 It's my distinct pleasure and privilege to introduce to you Dr. Erling C.J. Butanorbi, Secretary General of the Royal Swedish Academy of Science in Stockholm. Speaking perhaps as the ultimate insider on a century of Nobel Prizes. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences is an institution that annually selects the Nobel Prizes, the awardees for those prizes, both in the traditional fields of physics and chemistry and in the more recently established prize in honor of Alfred Nobel in the area of economics. Prior to leading the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and taking on the responsibility in honor of serving as one of seven directors on the board of the Nobel Foundation, Dr. Norby chaired the Nobel Assembly at the Karlinska Institute, which awards the prize in its own field of research and teaching, namely physiology or medicine. In brief, Dr. Erling Norby has intimate knowledge about the criteria and the process by which all the Nobel Prizes awarded in Sweden are annually selected and has himself played a role in the selection of a number of Nobel Prize awardees. In light of the man in which Alfred Nobel's original vision had been realized over these past 100 years, it is important to stress that Erling Norby has his own very distinguished career in viral medicine. At Stockholm's Karlinska Institute, one of the world's leading medical research and treatment centers. He is a world-renowned virologist who has published in excess of 400 papers. For more than 20 years, he served the Nobel Committee of Karlinska Institute before his 1990 selection as chair of the Nobel Assembly. Hence, as one of Sweden's indeed the world's leading medical researchers, he had direct knowledge of advances in that field and I suspect he has known the individual Nobel Prize awardees personally in physiology or medicine and also has known the significance of their work for the past 30 years at least. He is presently interested in general, helping people to understand science and also to understand the advancement and further advancement of science and understand the significance for the modern world. Again, in addition to his key leadership roles on the Nobel Prize selection committees and for the past four years on the Nobel Foundation Board, Erling Norby is known and respected as a worldwide premier scientist. It is an honor to be able to invite Dr. Erling C.J. Norby to address the 37th Nobel Conference at Gustavus on the topic, A Century of Nobel Prizes. Dr. Norby. Thank you very much, Professor Astroi, for this kind introduction. I'll let me first express to the organizers my thankfulness for being invited to come here and share these joyful events with you all. I must say I'm very impressed by the remarkable arrangements that have been made here and of course it's a special feeling to address such a large audience and with about 17 Swedish and 17 American flags surrounding you. In particular, it's a joy to see all your young people here in the audience. The Nobel Prize is a unique institution. At the time when it was conceived it was the largest prize ever and it was international. And over the years it has acquired the status of being an exceptional measure of scientific quality. And since in this year 2001 it is 100 years since the first Nobel Prize recipients were elected. It may be appropriate to consider what we can learn from examining this election process, the anointing scientist and the discoveries that have been made. First, some words about the man Alfred Nobel. Alfred Nobel was born in 1833 and he was a third of four surviving brothers out of originally six children. All four boys that survived showed considerable talent and it's very easy to get distracted and elaborate that length about the history of the Nobel family. The dynamic father, he was a self-taught engineer and businessman who moved with his family to St. Petersburg when Alfred was nine years old. The older brothers, they were trained as engineers but Alfred got a training in chemistry. He was very quick in learning and managed five languages fluently when he was about 17 years old and if I can start my PowerPoint presentation you see the picture of Alfred Nobel coming up here. And it's about the age of many of you who are here in the auditorium so you may think about where he was in his developments. So when he was 17 years old he was sent abroad for two years to Germany, France, Italy and North America. And in Italy he worked in the famous laboratory of Professor T. J. Peluz where he met a young scientist by name of Arcaneo Sobriero who had developed an explosive oil named Nitroglycerin. And Alfred saw the potential of this design and he developed a new design for practical uses for which he got a patent in 1863. And this product was later named Dynamite. And at his death 33 years later Nobel had 355 patents registered in his name. In the same year of 1863 when he got this first patent the family except the two older brothers were back in Stockholm after that the father had been forced into another bankruptcy of his for a while very successful business in St. Petersburg. The family started a factory for production of explosives but it was again hit with a tragedy. A major explosion occurred in a storehouse killing the youngest Nobel brother and four other people. Alfred Nobel however carried on his work with explosives and initiated a fantastic career as an international industrialist and inventor and it certainly changed our world at that time by improving various