Alfred  Nobel
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short biography
books by or about Alfred Nobel movies & TV about Alfred Nobel The Nobel Prizes
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"If I have a thousand ideas and only one of them turns out to be good, I am satisfied."
"My dynamite will sooner lead to peace than a thousand world conventions. As soon as men will find that in one instant,
whole armies can be utterly destroyed, they surely will abide by golden peace."
"I intend to leave after my death a large fund for the promotion of the peace idea, but I am skeptical as to its results."
official Alfred Nobel bio at Nobel Prize website
Alfred Nobel entry at Wikipedia
Books  By  or  About  Alfred  Nobel
"Nemesis: A Prose Tragedy in Four Acts" [1896] by Alfred Nobel
About Roman murderess Beatrice Cenci [1577-99], partly inspired by Percy Bysshe Shelley's "The Cenci"; the playscript was printed at the time of Nobel's death; considered scandalous and blasphemous, the entire stock except for three copies was destroyed immediately after his death; one surviving edition (bilingual Swedish–Esperanto) was published in Sweden in 2003; it has been translated into Slovenian via the Esperanto version and into French; it was published in Russia in another bilingual (Russian–Esperanto) edition in 2010.
"The Life of Alfred Nobel" [William Heineman Ltd. 1929] by H. Schück & R. Sohlman
"Alfred Nobel: The Loneliest Millionaire" [Ward Ritchie Press, 1969] by M. Evlanoff & M. Fluor
"The Legacy of Alfred Nobel" [The Bodley Head, 1983] by R. Sohlman, Translated by E. Schubert
Swedish original "Ett Testamente" published in 1950
  | "Alfred Nobel: A Biography" [1993] by Kenne Fant, Translated by Marianne Ruuth Arcade Publng 9x6 pb [8/2014] for $12.34 Arcade Publng 9¼ x6 pb [10/2006] for $14.01 Arcade Publng 9½x6½ hardcover [10/93] out of print/used |
  | "Alfred Nobel: Inventive Thinker" [2004] by Tristan Boyer Binns Franklin Watts library hardcover [2/2004] out of print/used Franklin Watts library hardcover [2/2004] out of print/used |
Movies  &  Television  About  Alfred  Nobel
"The Story of Alfred Nobel" short [1939] /tt0031982/
"No Greater Love" aka "The Alfred Nobel Story" [1952] /tt0043635/
http://www.amazon.com/Alfred-Nobel-Story-Hilde-Krahl/dp/B000068TP2/
"Dynamite, The Story of Alfred Nobel" TV movie [1954] /tt1480067/
"Alfred Nobel - Mr. Dynamite" TV movie [1983] /tt0297718/
"Alfred" aka "Alfred Nobel" [1995] /tt0112316/
"Nobel: The Man" [2001]
http://www.amazon.com/Nobel-Man-Prize-Science/dp/B002G1NZT4/
"Alfred Nobel" [2006] episode /tt0858167/
of the "Nisse Hults Historiska Snedsteg" TV series
"Eine Liebe für den Frieden - Bertha von Suttner und Alfred Nobel" TV movie [2015] /tt4353858/
The  Nobel  Prizes
official Nobel Prizes website
official Nobel Foundation website
official list of all Nobel Prizes
Swedish Academy [est. 1786], Källargränd 4, Gamla Stan, Stockholm, Sweden
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences [founded in 1739]
The Swedish Nobel Committee (2026)
Berit Reiss-Andersen, chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee (2022)
search for books on keywords 'nobel+prize+winner' {returns over 900 titles} at Amazon
jump to »» Peace Prize •• Literature •• Physics •• Chemistry •• Medicine •• Economics
Alfred Nobel's will stipulated that no distinction of race or color or nationality should determine who receives the awards. Unaware of this, this writer/webmaster exchanged emails with someone at the Nobel website about why they did not display the national flag for each laureate (to make it easier to extract American laureates, for example) and the response was that the organization is bound not to do such a thing. The intention of this page is to highlight winners of the United States, so the plan is to build the six lists, marking Americans with the U.S. flag on the left-hand side and gradually adding national flags for other laureates on the right-hand side.
