MetaFilter posts tagged with Nobel

Herta Müller is the 2009 Nobel Laureate in Literature

Kattullus — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 04:10:13 -0800

This year's Nobel Laureate in Literature is Romanian born author Herta Müller, who writes in German, as predicted yesterday by M. A. Orthofer of The Complete Review and Literary Saloon. Here's an interview with Herta Müller and a short bio.

Brodsky on Boredom

vronsky — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 11:46:26 -0800

Joseph Brodsky: In Praise of Boredom -- from his Dartmouth College commencement address in 1995. " Boredom is your window on the properties of time that one tends to ignore to the likely peril of one's mental equilibrium. It is your window on time's infinity. Once this window opens, don't try to shut it; on the contrary, throw it wide open. For boredom speaks the language of time, and it teaches you the most valuable lesson of your life: the lesson of your utter insignificance. It is valuable to you, as well as to those you are to rub shoulders with. "You are finite," time tells you in the voice of boredom, "and whatever you do is, from my point of view, futile."

Wislawa Szymborska

vronsky — Wed, 06 May 2009 18:00:33 -0800

How to (and how not to) write poetry -- "selections from columns originally published in the Polish newspaper Literary Life. In these columns, famed poet Wislawa Szym borska answered letters from ordinary people who wanted to write poetry. Translated by Clare Cavanagh." Here is her Nobel acceptance speech, where she charmingly imagines a dialogue between herself and Eccles iastes.

The Power of Ideas

homunculus — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 16:00:55 -0800

What to Do. 2008 Nobel Laureate in Economics Paul Krugman on what to do about the economic crisis. [Via]

The Nobel Prize is Shrill

XQUZYPHYR — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 05:56:05 -0800

"...For his analysis of trade patterns and location of economic activity," the 2008 Nobel Prize in economics has been awarded to New York Times columnist Paul Krugman.

Let's sit down and talk this over.

Free word order! — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 04:30:46 -0800

President Martti Ahtisaari wins the Nobel Peace Prize. A former Finnish President, an UN envoy, a social democrat, a school teacher and founder of Crisis Management Initiative has negotiated for peace in many troubled areas for three decades. Last fall and last summer CMI (without Ahtisaari's presence) called former Northern Ireland and South African militants to use their experience for finding Iraqi factions a way out of bloodshed. A plan for Kosovo. Negotiations ending 30-year conflict in Aceh, Indonesia. Negotiating Namibia independence. Got conflict? Mr. Ahtisaari is your man.

Nobel Prize Chemistry 2008: The notorious GFP

NikitaNikita — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 09:38:35 -0800

The 2008 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to scientists who advanced the use of jellyfish green florescent protein, or GFP (previously), an indispensable tool in molecular biology. The man who discovered the GFP gene, however, is doing something quite different these days. More links: Several GFP derivatives of many different colors have been made, although I personally wouldn't encourage kids make bacteria/agar plate art, though. (more ">here, and Tsien's wreath for a department holiday party here. Such proteins not only allow the tagging of specific proteins, but also allow real-time imaging (read: movies!) of proteins moving about a cell in response to a stimulus. Martin Zimmer's page on GFP with more info, and a link to this, uhhh... [opinion withheld] "Notorious GFP" video. Profile pages on the winners: Roger Tsien, Martin Chalfie, and Osamu Shimomura.

Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio Receives Nobel Prize in Literature

Kattullus — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 04:21:04 -0800

The Nobel Prize in Literature goes to French novelist Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio. Here's an old interview, a short video interview (in French) and a short story (in English).

2008 Nobel Prize for Physics

leybman — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 05:38:37 -0800

Nobels for Physics announced. The prize will be shared between three individuals, including one American teaching at the University of Chicago. The other two winners are from Japan, Makoto Kobayashi and Toshihide Maskawa .

flacid

plexi — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 08:14:42 -0800

"There is powerful literature in all big cultures, but you can't get away from the fact that Europe still is the centre of the literary world... not the United States," he said. "The US is too isolated, too insular. They don't translate enough and don't really participate in the big dialogue of literature... That ignorance is restraining."

Nobel literature prize judge Horace Engdahl comes down hard against Don DeLillo, David Foster Wallace, and other crazy American shit that just can't cross the waters.

Imported beats domestic

dances_with_sneetches — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 06:41:42 -0800

Luc Montagnier, Francoise Barre-Sinoussi and Harald zur Hausen take the Nobel Prize in Medicine for the discoveries of the AIDS virus and HPV, respectively. Take that Gallo.

Solzhenitsyn dead at 89

sien — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 15:18:04 -0800

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn has died. ( BBC ) The great author and opponent of totalitarianism lived to see the end of Communism in the Soviet Union and almost everywhere else. He survived WWII as a commander in the Soviet army before being put into gulags where he spent 20 years. He went on to write the Gulag Archipelago and win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970.