means of communication using the dynamite to development of roads, tunnels, channels, railways you name it. So he established factories in many countries but he preferred himself to live in France. He also did have a home in Sweden but his life was one of very restless activities. He was a very lonely person who never married and his views on life were generally said to be quite dark. Now to bestow honors is a tradition in academies and learned society. And thus also the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences almost since its beginning in 1739 instituted prizes and distributed medals. The awards were meant as an encouragement and they did not really serve as a support for science. In fact our academy recognized the contribution by Alfred Nobel and his father by giving them in 1868 the latest prize for their discovery of dynamite. The amount was 400 Swedish crowns which I spilled some at that time but presumably not impressed by Nobel's standard. Some years later Alfred Nobel was again recognized by the academy. He was elected a member in March 1884 and interestingly he was elected a member in the class of economics and furthermore as a foreign member. His election as a foreign member probably reflected the fact that he lived essentially his whole life outside Sweden. Apparently he saw the attention given by the academy as an encouragement and he kept it in mind when he wrote his famous will. So Alfred Nobel wrote his final will in November 1895. It was written in Swedish and deposited in a Swedish bank and he wrote it without any legal assistance. And as a result there were of course a number of formal defects which led to a series of complications before the will eventually could be implemented. So Alfred Nobel had no immediate ears. His closest relatives were two nephews, one living in Sweden and one living in Russia. And when the will was opened five days after Nobel's death 63 years old on December 10, 1896 the relatives learned to their dismay that only a limited portion of the estate was bequeated to them. So why then was it Nobel's wish that his estate should be used for prizes? It is said that his political views had a socialistic color and that he did not sympathize with transfer of wealth between generations. Since he himself as was mentioned was a true inventor he could appreciate the importance of providing creative conditions for young talented inventors. And his concert was simple. The prize to be given should allow the awardee to concentrate on his work without any need for income for some 20 years. So really a long range scholarship. The five equal parts of the financial returns of the endowment should be given to and let's... To the one who in the field of physics has made the most important discovery or invention. Or secondly to the one who in the field of chemistry has made the most important discovery or improvement. Thirdly to the one who makes the most important discovery in the domain of physiology or medicine. And not listed on this picture. Fourthly to the one who in literature has produced the most outstanding contribution with an idealistic orientation. And finally to the one who has worked the most or the best for fraternization between peoples and elimination or reduction of standing armies and formation and dissemination of peace congresses. Now the common denominator for the first three prizes that you see on this picture is the term discovery. Thus prizes are not given for life contributions to science but for making a single discovery with a huge impact. Only in a few cases is it possible to identify prizes in which a particular reference has been given to the word invention or improvement that it says in physics and chemistry. Still in the early years there were prizes in physics that were given to invention like to Lipman in 1908 for the color photography technique, to Marconi and Brown in 1909 for radio transmission and to the Swede Dalén in 1912 for automatic regulators in lighthouses. But later prizes most often have gone to discoveries in basic sciences. Interestingly the year 2000 both the Committees for Physics and Chemistry proposed candidates in fields of more applied science that is the integrated circus and conductive polymers. Now the prize awarding institutions that are named in the will were for physics and chemistry the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, for physiology or medicine the Caroline's Institute in Stockholm which is a school of medicine and for literature the Academy of Letters in Stockholm and for peace a five member committee selected by the Norwegian House of Parliament, the Sturtinget. And in this quantity should be mentioned that Sweden and Norway formed a union until 1905 when it was peacefully resolved. However of course engagement in Nobel prize has remained a continued shred responsibility of the two countries and there is a Norwegian representative in the board of the Nobel Foundation. Nobel's choice of the five fields has been a matter of many discussions. It's said that he originally considered to be quest his estate to the newly established University of Stockholm but there were certain frictions with a very colorful president of this institution the mathematician Mittag Leffler and that may have made him change his mind and perhaps they also made him exclude mathematics. However interestingly Mittag Leffler himself he bequeated his estate to the Academy which now represents the world famous institution for mathematics under Ari Gies. The