German physicist Lise Meitner [1878-1968]: entry at Wikipedia
The  Nobel  Peace  Prize
Spirit of America Bookstore's 2023 • imprisoned activist Narges Mohammadi [b. 1972] of Iran   2024 • anti-nuclear weapons group Nihon Hidankyo [est. 1956] of Japan   2025 • pro-democracy leader María Corina Machado of Venezuela   2026 • lawyer and former U.N. Human Rights Commissioner Ms. Navi Pillay of South Africa   The  Nobel  Prize  in  Literature
Spirit of America Bookstore's 2023 • playwright & novelist Jon Fosse [b. 1959] of Norway   2024 • novelist Han Kang [b. 1970] of South Korea   2025 • writer László Krasznahorkai [b. 1954] of Hungary   2026 • poet Anne Carson [b. June 1950] of Canada   The  Nobel  Prize  in  Physics
Marie Sklodowska Curie [1867-1934]
Werner Karl Heisenberg [1901-76] won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1932
“If I could explain it to the average person, [it] wouldn't have been worth the Nobel Prize.” - in 1965
2017 • M.I.T. physics professor Rainer Weiss [1932-2025] and CalTech physics professors Kip Thorne and Barry Barish
2022 • Alain Aspect (of France), John F. Clauser (of USA), and Anton Zeilinger (of Austria)
2023 • experimental physicist Pierre Agostini (of Ohio State University, USA), experimental physicist Ferenc Krausz http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Clarke_(physicist)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Devoret - born in France
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_M._Martinis
The  Nobel  Prize  in  Chemistry
Marie Sklodowska Curie [1867-1934]   Irène Joliot-Curie [1897-1956]   Annual Review of Physical Chemistry paper [1990] co-authored by Bawendi and Brus
2025 • Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson, and Richard Robson
2026 • Henri B. Kagan  The  Nobel  Prize  in  Physiology or Medicine
2025 • Mary E. Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell, and Shimon Sakaguchi
2026 • Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann, and Georg Nagel
The  Nobel  Memorial  Prize  in  Economic  Sciences
Spirit of America Bookstore's Friends  &  Family
brother Robert Hjalmar Nobel [1829-96]
first love Alexandra in Russia, who rejected his proposal of marriage
secretary & longtime friend Austro-Bohemian Countess Bertha Kinsky von Suttner [1843-1914] lover Sofija 'Sofie' Hess from Vienna [] together 1876-94
Image  Gallery
L i n k s
here on the Alfred Nobel [1833-96] Page at Spirit of America Bookstore
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The Nobel Library [est. 1901] of the Swedish Academy
Since 1921, the library has been located on the premises of the Swedish Academy in the Stock Exchange Building in Stockholm’s Old Town.
Nobel Prize Museum (Nobelmuseet) [open 2001], Börshuset, Stortorget, Oldtown Stockholm, Sweden
is an independent, non-governmental organization in Stockholm, Sweden
manages the Nobel Prizes in Physics and Chemistry and co-manages the Nobel Prize in Economics
chair Anders Olsson, Ellen Mattson, Steve Sem-Sandberg, Anne Swärd, Anna-Karin Palm
Ingrid Carlberg (associate member, Permanent Secretary)
former chair Prof. Nils-Göran Larsson (2022)
several articles over recent years at Quanta Magazine [est. 2012]
  
  "The Prize: A Novel" [1962 bestseller] by Irving Wallace [1916-90]
Six people receive a telephone call that invites them to Stockholm, Sweden to accept
the Nobel Prize, where each of them becomes engulfed in personal and political intrigue.
