President of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Svante Lindqvist introducing the Nobel lecture for physics. Photo by Robert Corkery.
The Nobel prizes are being awarded today. Here in Stockholm, there’s always a lot of fanfare during the week of the ceremony with concerts and lectures, as well as tonight’s awarding of the prizes, the dinner banquet and the dancing – all of which is televised live. Even the serving of dinner to the around 1,300 guests is on TV. I love seeing all the pomp surrounding the ceremony. And of course, I secretly imagine myself attending in the future!
Much like last year’s awarding of the Peace Prize to President Obama, there’s controversy. Chinese human rights crusader Liu Xiaobo will be awarded the prize tonight in Oslo, but neither he nor his family or friends will be able to receive it as China is protesting the award.
The rest of the prizes are much less political and will be awarded in Stockholm. They include the Literature Prize to Mario Vargas Llosa, the Economics prize to Peter A Diamond, Dale T. Mortensen and Christopher A. Pissarides, the Physics prize to Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, the Chemistry prize to Richard F. Heck, Ei-ichi Negishi and Akira Suzuki and the Physiology or Medicine prize to Robert G. Edwards.
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