inclusion of literature may reflect Nobel's own engagement in that field. He made some and we must admit that some rather unsuccessful attempt in his own to write poems and fiction and towards the end of his life he even wrote a drama that then typed nemesis which he had printed on his own cost. But after his death the relatives made sure that all the copies of the book actually were destroyed except one that's still in existence. Perhaps the suffix with idealistic orientation reflects his belief that literature in his opinion is a means of changing our world and the idealistic focus is of course also apparent in the beginning of the will in which he says that the awardees should and I quote have made the greatest contribution to mankind. When it comes to peace prices it's likely that he was inspired by his acquaintance with the Austrian pacifist Bertha von Sutter who he for a while had employed as his private secretary. It doesn't mean that he shared her ideas but he indeed respected her and in 1905 she herself received the peace price. So what about the implementation of the will? There were many roadblocks to be removed before the will of Alfred Nobel could be fully implemented. There were legal formalities such as the jurisdiction over the will and furthermore there existed no legal or organized structure to take responsibility for the fund. Nobel's relatives living in Sweden wanted to take advantage of the situation of uncertainty and they contested the will in 1898. However the nephew Emanuel representing the Russian branch of the family he supported resolution in accordance with his uncle's will. In fact he even had an argument with the Swedish King Oscar II about the interpretation of the will. Because the king in the prevailing mood of the time of national chauvinism did not like the formulation in the will that and I quote no consideration whatever shall be given to the nationality of the candidates but that the most worthy shall receive the prices whether he's Scandinavian or not. End of quote. So eventually a settlement was made with the relatives who got minor compensation and Emanuel in his own right he became a member of our academy in 1911 in what was then a class for economy, statistics and social sciences. But even the price of awarding institutions brought in complicated matters. In fact the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences created for a while like a moment 22 situation by stating that it was willing to accept responsibilities of being an awarding institution provided that there was an institution which allowed the establishment of the fund but such an institution could only be established if the academy accepted its task. The critical resolution of the matter was the establishment of the Nobel Foundation and this was an idea conceived by the young engineer Ragnar Solmar one of the two executives of the world. And this foundation, the Nobel Foundation was instituted on June 29, 1900 and the Nobel Foundation is an underlying coordination organization managing the funds, fulfilling legal functions and arranging the famous price ceremony in Stockholm. However in all justice should be emphasized that it's not the Nobel Foundation that give Nobel prices but it is the awarding institutions that carry the sole responsibility for selecting price recipients and take notes that you prefer to use the word recipients not winners because I don't think you win Nobel prices. And it also the awarding institutions that give the prices and a few words on the price in economy and my headline is in fact that the price in economy is not a Nobel price. So in the end of the 1960s the central Swedish bank had a centennial celebration and it then decided to donate an annual sum of money to the Nobel Foundation in order to allow the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to give a price in economics. Our academy has a class for economics and social sciences. So this proposal was accepted by the academy and by the Nobel Foundation and since 1969 there is a price in economy in memory of Alfred Nobel and thus of course this does not celebrate a hundred years until in many years from now. It is of course difficult for the public to distinguish the price in economy from true Nobel prices since its process at our academy in the same way as Nobel prices and furthermore since it has become affiliated with the Nobel price ceremony in the concert hall in Stockholm on December 10th. So how many price recipients can there be when you select the lords for a certain year? It wasn't really clear from the will if the price awarding institutions should aim at selecting a single recipient or if there could be more than one price recipient. Originally the possibility of allowing a split into three prices per discipline was considered but eventually it was decided that there could be a maximum of two distinct prices. So one can give prices within for example physics to two distinct fields of physics. Well it was firm or not originally regulated whether a single price could be shared by one, two or more recipients and this was not clearly settled until 1968 when a firm rule was introduced that there can be a maximum of three price recipients in one discipline at the same time. So this evidently again gives five different possibilities. A price can be given for a single discovery to one person or shared equally between two or three persons. Alternatively a price can be given for two distinct discoveries. One half the price may go to one recipient and