Signet mass pb [1962] out of print/used
Signet movie tie-in mass pb [1962] out of print/used
New English Library 8½x5¾ pb [1978] out of print/used
Simon & Schuster 8½x6 hardcover [1962] out of print/80+ used
book entry at Wikipedia

  "The Prize" feature film [M.G.M. Dec 1963]
"a fury of excitement, suspense, and terror . . . in which the scientists themselves are - The Prize!" • Produced by Pandro S. Berman & Kathryn Hereford; directed by Mark Robson; screenplay by Ernest Lehman; starring Paul Newman, Edward G. Robinson, Elke Sommer, Diane Baker, Micheline Presle, Gérard Oury, Sergio Fan-toni, Kevin McCarthy, Leo G. Carroll, Sacha Pitoëff, Jacqueline Beer, John Wengraf, Don Dubbins, Virginia Christine, Rudolph Anders, Martine Bartlett, Karl Swenson, John Qualen, Ned Wever, Britt Ekland
Warner Bros. Archive Collection remastered color Blu-ray [1/2019] for $17.92
Warner Bros. Archive Collection remastered color DVD [8/2011] for $17.99
M.G.M./Warner color VHS [9/98] for $12.80
full credits at IMDb •
movie entry at Wikipedia
watch official trailer [5/2011 upload; 3:27] online at YouTube

  "Nobel Son" feature film [Freestyle Releasing Dec 2008]
Just as he is awarded the Nobel Prize, a California chemist's life falls apart: one of his mistresses threatens blackmail and his son is kidnapped for $2M ransom • Filmed in Los Angeles, California area; co-produced, co-written & directed by Randall Miller; co-produced & co-written by Jody Savin; starring Alan Rickman, Bryan Greenberg, Shawn Hatosy, Mary Steenburgen, Bill Pullman, Eliza Dushku, Danny DeVito, Lindy Booth, Tracey Walter, Ted Danson {cameo}, Ernie Hudson, Hal B. Klein, Matt Winston, Kirk Baily, Joyce Guy, Kevin West, Wayne Lopez, Dawn Balkin, Johanna Torell, Mark Famiglietti, Valerie Long, Juliette Jeffers, Greg Collins, Danika Quinn Osterman, TV reporter Kelly Lange, TV reporter Sam Rubin, Mary Pat Gleason, Matthew Kimbrough, Reid Collums, Larry Hankin, Lucy DeVito, Dean Rader-Duval, Stuart Silverman, Marina Black
Fox Home Ent. widescreen color Blu-ray [2010] import/used  in PAL format only
Alliance Films widescreen color DVD [6/2009] for $13.51
Fox Home Ent. widescreen color DVD [6/2009] out of prodn/used
full credits at IMDb •
watch 9/2008 official trailer [2:31] online at YouTube

  "Nobel's Last Will (Nobels Testamente)" [Nordisk Film Sweden March 2012]
At the Nobel Banquet, reporter Annika Bengtzon witnesses the attempted murder of a Nobel laureate and the murder of a scientist; as she digs further into the events surrounding that night, all is not what it seems; broadcast also on Swedish TV as the first of a series of Annika Bengtzon TV movies • Directed by Peter Flinth; screenplay by Pernilla Oljelund, based on the Liza Marklund novel; starring Malin Crépin {as Annika Bengtzon}, Björn Kjellman, Leif Andrée, Kajsa Ernst, Erik Johansson, Felix Engström, Richard Ulfsäter, Antje Traue, Per Graffman, Björn Granath, Ia Langhammer, Karl Linnertorp, Anna von Rosen, Johan Holmberg, Pia Johansson, Saga Gärde, Jackie Jakubowski, Edvin Ryding, Elvira Franzén, Nils Grönberg, Sofia Rönne-gård, Daniel Träff, Yngve Dahlberg, Max Lapitskij, Thomas Ritter, Keith Foster, Catherine Graffte, Fredrik Hammarström
available on DVD as Episode 1 of the Annika Bengtzon TV movies [2012] - in Swedish w/English subtitles
Episodes 1-3: MHz Networks widescreen color DVD [7/2013] 3 disks for $26.68
full credits at IMDb •
movie entry at Wikipedia

  "The Nobel Prize: A History of Genius, Controversy, and Prestige" [2000]
by Burton Feldman
Arcade Publng 9x6 pb [9/2012] for $16.95
Arcade Publng 9½x6½ hardcover [11/2000] for $19.99

  "Nobel Quotes: Inspirational and Perplexing Quotes of Nobel Prize Winners" [2012]
by George Chityil
Kindle Edition from Macadu, Ltd. [11/2012] for 99¢ {sic}
200 pages of quotations from Nobel laureates since 1901, including Kofi Annan, Samuel Beckett, Willy Brandt, Albert Camus, Albert Einstein, Milton Friedman, André Gide, Rudyard Kipling, Paul Krugman, Wangari Maathai, Gabriel García Márquez, Mother Teresa, Pablo Neruda, Barack Obama, Theodore Roosevelt, Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, and William Butler Yeats
she was nominated 19 times between 1924 and 1948 for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, and 29 times between 1937 and 1965 for the Nobel Prize in Physics.
