Jack Kilby helped invent the microchip, the tiny electronic brain inside computers and calculators.
| Jack Kilby helped invent the microchip, the tiny electronic brain inside computers and calculators. |
For athletes, winning an Olympic gold medal is the highest achievement. For scientists and scholars, a Nobel Prize is the gold—the ultimate reward for their best ideas and hard work. The Nobel Prizes turn 100 this year. Last week the Nobel Committee in Stockholm, Sweden, named the latest winners. Chemist Alan Heeger was among those to get the phone call of a lifetime. Said Heeger: "It’s a fantastic surprise!"
The prizes will be presented on December 10, the anniversary of , Alfred Nobel’s death. Nobel, whose face appears on the prize medal, was a 19th century inventor, researcher and poet. Before he died in 1896, he requested that his fortune be used to honor great works in Chemistry, Physics, Medicine, Literature and for Peace. An Economics prize was added in 1968. In 1900 a scientist who discovered X rays won about $15,420. Now each prize is worth almost $1 million.
This year’s Physics prize is shared by three scientists whose work led to the invention of computers, CD players and cell phones. The Chemistry prize went to Heeger and two others whose study of plastics led to better TV and computer screens. The Medicine prize went to brain-chemical researchers whose work led to new treatments. Chinese writer Gao Xingjian (Gow Shing-zhahn) won the Literature prize. Many of his books are banned in China.
Nobel himself invented dynamite. He never intended for it to be used to harm people. He hoped the prizes in his name could make up for his destructive invention. Nobel would be proud to learn that this year’s winner of the Peace prize is South Korean President Kim Dae-jung, who is working to improve relations with his country’s longtime foe, North Korea.