the other to another but one half the price may also be shared between two individuals giving a total of three recipients. Of course a single individual can receive repeated honors such as the price in physics to Bardin in 1956 and 1972 and as already alluded to early today the price in chemistry to Sanger in 1958 and 1980. There's also the possibility of receiving repeated honors in different fields such as Marie Curie's prices in physics in 1903 and in chemistry in 1911 and Pauling's prices in chemistry in 1954 and in peace in 1962. A Nobel Prize need not be given to individuals. It can also be given to institutions. This possibility has only been used for the peace prize which on several occasions have been given to institutions. One example is the Red Cross which in fact has received more than two prizes. In principle it is also possible to give prizes in natural science field to institutions but that has not been used. So what does the record of the preceding century show as concern selection of one, two or three recipients in the fields of physics, chemistry and physiology or medicine. And I'm not sure you can see that in the way in the back of the room but let me summarize what can be seen here. First of all Nobel Prize have not been given all the years. Due to world war perturbances there were six years in which no prizes in physics were given. Eight years were without pricing chemistry and nine years without prices in physiology or medicine. But for the remaining years one can see here that in physics during the first fifty years there was predominantly single prize recipients. But there is also a fair number of shared prizes. And after the Second World War the prices that are shared increased rapidly when they are shared between both two or three recipients. It seems however that now we have reached some form of steady state so the last decades there has been about the same portion between single and double and triple prize winners in physics. This is of interest to consider because it's frequently argued that since modern physics in many areas to an increasing extent is carried out in teams and large teams sometimes with many hundred collaborators it would be harder and harder to single out individuals. This is probably not true. My belief is that there is always in a team a single or a few individuals that really leads the group, that spearheads the group. Also in chemistry you can see that for the first ten years there was only single prize recipients and later on an increasing number of double prize recipients or even triple prize recipients. And again in the last decades it seemed to stabilize with about four single prize recipients, two to three double prize recipients and three to four triple prize recipients. Physiology of medicine is the field in which over time the largest proportional prize has been given to three individuals. In fact in 29% of all the cases. However it seems that the propensity to selecting three prize recipients is not increasing with time during the last decades. Thus even in a field with a multidisciplinary nature like medicine there is frequently the single individual or a few individuals who make the difference in paradigmatic advances. So let me tell you a little about how we select Nobel prize recipients. And I will discuss only the selection of prize recipients in physics, chemistry and physiology or medicine of which I have as was mentioned personal experience. I can just imagine that the prize work in literature and in peace in many regards are different and that includes certainly uniquely inherent problems. However it applies to all prizes that a candidate that can be considered shall be freshly nominated before January 31 for the prize the same year. So in fact the Nobel work goes on through the whole year and we select and send out invitations to nominate during the autumn. And nominations will be before the end of January. There may of course be a situation sometimes when a particular hot candidate does not receive any outside nomination. And it's possible in such a case that the Secretary of the Committee can secure a nomination so that the candidate is included in the discussions. So only designated individuals have the right to nominate and institutions cannot make nominations. Examples of such designated individuals are professors in the particular field in Scandinavia and previous prize recipients. In addition the committee separately invites individuals globally representing academies or university institutions on a rotating basis. The total number of invitations that are being sent out is in the range of two to three thousand. And the number of nominations for the last decades have been ranging between two hundred and four hundred. Roughly ten to twenty percent of the nominations are new to the committee but obviously most names have been encountered in the preceding work. And let me emphasize that this is an ongoing work that you pick up in the particular year from the preceding years and the whole process is one in which the prize in a certain area matures with time. Now the rules specify that there should be a committee composed of five members elected for a time period of three years and that the Caroline's Institute, the members may be re-elected once and at the academy they can be re-elected twice and serve for nine years. Now the working committee can be enlarged by electing adjunct members on a one year basis and at the academy we only use a relatively small number of such adjunct members