search for books on keywords 'nobel+peace+prize' {returns 300+ titles} at Amazon
Wikipedia's list of all Nobel Peace Prize laureates
Nobel Peace Prize Page
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currently jailed in Tehran, she has been a prisoner for most of the past two decades
Prize awarded "for her fight against the oppression of women in Iran and her fight to promote human rights and freedom for all"
entry at Wikipedia
survivors of U.S. atomic bombings formed 'Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations' (Nihon Gensuibaku Higaisha Dantai Kyögi-kai),
in 1956; name shortened to Nihon Hidankyo; the group has been pressuring the Japanese government to improve support of the victims and lobbying governments
for the abolition of nuclear weapons; Prize awarded "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".
entry at Wikipedia •
official website (English or Japanese)
for her courageous efforts to promote democratic rights; she has been in hiding for more than a year.
She led an investigation that determined that Israel committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, a finding that the Israeli government rejected.
The committee chair said that Pillay’s award was “a message to those who are attacking and undermining international law”.
Nobel Prize in Literature official homepage
official list of all Nobel Prizes in Literature
entry at Wikipedia
Wikipedia's list of all Nobel Prizes in Literature laureates
search for books on keywords 'nobel+prize+literature' {returns over 400+ titles} at Amazon
Nobel Prize in Literature Page
"for his innovative plays and prose which give voice to the unsayable"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Fosse
browse the Jon Fosse Store {returns 70 titles} at Amazon
author Han and translator Smith won the 2016 International Booker Prize for “The Vegetarian”
Prize awarded for her "intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life".
entry at Wikipedia •
official website
browse the Han Kang Store {returns 30+ titles} at Amazon
"for his compelling and visionary oeuvre that, in the midst of apocalyptic terror, reaffirms the power of art"
“for her bold and inventive oeuvre that, in playful dialogue with the classical tradition, has created new forms for contemporary literature"
entry at Wikipedia  •  author page at The New Yorker Magazine
Wikipedia's list of all Nobel Prizes in Physics laureates
the first woman to win a Nobel Prize and the first person and only woman to win twice
Nobel Prize in Physics, 1903
Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1911
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Curie
for the creation of quantum mechanics = http://www.nobel.se/physics/laureates/1932/index.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werner_Heisenberg
~~~ Richard P. Feynman [1918-88]

  "The 4-Percent Universe: Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and The Race To Discover The Rest of Reality" [2011]
by science writer Richard Panek
'The Inside Story of The 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics' which was divided/shared among Saul Perlmutter (University of California Berkeley), Brian P. Schmidt (Australian National University), and Adam G. Riess (Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD) "for the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the Universe through observations of distant supernovae"
Super lucky timing for the author: cosmology was shaken at its foundations in 1998 as two research teams presented their findings about supernovae and dark matter; this book about them was published in January 2011 and the two teams were announced as joint winners of the Nobel Prize in Physics in October 2011!
Kindle Edition from Mariner Books [1/2011] for $14.99
Mariner Books 8x5¼ pb [10/2011] for $12.59
Oneworld Publns pb [2012] for $17.45
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 9¼x6¼ hardcover [1/2011] for $9.64
for decisive contributions to the LIGO detector and the observation of gravitational waves
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainer_Weiss
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kip_Thorne
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Barish
for their achievements in quantum mechanics; the trio's work "has laid the foundation for a new era of quantum technology"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alain_Aspect
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Clauser
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_Zeilinger
(of Germany's Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics), and physicist Anne Geneviève L'Huillier (of Sweden's Lund University)
for their pioneering research into electrons in flashes of light and developing the ability to illuminate reality on almost inconceivably brief timescales
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Agostini [b. 1941]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferenc_Krausz [b. 1962]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_L%27Huillier [b. 1958]
  2024 • John Hopfield (of USA) and 'Godfather of AI' Geoffrey Hinton (of Canada)  
"Although computers cannot think, machines can now mimic functions such as memory and learning. This year's laureates in physics
have helped make this possible." Shared Prize awarded for their "foundational discoveries" in artificial intelligence.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hopfield [b. 1933]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Hinton [b. 1947]
  2025 • John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret, and John M. Martinis
“for the discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling and energy quantisation in an electric circuit” which helped give rise to quantum computers.