The Perfect Marriage of Great Science and Great Hair

hermitosis — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 07:24:19 -0800

A 2007 Nobel Prize-winning breakthrough in genetics may hold the key to eliminating Trichotillomania: the gene Hoxb8 governs grooming behavior in mammals.

He's no Ghandi...oh wait

reformedjerk — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 08:51:42 -0800

The Nobel Foundation sheds some on the missing Nobel Peace Laureate--Mahatma Gandhi.

Gore wins Nobel prize

blacklite — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 02:17:13 -0800

Albert A. Gore Jr. shares the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. "He is probably the single individual who has done most to create greater worldwide understanding of the measures that need to be adopted." Still not running for president.

How to win the Nobel Prize 101

vacapinta — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 16:22:54 -0800

"It so often happens that I receive mail - well-intended but totally useless - by amateur physicists who believe to have solved the world. They believe this, only because they understand totally nothing about the real way problems are solved in Modern Physics...It should be possible, these days, to collect all knowledge you need from the internet. Problem then is, there is so much junk on the internet... I know exactly what should be taught to the beginning student...I can tell you of my own experiences. It helped me all the way to earn a Nobel Prize. But I didn't have internet. I am going to try to be your teacher. It is a formidable task."

Fritz Haber

Plutor — Tue, 21 Nov 2006 05:07:15 -0800

Fritz Haber's story is the story of the double edged sword of science. He won the Nobel prize in 1918 for his groundbreaking work in breaking the nitrogen cycle for Germany's WWI efforts, but it's been estimated that two out of every five people now living would not have been born if it weren't for artificial fertilizers created using his process. He also spent much of the war developing poison gases; first chlorine (after watching its first use, Haber's wife committed suicide) and later Zyklon B (the cyanide insecticide later used against his fellow Jews in concentration camps). He died alone and in poverty in Switzerland. But the lessons of his life haven't quite been forgotten.

"For their efforts to create economic and social development from below"

matthewr — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 03:55:34 -0800

In 1976, a young Bangladeshi economics professor named Muhammad Yunus founded Grameen Bank to implement microcredit — lending small sums to the very poorest members of society. Today, he and his bank share the Nobel Peace prize. Grameen, a profit-making company with social objectives, has lent $5.3bn to 6.4m people. 97% of borrowers are women, as Yunus believes [video] "men will do whatever they could to enjoy for themselves personally [but] women looked at it for the children, for the family and for the future."

once described himself as 'a fourth- or fifth-rate writer,'

amberglow — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 13:15:41 -0800

"Life is wise to deceive us," he once wrote, "for had it told us from the start what it had in store for us, we would refuse to be born." --Naguib Mahfouz, RIP --and more from when he won the Nobel in 1988

“a little in love with death”

matteo — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 07:43:06 -0800

Forty-nine published plays. Four Pulitzer Prizes. Three marriages. A suicide attempt. A celebrity for a father. A drug-addicted mother who blamed her habit on her son. A daughter estranged, a son who committed suicide. A Nobel Prize, the only ever awarded to an American playwright.
Eugene O'Neill from inside out: a documentary film for American Experience. More inside.

Nobel Prize Games

OmieWise — Wed, 28 Dec 2005 07:46:14 -0800

Games and Simulations at the Noble Prize website. See the right sidebar for a complete list of what's available.

Co-winner of the Nobel prize in economics

Adamchik — Fri, 21 Oct 2005 10:13:32 -0800

Co-winner of the Nobel prize in economics Robert Aumann of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem gave a very interesting interview about how he became interested in economics, math, and the "topology of bagels." How he applied logic from the Talmud to bankruptcy and other economic events was described nicely at Slate here.

Pinter who?

Termite — Thu, 13 Oct 2005 04:12:12 -0800

It's Pinter. The Nobel Prize in Literature is awarded to the English writer Harold Pinter, “who in his plays uncovers the precipice under everyday prattle and forces entry into oppression’s closed rooms”.

The Peace Prize

Silune — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 17:24:17 -0800

Mohamed ElBaradei and the International Atomic Energy Agency have won this year's Nobel Peace Prize. (pr ev io us)

The Color Of Atoms

stilgar — Tue, 04 Oct 2005 04:01:27 -0800

Americans, German win nobel prize for physics. They won for for their contributions to the development of laser-based precision spectroscopy, including the optical frequency comb technique, which among other thing allows them to measure the speed of light to such accuracy that it is now used as the definition for the meter, see if the laws of physics were the same at the beginning of time, and make gps satellites work much better.