and the reason for this is that the academy has, at the academy the committee interacts with a class of Swedish member representing the field like the class of physics and such a class has about 35 members out of which 18 are below the age of 65. But also the members of a certain committee need not be recruited from the class they can be taken from other classes where you have a particular competence. Now the goal in the selection process is to accumulate the best in-depth competence representing the range of the field as well as possible. It should be remarked that whereas the academy represents the whole Sweden the Caroline's Institute is only one of six faculties of medicine in Sweden although they manage about one third of all biomedical research in Sweden. At the Caroline's Institute the decision about the prize originally was taken by the College of Teachers with a lifelong tenure. But then there were changes in the rules for obligatory disclosure of official documents and Caroline's Institute is a state-run university. And then one had to form a new legal entity which was done in the 1970s and this is so-called Nobel Assembly legally speaking a private institution. This assembly has 15 members and it continuously renews itself as members retire or leave the Caroline's Institute. The working committee in physiology and medicine includes since many years 10 members are jointed for individual years and this committee or total of 15 people interacts with and reports the Nobel Assembly which takes the final decision usually on the second Monday in October so this coming Monday you will hear who has received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the year 2001. So to return to the academies we have what you may call a three-chair system so there is the committee, there is the class but the decision is taken by all the members of the academy which are on paper about 350 members and we usually assemble between 120 or 130 of our members for this important decision and that we can also pay for the travel of members and it's a day full of excitement and this will come up in the coming weeks so on Tuesday we will present the prize recipient in physics and for the first time we are now moved to the announcement of the prize recipient in chemistry to the following day previously we announced physics and chemistry on the same day so that will be the coming Wednesday and just to highlight that it's a unique situation where first the chairman of the Nobel Committee describes the whole process that had all the deliberations that have been made reviews all the different fields of the particular discipline and tells about where all the hot candidates are and then after that the committee comes with a proposal that has been supported by the class for a particular prize recipient of the year and then there's another member usually of the committee who gives an in-depth description of what the prize the proposed prize recipients have made and this is a unique information both of those who are active in the field but also of course those that are outside the field so we'll go back a little to how the process works of course all nominations are reviewed very carefully but most of them have already been counted in previous work and those that are newly nominated they may be selected in a number of cases for separate reviews either on a preliminary review or an in-depth analysis but they may also be put aside with a note to the protocol it depends on how heavy they will weigh now the reviews can have very different penetration here there are somewhat different systems at the Kerensky Institute and at the academy and the academy very often makes reviews of fields with all the different candidates and even has started during later years to have hearings with people that are well familiar with this particular important field of science the reviewers that have been used of course can be taken from the committee but also taken from reviews from outside both of national and international origin and towards the end of August each year so all these reviews that have been accumulating during the spring time and summer are collected in the book volume which at the Kerensky Institute used for the final discussion between the committee and assembly and at the academy the collection of reviews is supplemented with a written comparative evaluation by the committee of the strength of candidates and actually ends up with a proposal for a single prize now these yearly book volumes represent a fantastic real time analysis of events in advancement of science of potentially historical relevance because the goal of course of the selection process for the Nobel prize recipients is to identify contributions representing milestones in the history of science and the exceptional renouement of the prize is of course based on the fact that the recipients selected during the preceding century has been if not flawless very close to this remarkably few of the selected candidates in natural sciences and their contribution have not stood the test of time and it is this simple fact that gives the prize its extraordinary international prestige the prize simply does reflect the history of modern science now the part of the will which has not been possible to fulfill is that the prizes should be given and I quote to those who during the preceding year have and I end quote so in practice this requirement has been interpreted to mean that the impact of the contribution has been that to be awarded has