NOBEL PRIZES. These are awarded from the Nobel Foun dation, a fund established under the will of A. B. Nobel (q.v.), which directed that the interest of the bulk of his huge fortune should be apportioned in equal shares to the person who shall have made the most important (a) discovery or invention in the do main of physics, (b) chemical discovery or improvement, (c) discovery in the domain of physiology or medicine; one share to the person who shall have produced the most distinguished literary work of an idealist tendency; and, finally, one to the person who shall have "most or best promoted the fraternity of nations and the abolition or diminution of standing armies and the formation and increase of peace congresses." The prizes for physics and chemistry are awarded by the Swedish academy of science in Stockholm ; the one for physiology or medicine by the Caroline medical institute in Stockholm ; that for literature by the acad emy in Stockholm and that for peace by a committee of five elected by the Norwegian Storting. No consideration whatever was to be paid to the nationality of the candidates, but in January 1937 Herr Hitler, claiming that Germany had been insulted by the award in 1936 of the 1935 peace prize to the pacifist writer, Karl von Ossietsky (d. 1938), forbade Germans to accept any Nobel Prize in future, and instituted three national prizes of simi lar monetary value in their place.
As the will was drawn up by Nobel without legal aid, it was interpreted by a code of statutes, approved by the Swedish Gov ernment and consented to by the heirs. The distribution of prizes was begun on Dec. io, 1901, the anniversary of Nobel's death.
The amount of each prize (which may be shared between two sub mitted works adjudged of equal merit) varies with the income from the fund and since 1936 has stood at approximately £8,000. The statutes provide for the establishment of Nobel institutes, one for each of the five sections, and one-fourth of the amount which falls to each section from the main fund is deducted for its expenses before prize distribution is made. Provision is made
that any prize may be reserved for one year ; if not then dis tributed, the amounts revert to the main fund, or special reserves for each section. The peace prize has been reserved most fre quently and special Nobel institutes have been created from the surplus funds.
Only Mme. Marie Curie, honoured in both physics and chemis try, has received prizes in more than one section. British and American recipients have been : Physics, British-Lord Rayleigh (1904), J. J. Thomson (1906), W. H. Bragg and W. L. Bragg (1915), Charles G. Barkla (1917), C. T. R. Wilson (1927), 0. W. Richardson (1928), Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman, (India, 193o), P. H. M. Dirac and E. Schrodinger (1933), James Chad wick (1935), G. P. Thomson (1937) ; American-A. A. Michelson (1907), R. A. Millikan (1923), Arthur Compton (1927), C. D. Anderson (1936), C. J. Davisson (1937), E. 0. Lawrence (1939). Chemistry, British-Sir William Ramsay (1904), Sir Ernest Rutherford (1908), F. Soddy (1921), F. W. Aston (1922), Arthur Harden (1929), W. N. Haworth (i937); American-T. W. Rich ards (1914), Irving Langmuir (1932), Harold C. Urey (1934). Medicine, British-Sir Ronald Ross (1902), A. V. Hill (1922), F. G. Banting and J. J. R. Macleod (Canada, 1923), Sir Frederick G. Hopkins (1929), Sir Charles S. Sherrington and E. D. Adrian (1932), Sir Henry H. Dale (1936) ; American-Alexis Carrel (1912), Karl Landsteiner (193o), Thomas H. Morgan (1933), G. R. Minot, W. P. Murphy and G. H. Whipple (1934). Litera ture, British-Rudyard Kipling (1907), Rabindranath Tagore (India, 1913), W. B. Yeats (Ireland, 1923), George B. Shaw (1925), John Galsworthy (1932); American-Sinclair Lewis (193o), Eugene O'Neill (1936), Pearl Buck (1938). Peace, Brit ish-Sir W. R. Cremer (1903), Sir A. Chamberlain (1925), Sir N. Angell (1933), Arthur Henderson (1934), Viscount Cecil American-Theodore Roosevelt (1906), Elihu Root (1912), Woodrow Wilson (1919), Charles G. Dawes (1925), Frank B. Kellogg (1929), Nicholas M. Butler and Jane Addams (1931).