The Nobel Prize, bidding for the titans

Author: Diego Arias Serna

In the world of science, generational renewal is also essential. How good that more and more young people focus their gaze on her, and within that population group, naturally women.

Every year, starting in October, the 6 Nobel Prize winners are known. This 2021 they are delivered between the 4th and the 11th of that month, which – according to the protocol – will be like this: Monday, medicine and physiology; Tuesday, physics; Wednesday, chemistry; Thursday, literature; Friday the one of the peace; and ending on Monday the 11th with the economy. The selection of the laureates lasts almost a whole year. According to the portal: nobelprize.org, the procedure followed is as follows: In September, the committees corresponding to each award send confidential invitations to qualified people (they cannot be proposed), to propose candidates.

These names must reach the committee, one for each Nobel, before January 31 of the following year. In February is the reception of candidatures, and each commission bases its evaluation of the nominees until January 31 of each year. Applications received after that date will be taken into account for the evaluation of the following year. In February-March, the committees evaluate the work of the candidates and prepare a short list of possible winners. In March-August a review of the list is made by permanent advisers, and advisers hired especially for their knowledge of the specific candidates.

They do not directly evaluate applications or give explicit recommendations. At the beginning of October, each committee elects the Nobel Prize winners in their field, taking into account a simple majority of votes. The decision is final and has no appeal. The names of the laureates are then announced, in the order mentioned above. Finally, the award ceremony will be on December 10 in Oslo (Norway) for the case of the Nobel Peace Prize, while the others are set in Stockholm (Sweden). The prizes consist of a Nobel medal and diploma, as well as a document confirming the amount of the award, which is 1,116,000 dollars, about 900,000 euros. Due to the pandemic, the act will be virtual, except that of Peace.

That money can be shared between 2 or 3 exalted. Economic recognition much lower than what elite footballers earn. Some of them receive that figure in a month, and a few others earn astronomical amounts; while the Nobel, if he is in natural sciences, devotes his entire life to obtaining results that benefit the whole of society. The scientist has no fans, he does not sell T-shirts and he does not entertain, he only works for the good of humanity.

Fight of Titans

The names of the possible Nobel, in the case of natural sciences and economics, following the candidates predicted by Clarivate, a world leader in reliable information and analysis, whose list of 16 researchers considered “Nobel class” was disclosed in the past. September 22. Their names, which are a function of the impact of the citations of published research and of awards obtained, are mentioned as follows: physiology or medicine, for Jean-Pierre Changeux, professor emeritus, Collège de France and Institut Pasteur, Paris.

He is also a member of the University of California, San Diego, Kavli Institute for Brain & Mind USA He is nominated for his contributions to our understanding of neuroreceptors and especially to the identification of the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor and its allosteric properties.

Also on the list are Toshio Hirano, president of the National Institutes of Quantum and Radiological Science and Technology, Chiba and Professor Emeritus of the University of Osaka, Japan. Tadamitsu Kishimoto, professor at the same university and at the Immunology Regulation Laboratory, WPI, Immunology Frontier Research Center, for the discovery of interleukin-6, description of its physiological and pathological actions, which has contributed to the development of drugs.

The nominees are closed with Karl M. Johnson, Adjunct Professor Emeritus of the University of New Mexico, USA and Ho Wang Lee, Professor Emeritus of the University of Korea, Seoul. Their names were taken into account for the identification and isolation of the Hantaan virus (hantavirus), an agent of hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome. In physics they appear: Alexei Yurlevich Kitaev, professor of theoretical physics and mathematics, California Institute of Technology and Institute of Information and Quantum Matter, Pasadena, California, USA He works on topological quantum computing, which allows information to be encoded and protected using topological properties of many-body systems.

In turn, Mark EJ Newman, Distinguished Professor of Physics at Anatol Rapoport University, Department of Physics and Center for the Study of Complex Systems, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA, is on the list by a wide research on network systems, including work on community structure and random graph models. On the list of researchers in chemistry are: Giorgio Parisi, emeritus professor of theoretical physics at the University of Rome, La Sapienza, Italy. His name was taken into account by the revolutionary discoveries in quantum chromodynamics and in the study of complex disordered systems.

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Free radicals and antioxidants

Barry Halliwell, Professor, Department of Biochemistry, Yong Loo Lin College of Medicine, NUS, Singapore, is noted for pioneering research in the chemistry of free radicals and antioxidants in human disease. For his part, William L. Jorgensen is in the Department of Chemistry at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA. He is highlighted by Clarivate for his research in computational chemistry of organic and biomolecular systems in solution, contributing to the design and rational synthesis of drugs.

Mention should also be made of Mitsuo Sawamoto, emeritus professor specializing in polymers at the University of Kyoto, Japan, noted for the discovery and development of metal-catalyzed living radical polymerization. In turn, the names to hold the Nobel Prize in Economics, highlighted by Clarivate, were: David B. Audretsch from the University of Indiana, USA, and David J. Teece, who is at the University of California, USA. For pioneering research on entrepreneurship, innovation and competition. Joel Mokyr, professor of economics and history, at Northwestern University, Illinois, USA, should be cited next for his studies of the history and culture of technological progress and its economic consequences.

Within this select group, we must also include Carmen M. Reinhart, born in Cuba, professor of the International Financial System, Harvard Kennedy School, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. Along with her are also: Kenneth S. Rogoff and Thomas D Cabot, Professors of Economics and Public Policy, Department of Economics, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA Have been honored on the list for contributions to international macroeconomics and knowledge of world debt and financial crises. . As inferred from the list, the candidates are mostly from US universities, 9 in total, South Korea, 3, France, England, Italy and Japan, with one candidate per country.

On the other hand, there are the names that sound for the Nobel Peace Prize and Literature. The first is the award with the highest number of applicants, and it gives the impression that there are candidates proposed as a joke. In this 2021, 329 candidates have been nominated and on the list appear names as picturesque as Donald Trump, who have nothing to do on that list. Another designation that is already familiar in Oslo is that of Greta Thunberg, the young environmental activist from Sweden.

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Nominees for the Nobel Prize in Literature

On Thursday, October 7, the name of the laureate of the Nobel Prize in literature will be known. Unlike the other candidates, this one has rarely been shared by 2 people. Using the spirit of gamble, and with that fervor for games of chance, the favorites are played in British betting houses to obtain this Nobel. According to these sites, the most preferred is the renowned Japanese writer Haruki Murakami. Threatening Haruki’s first choice is Canadian poet, novelist, and literary critic Margaret Atwood.

Another nominee with option is the Canadian poet, Anne Carson, who is considered by literary critics as the most important living writer of this genre, of Anglo-Saxon letters. Competing with the 2 ladies is Kenyan writer Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, novelist, short story writer and essayist. However, there are more writers who may surprise, such as the Italian novelist Elena Ferrante, or Joanne Rowling, known by the pseudonym JK Rowling, author of the Harry Potter book series. With less option appear Don DeLillo, considered by specialists as one of the main figures of literary postmodernism.

Among the writers who write in Spanish, only Javier Marías appears in the bookmakers, who has already been nominated in previous years. As on another occasion, this year 2 artists linked to music may surprise: Roberta Joan Anderson, whose artistic name is Joni Mitchell, who in addition to being a singer is a painter; or it could be Nobel Patricia Lee, better known as Patti Smith. She, in addition to being a singer, is a writer, and is considered the godmother of punk rock, a musical genre of the seventies. Now we have to wait from October 4 to 11 to see how well those names are correct for the Nobel Prize winners.