been fully appreciated during the preceding year and as a consequence discovers to be honored generally have been made some 10 to 20 years before the year of awarding the prize in fact there are examples of even longer time legs even as long as 50 years when Peyton Rouse got his prize in 1966 for his discovery of tumor inducing viruses based on findings that he made in the 1920s the few mistakes that have been made frequently represent a to rush recommendation for a prize by a committee now another part of the will that requires continuous deliberation is that the contribution shall be beneficial to mankind the way the committee historically have interpreted this in that penetrating is that high quality basic research in one way or the other results in discoveries that marked the advance of civilization however the tasks for committees may become more and more challenging the number of scientists engaged in research has increased markedly with time the number of paradigmatic discoveries probably also increased as a consequence and possibly therefore more consideration may have to be given to the timelessness of a particular prize in the future and the selection from this large number of scientists that are out there of course it means more and more comprehensive work one critical aspect of the price selection process is the secrecy so the process for the selection of price recipients is surrounded by highly developed secrecy and this is a prerequisite to endow the process with as high a degree as objectivity as is possible in human endeavors thus lobbying is useless in affairs that concern Nobel prizes if anything I believe such actions may have a negative effect after a time lag of 50 years the archives of the Nobel committees become available for scholarly investigations the richness of the archives show some increase with time and studies of them therefore may become progressively more rewarding however since the protocols of the committee meetings only include the decisions the reasons for certain deliberations may not be apparent from the archives during the more than 20 years from 1974 and onwards when I had the privilege of being engaged in the work of the Nobel prize committee at the Karnisk Institute it was a tradition that the secretary took personal notes inside the protocol and I think these notes may provide very interesting information in the future and I have in fact encouraged our present secretaries of the committees for physics and for chemistry to also take personal notes of course accepting them that they are personal notes what about nationality of Nobel prize recipients the total number of persons that have received Nobel prize in physics, chemistry, physiology and medicine during the previous century is 469 and among these scientists doing their work in the United States dominate more than 40% of the total and in physics and in physiology and medicine the figures are close to 50% in chemistry and of course somewhat lower the figure for prizes in different disciplines given to scientists from Great Britain and Germany are similar however with a clear dominance for Great Britain when it comes to physiology or physics and physiology of medicine if instead one divides this nationality counting on 25 year time periods it becomes apparent that the good position for Germany is highly influenced by the awards that were given before the Second World War whereas the United States since the Second World War has taken exception lead during the last 50 years more than 70% of all prizes in national sciences have gone to the United States and it is of course an interesting question if this country or your country can retain this dominance of global science in the future it's quite a challenge of course a prize means that you also get some money and Nobel Prize recipients they do receive a large sum of money however the absolute value of the prizes varied markedly it had its lowest relative value after the First World War where only about 28% or down to 20% of the original value during the last decades the prize has recovered its value and when we had the celebration in 1991 years after the first Nobel Prize it was back to its original monetary value so during the last decade the prize has recovered and started to exceed its original value and the foreboding is that one will be able to increase the relative sum with time during the preceding year the Board of Foundation decides the prize value for a certain year in Swedish crowns and for the year 2001 the value is somewhat less than one million US dollars now in part of the explanation what improved value of the prize is that since the 1950s but not before that the Foundation is allowed to invest money in safe security not only in safe security but also in stocks and the total value of the assets of the Nobel Foundation in real terms is almost three times that of the original value the yearly yield from the capital is used not only for prizes although close to 60% of the returns should be used for the prizes but also to pay for the work performed by the committees and other employees at the prize giving institutions and also for the prize ceremony and for the employees of the Nobel Foundation however as I think I've already emphasized it's not the money that gives the prize its prestige to receive the Nobel Prize is an unmatched honour which brings an unprecedented respect and recognition from colleagues the fact is further accentuated by the fact that as was mentioned on the one hand the number of