Alfred Nobel

Chemist, Inventor, Awesome Administrator, Social Reformer.

"It could and should soon come to pass that all states pledge themselves collectively to attack an aggressor. That would make war impossible, and would force even the most brutal and unreasonable Power to appeal to a court of arbitration, or else keep quiet."

Childhood and Youth

Richard F. Heck Ph.D.

Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2010
Nobel co-recipients Ei-ichi Negishizz, Akira Suzuki

Physical organic chemist. Palladium-catalyzed cross-coupling reaction. Sole author - 7 consecutive papers. Heck reaction: important concept, tool for organic and medicinal chemists; fuorescence labeling of DNA bases - sequencing DNA/Genome. Thinner computer screens in future. "Great art in test tube."

Growing orchids in early teens lead to passion for chemistry.

Youth

Seymour Benzer Ph.D.[Physics]

National Medal of Science - Biological Sciences 1982

Physicist, molecular biologist, behavioral biologist (neurogeneticist). Post Pearl Harbor worked in secret wartime project studying semiconducting properties of germanium, work that foreshadowed development of transistor. Functional gene is a linear stretch of DNA with definable boundaries. Stretches of DNA are all linked to each other as adjacent pieces of chromosome.

Youth

Herbert C Brown Ph.D.

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1979
The President's National Medel of Sciences - Physical Sciences, 1969
Nobel co-recipient Georg Wittig

Organic Chemist. Development of use of boron into important reagents in organic synthesis. School, advanced several times, graduating at 12; refused further advancement, avoiding being sister's classmate.

Graduating, Depression years, future wife Sarah gave him gift, Stock's 'Hydrides of Boron and Silicon' because cheapest chemistry book! Led to Nobel Prize!

Youth

Ludwig Quidde

The Nobel Peace Prize 1927
Nobel co-recipient Ferdinand Buisson

Historian. Member, German Parliament. Professor, Berlin University

"…Kant found the only assurance for peace in the idea that war would become so terrible and unbearable that human beings, even though they remain as morally weak as they now are, would be forced to work together for peace…"

Youth

Bertha von Suttner

The Nobel Peace Prize 1905

Generalissimo, Peace Movement. Author, 'Lay Down Your Arms'. Permanent International Peace Bureau. Vigorously opposed militaristic traditions. Eternal truth: happiness created, developed in peace. Eternal right: individual's right to live.

"Inform me, convince me, and then I will do something great for the movement", Alfred Nobel said to Bertha von Suttner."

Youth

Randal Cremer

The Nobel Peace Prize 1903

Co-founder, Inter-Parliamentary Union. Secretary, International Arbitration League. British Parliamentarian. World organizing. Prevent war. Founder, Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners.

Upon entering into treaties of arbitration, the disputants would have time for reflection, for while arbitrators were deliberating, passions of contending parties would cool and chances of war greatly diminished.

Youth

Élie Ducommun

The Nobel Peace Prize 1902
Nobel co-recipient Albert Gobat

Permanent International Peace Bureau [1910 Nobel Peace Prize]. Nobelist Passy's description: "exactitude, firmness." History Demonstrates War's Futility. Predicted, 1901: Despite modern weapons' destructiveness, wars will ebb, flow. Alfred Nobel's Contemporary.

Nobel Chairperson Løvland, "You Swiss, with your sense of life's realities, have special gift for taking ideas from realm of dreams and turning them into realities."

Youth