“The most enjoyable part of science is doing it. It is sometimes very hard, sometimes very frustrating but extremely rewarding when you suddenly understand something.”

In the 1970s astrophysicist Kip Thorne was one of the pioneering scientists who believed that gravitational waves – ripples in space-time caused by massive events like two black holes colliding – could be detected. Achieving that goal took almost five decades, a collaboration of more than 1,000 scientists and a lot of hard – and fun – work. But their detection, on 14 September 2015, opened up a whole new way to see, and understand our universe.

Medicine laureate Torsten Wiesel studied the visual process and disclosed the most well guarded secret of the brain: the way brain cells decode messages from the eyes. Listen to Torsten Wiesel explaining his research

The Nobel Prize categories are physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and peace and were laid out in the will of Alfred Nobel. Find out more in the FAQ.