Nobel Prize season is here. Every October, committees in Sweden and Norway name laureates in a variety of prizes related to science, literature and economics, as well as peace work. Six prizes will be awarded.
Laureates will receive their Nobel Prize medals and diplomas in Stockholm in December.
Here is a quick guide to this year’s prizes.
What are the Nobel Prizes?
Six Nobel Prizes are awarded every year, each recognizing an individual’s or an organization’s groundbreaking contribution in a specific field. Prizes are given for physiology or medicine, physics, chemistry, economic science, literature and peace work, the last of which often draws the most attention because of the fame of the people and groups nominated.
This year, there are 338 candidates for the Nobel Peace Prize — 244 individuals and 94 organizations, the Nobel committee said. Last year, the institute received 286 nominations. The highest number ever received was 376 candidates, in 2016. (Here’s how those nominations work.)
Previous Nobel Peace Prize recipients include Kailash Satyarthi and Malala Yousafzai (2014); President Barack Obama (2009); Nelson Mandela and F.W. de Klerk (1993); the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso (1989); and Mother Teresa (1979).
When are the awards announced?
One prize will be announced each day from Oct. 6 to 10, with one more on Oct. 13, between 5 a.m. and 7 a.m. Eastern time. Announcements are mainly made from Oslo and Stockholm, and are streamed live on the official digital channels of the Nobel Prize organization.
The award for physiology or medicine was awarded on Monday to Mary E. Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell and Shimon Sakaguchi for their discoveries around peripheral immune tolerance.
The award for physics will be announced on Tuesday.
The award for chemistry will be announced on Wednesday.
The award for literature will be announced on Thursday.
The award for peace work will be announced on Friday.
The award for economic sciences will be announced on Oct. 13.
What do the laureates receive?
Nobel Prize laureates will receive a diploma, a medal and a document detailing the Nobel Prize amount, which this year is set to be 11 million Swedish kronor, or about $1.17 million in current exchange rates.
Who were last year’s recipients?
Among the notable winners last year were the scientists John J. Hopfield and Geoffrey E. Hinton, who were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for discoveries that helped computers learn more in the way the human brain does, laying the foundation for the development of advanced artificial intelligence.
The Nobel Peace Prize was given to Nihon Hidankyo, an organization in Japan that has worked for more than 50 years to rid the world of nuclear weapons. Along with its policy work at the United Nations and other international peace conferences, the organization has collected and shared thousands of testimonies from survivors of the atomic bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
See a complete list of 2024 winners here.
The post What to Know About the 2025 Nobel Prizes appeared first on New York Times.
