 1902 (in Budapest, Hungary), d. 1995:

"for his contributions to the theory of the atomic nucleus and the elementary particles, particularly through the discovery and application of fundamental symmetry principles";

and the other half jointly to:

GOEPPERT-MAYER, MARIA, U.S.A., University of California, La Jolla, CA, b. 1906 (in Kattowitz, then Germany), d. 1972; and

JENSEN, J. HANS D., Germany, University of Heidelberg, b. 1907, d. 1973:

"for their discoveries concerning nuclear shell structure"

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Physics 1980

CRONIN, JAMES, W., U.S.A., University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, b. 1931; and

FITCH, VAL L., U.S.A., Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, b. 1923:

"for the discovery of violations of fundamental symmetry principles in the decay of neutral K-mesons"

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Physics 1993

HULSE, RUSSELL A., U.S.A., Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, b. 1950, and

TAYLOR Jr., JOSEPH H., U.S.A., Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, b. 1941:

"for the discovery of a new type of pulsar, a discovery that has opened up new possibilities for the study of gravitation"

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Physics 1998

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has awarded
The 1998 Nobel Prize in Physics jointly to

Professor Robert B. Laughlin, Stanford University, California, USA,
Professor Horst L. Störmer, Columbia University, New York and Lucent Technologies' Bell Labs, New Jersey, USA, and
Professor Daniel C. Tsui, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, USA.

The three researchers are being awarded the Nobel Prize for discovering that electrons acting together in strong magnetic fields can form new types of "particles", with charges that are fractions of electron charges.

Citation:
"for their discovery of a new form of quantum fluid with fractionally charged excitations."

Chemistry 1946

SUMNER, JAMES BATCHELLER, U.S.A., Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, b. 1887, d. 1955:

"for his discovery that enzymes can be crystallized"

the other half jointly to:

NORTHROP, JOHN HOWARD, U.S.A., Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, Princeton, NJ, b. 1891, d. 1987; and

STANLEY, WENDELL MEREDITH, U.S.A., Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, Princeton, NJ, b. 1904, d. 1971:

"for their preparation of enzymes and virus proteins in a pure form"

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Physiology or Medicine 1995

LEWIS, EDWARD B., U.S.A., California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, U.S.A., b. 1918;

NsSSLEIN-VOLHARD, CHRISTIANE, Germany, Max-Planck-Institut f_r Entwicklungsbiologie, T_bingen, Germany, b. 1942; and

WIESCHAUS, ERIC F., U.S.A., Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, U.S.A., b. 1947:

"for their discoveries concerning the genetic control of early embryonic development"

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Economic Sciences 1979

SCHULTZ, THEODORE W., U.S.A., University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, b. 1902 d. 1998: and

LEWIS, Sir ARTHUR, United Kingdom,, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, U.S.A., b. 1915 (in the West Indies), d. 1991:

"for their pioneering research into economic development research with particular consideration of the problems of developing countries"

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Economic Sciences 1994

HARSANYI, JOHN C., U.S.A., University of California, Berkeley, CA, b. 1920 (in Budapest, Hungary);

NASH, JOHN F., U.S.A., Princeton University, NJ, b. 1928; and

SELTEN, REINHARD, Germany, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universit,t, Bonn, Germany, b. 1930:

"for their pioneering analysis of equilibria in the theory of non-cooperative games"

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Economic Sciences 2003

Sources: Nobel Foundation -- www.nobel.se         Nomination and Selection of the Nobel Laureates