2007-9-13

About the Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prize comes from the foundation established by Alfred Nobel according to his will (since 1969, Nobel prize increased from 5 awarding items to 6 items), which are granted every year by four awarded organization (3 in Sweden and 1 in Norway). The Nobel Prize was first awarded after the 5th anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel. Alfred Nobel stipulated in his will that these prizes were established to award "those persons who had made the most remarkable contributions to mankind in the previous years' in Physics , Chemistry, Physiology or medicine, literature and for peace. In 1968, the Swedish Bank added economics prize to Nobel Prize and awarded Nobel Prize for economics first in 1969. The Nobel Prize is awarded in the Concert Hall of Stockholm every year on December 10, the anniversary day of Nobel's death in an grand award ceremony, and the Nobel Prize for peace also is awarded in Oslo the same day.

The Nobel Prize Awarded Organizations
The awarded organizations mentioned in the will of Alfred Nobel are: the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences located in Stockholm (for Physics and Chemistry prize), the Royal Karolinska Institute (Physiology or medicine prize), the Swedish Academy of Literature (for literature prize) and the Nobel Prize Assembly appointed by Norwegian Congress in Oslo (for peace prize); besides, the Swedish Academy of Sciences is also responsible for Nobel economics prize. The Nobel Foundation established for the terms and conditions of Nobel¡¯s will is the Nobel Prize's legal owner, practical administrator, awarded organization and combined administration; however, the Nobel Foundation does not participate in the process of the assessment and final decision making; the four foregoing awarded organizations are fully responsible for the prize assessment. Each prize consists of a gold medal, a personal diploma and a cash award; the sum of cash award is based on the income of the foundation. The Nobel Prize for economics is similar to other Nobel prizes in the awarding procedures and the value of prize.

Nomination for the Nobel Prizes
Nomination for the Nobel Prizes begins at the early Autumn each year for the next year's Nobel Prizes; at this time, the respective Nobel Committees send individual invitations to those institutions worldwide qualifying the Constitution of Nobel Prize to propose their candidates for the Nobel Prize for the coming year. The nomination is based on the expertise and international academic reputation; self-recommended nominators are rejected by the Nobel Prize. The nomination for candidates must be notified to respective Nobel Committees in writing before February 1st in that year.

Since February 1st each year, the six Nobel Committees enters into their own procedures of award assessment based on the submitted nominations. If necessary, the respective Nobel Committees may invite experts from any countries in the assessment, and each Nobel Committee is required to submit their recommendation to the Nobel Prize Awarded Organization during September to October each year; and each awarded organization is required to make the final decision before November 15th, except for decision pending in extremely special circumstance. The Nobel Committees'recommendation always play an important role in final decision making and should be followed However, it is exceptional sometimes. The assessment and voting are carried out confidentially. The Nobel Prizes are awarded to individuals only except the prize for peace that may be awarded to an organization if necessary. The Nobel Prize candidates can only be nominated when they are alive; however, a Nobel Prize may be presented to a dead person if this prize is decided to honor this person when he/she is alive, such as the Nobel Peace Prize in 1961 to Dag Hjalmar Agne Carl Hammarskj?ld and the Nobel Prize in Literature 1931 Erik Axel Karlfeldt. As long as the final decision is made, no cancellation can be made due to any objections. Also, nomination of the Nobel Prize candidates has no any connections with an government support no matter in diplomacy or in politics, because the Nobel Prize Awarded Organization is an organization independent from countries.
 