described as 'a molecular discovery likened to Harry Potter’s enchanted handbag'
Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley
named Chief Scientist for Hardware at Google Quantum AI in 2023
American physicist and Professor of Physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara
  2026 • Belgian-born American scientist Prof. Francis Halzen at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
“for the discovery of high-energy neutrinos of astrophysical origin”
Halzen helped set up and run the IceCube Neutrino Observatory in Antarctica, which can detect neutrinos zipping in from space
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Halzen
Wikipedia's list of all Nobel Prize in Chemistry laureates
the first woman to win a Nobel Prize and the first person and only woman to win twice
Nobel Prize in Physics, 1903
Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1911
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Curie
awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1935 with her husband
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ir%C3%A8ne_Joliot-Curie
  2023 • Prof. Moungi G. Bawendi [at M.I.T.], Louis E. Brus [at Columbia University],
and solid state physicist Alexei I. Ekimov [of New York]
for work tracking electron movement - the quantum behaviors of semiconductor nanocrystals, for discovering a category of minute marvels
now known as 'quantum dots', and for developing a precise method of synthesizing them
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moungi_Bawendi [b. 1961]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_E._Brus [b. 1943]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexei I. Ekimov [b. 1945]
http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.pc.41.100190.002401
  2024 • researchers David Baker (of USA), Demis Hassabis (of U.K.), and John Jumper (of USA & U.K.)   ![]()
shared Prize awarded for their work in the analysis and design of proteins using AI and other computational tools to predict how proteins fold, based on their
chemical sequences, and to design new proteins not found in nature
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Baker_(biochemist) [b. 1962] http://www.bakerlab.org/ at the University of Washington
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demis_Hassabis [b. 1975] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_DeepMind in U.K.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_M._Jumper [b. 1985] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_DeepMind in U.K.
"for the development of metal-organic frameworks"
  and Kenso Soai 
for “the discovery of non-linear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis”, i.e. for research solving the ‘mirror image’ mystery: how to make molecules come out
in just one of their two mirror-image forms, the key to making safe medicines, since one version of a drug can heal while its mirror twin can cause harm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_B._Kagan [b. 1930]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kens%C5%8D_Soai
Wikipedia's list of all Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine laureates
  2023 • biochemist Katalin Karikó [b. 1955] and immunologist Drew Weissman [b. 1959] of U.S.A.
shared Prize awarded for discoveries leading to mRNA vaccines, such as those that protect against COVID-19
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katalin_Karik%C3%B3 = the 13th woman to win the prize
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drew_Weissman
  2024 • American scientists Victor Ambros [b. 1953] and Gary Ruvkun [b. 1952]
shared Prize awarded "for the discovery of microRNA and its role in post-transcriptional gene regulation"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Ambros
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Ruvkun
shared Prize awarded "for their discoveries concerning peripheral immune tolerance"
shared Prize awarded "for their work on light-gated ion channels and optogenetics" and the technique that uses light to activate neurons in the brain.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Deisseroth = psychiatrist
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Hegemann = biophysicist
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Nagel = German plant physiologist
Established in 1968 by a donation from Sweden's central bank on its 300th anniversary.
Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences official homepage
official list of all Nobel Prizes in Economic Sciences
Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences entry at Wikipedia
Wikipedia's list of all Nobel in Economic Sciences laureates
search for books on keywords 'nobel+prize+economics' at Amazon
Nobel Prize in Economics Page
  2025 • Dutch-born Joel Mokyr (Northwestern University, USA) and
Philippe Aghion (the Collège de France & the London School of Economics) & Canadian-born Peter Howitt (Brown University, USA)
for their work showing "that economic growth cannot be taken for granted. We must uphold the mechanisms that underlie creative destruction,
so that we do not fall back into stagnation".
  2026 • Robert E. Hall (Stanford University, USA) and Michael Woodford (Columbia University, USA)
According to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the two Americans’ work has helped policymakers smooth out the intensity of economic booms and busts,
making financial shocks and crises easier to deal with.
Alfred Bernhard Nobel was born in 1833 in Stockholm, Sweden-Norway; he worked for years to improve the safety of nitroglycerine and invented dynamite in 1867;
during his life he was issued 355 patents internationally; he died of a stroke in Sanremo, Italy in December 1896.
brother Ludvig Nobel [1831-1888]
brother Emil Oskar Nobel [1843-64] died in a factory explosion
- hired in 1876, won Nobel Peace Prize in 1905
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Nobel#Romantic_relationships_and_personality
       
official Alfred Nobel bio at Nobel Prize website
Alfred Nobel [1833-96] entry at Wikipedia
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