Each year, Nobel Prizes are awarded to industry leaders who have made some sort of cultural or scientific advancement. The prizes are given in honor of Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite. The prizes have been awarded almost every year since 1901, as requested in Nobel’s will. As of 2011, 853 individuals have received the award for innovations. Each Laureate receives a gold medal, a diploma, and a sum of money that is determined by the Nobel Foundation’s yearly income. Nobel Prizes awarded to scientific advancement are divided into the following categories: Physics, Chemistry, and Physiology or Medicine.
A handful of U of T alumni have achieved Nobel Laureate status. Some people might be aware that a couple of campus buildings are named after U of T Nobel Prize winners Sir Frederick Banting and J. J. R. Macleod for their work with Charles Best in the discovery of insulin as a diabetic treatment. Similarly, 1986 Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry, John C. Polanyi, has a Toronto District School Board high school named after him. Unfortunately, no U of T alumni received the prize this year.
Nevertheless, the type of brilliance behind past achievements, such as the development of density-functional theory and the development of laser spectroscopy was unsurprisingly perpetuated in 2011.
In Physics, the prize was divided amongst three individuals. Saul Perlmutter received half of the award, with the other half divided between Brian Schmidt and Adam Riess for their discovery of the accelerating expansion of the Universe through observations of distant supernovae. This discovery is an important milestone in cosmology, allowing cosmologist to make exact cosmological parameters. In the 1920s, it was discovered that the Universe was expanding but it was uncertain at what rate. The rate at which something is expanding depends on how much energy there is. It was once thought that our universe, containing only matter, should eventually surrender to the forces of gravity, but the Physics Laureates find that we are actually accelerating. Their research found that there is an unknown energy source, called black energy in our universe that is driving this rapid expansion. Their findings may have opened up a whole new way of thinking about our universe.
In keeping with the theme of defying nature, Dan Shechtman received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his discovery of quasicrystals (crystals with 10 atoms grouped together). Shechtman studied the order of the atoms inside crystals and found non-repetitive regular patterns of atoms. Before Shechtman’s work, the assumption that atom patterns did not repeat themselves had been thought to be a key factor in crystal formation. Since his discovery, a few natural occurrences of quasicrystals have been discovered. Surprisingly some of the most durable forms of steel have been found to contain quasicrystals, along with a list of other metals. Shechtman’s finding proves that our understanding of natural processes is always changing and that not all assumptions should be taken as fact.
Like in Physics, the 2011 Prize in Physiology or Medicine was divided amongst three Laureates. Half of the prize was awarded to Bruce Beutler and Jules Hoffman for their discovery of the activation of innate immunity. The second half was awarded to Ralph Steinman for his discovery of the dendritic cell and its role in adaptive immunity. Collectively, the Laureates’ works show us how our body works when it comes to pathogens. Adaptive immunity is the bodies’ ability to remember certain pathogens and strengthen the body’s fight against them the next time they are encountered. Dendritic cells, discovered by Steinman, are important in immunity because they play an important role in the control of tolerance and immunity. Sadly, Steinman passed away before the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet knew of his death. It was finally decided, however, that Steinman would be awarded the prize in good faith.
Not everyone has wanted to accept the Nobel Prize. On many occasions, people have rejected receiving the prize, feeling that they did not deserve the award. Conversely, a few Laureates have won multiple prizes. Marie Curie won the award twice for her discovery of radioactivity and in chemistry for the isolation of pure radium.
We still know so little about our world, and the success of these Nobel Laureates serves as motivation for furthering research. As was the case with Shechtman, many of the discoveries made were a complete violation of what was once thought to be the laws of nature. It just goes to show that anything might be possible; you just need to discover it.