Distribution of the Cash Award
A sum of Nobel Prize cash award may be presented to an individual or shared by two kinds of achievements or shared by two or more than two persons (in fact, a cash award was never shared by three or more than three persons in history); sometimes, a Nobel Prize cash award may be reserved to the next year for awarding, and will be returned to the foundation if no award is made at the next year; also, a cash award subject on reservation or no award is required to return it to the foundation. As the result, each Nobel prize may has two cash awards, one left from the previous year and one for the current year. If a cash award is rejected or failed to be accepted by the winner, such cash award is required to return to the foundation. In history, this kind of story of refusing to accept Nobel prize or one government¡¯s restriction to its citizen to accept Nobel prize, however, such winner still was recorded in the Nobel Prize Winners'List marked with "refused to accept the cash award"; no matter whatever reasons to refuse accepting the prize, the genuine reason is the hard pressure from the outside; for example, Hitler released his order in 1937 to prohibit any Germany people to accept any of the Nobel Prizes, since he believed that the Nobel Peace Prize in 1935 to Carl von Ossietzky was a kind of humiliation to him. When an winner refusing the prize re-applies for the prize acceptance, no matter what reasons why he/she refused to accept the prize before, he/she may get the gold medal and diploma rather than the cash award, since the cash award has already been returned to the foundation.

If nobody complies with conditions set forth in Nobel's will or the world situation becomes impossible for the assessment and nomination (such as the periods during World War I and II), the Nobel Prizes may be reserved or suspended. The Nobel Prizes are open to all people regardless their nationality, ethnic group, religion and ideology. A same winner may be awarded for unlimited times. The Nobel Prize award ceremony for Physics , Chemistry, Physiology or medicine, literature and economics is held in Stockholm while the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded in Oslo on December 10th, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel's death. Normally, winners show their appearance for accepting the prizes.

The general provisions for the overall management of the prizes have been recorded in Nobel's will. In 1900, the will executor, the representative of the awarded organizations and Nobel's family reached a supplementary agreement regarding the interpretation and execution of the Nobel's will and finally approved by the Swedish King. This provisions generally remain the same except for some modifications made to practical execution; the criteria for the economics prize nomination is normally placed on scientific basis namely of mathematics and statistics basis rather than political and social factors. Ragnar Frisch and Jan Tinbergen, the earliest two winners of the Nobel Prize in economics, were awarded this prize for having developed and applied dynamic models for the analysis of economic process.

It has been proved that there are less disputes on awards to sciences and medicine; while it is easy to bring about disputes on the Nobel Prizes in literature and peace by virtue of their own special natures. The Nobel Peace Prize was always reserved.

The cash award amount each year for each Nobel prize differs from each other depending on the income of the Nobel Foundation at that year. In the beginning, the cash amount for each Nobel prize amounted only USD30,000; it was increased year by year up to USD200,000 in 1970s. When time went into 1980s, due to a rapid increase of the Nobel Foundation pool, the cash award to each Nobel prize was increased by big margin up to more than USD1 million.
 
Summary of awards and winners' obligations
According to statistics, since 1901 when the Nobel Prizes began to be awarded each year for 98 years (except for six year suspension for various reasons in history), there are 677 persons (651 men and 26 women) and 16 organizations (organization winners are the Nobel Peace Winners without exception) in total.Up to now, there are 6 American Chinese won the Nobel Prizes , they are: Professor Tsung-Dao Lee and Chen Ning Yang, the winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics 1957; Professor Samuel Chao Chung Ting, the co-winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1976; Professor Yuan T. Lee, the co-winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1986; Professor Steven Chu, the co-winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1997; and Professor Daniel C. Tsui, the co-winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1998. All Nobel Prize winners are required to offer one time voluntary academic lecture on their achievements or contributions in Stockholm (sciences and literature prize winners) or Oslo (peace prize winners) within six month after the award; such lectures are also known as "Nobel Prize Winners'Lecture". Though no one from Chinese mainland has be awarded by the Nobel Prize as of today, Beijing Medical University in October 1985 received the letter from the Nobel Foundation for inviting professors working with this university to make recommendations on the candidates for the Nobel Prize in Physiology or medicine 1986. Beijing Medical University nominated 10 professors to be responsible for completing the attached ten copies of recommendation letters. This event showed that Beijing Medical University was widely recognized by the world medical science circle.