Nobel Prize Conversations Imagine you’re married, but you never discussed children with your partner beforehand. Then imagine your partner doesn’t want children, but you do. Your wedding day contract made no mention of kids, and legally everything is fine – but you’re still disappointed. Contracts are everywhere in society, and the example of children and…

Interview with Sir J. Fraser Stoddart on 6 December 2016, during the Nobel Week in Stockholm, Sweden. Fraser Stoddart, welcome to Nobel Week in Stockholm. Fraser Stoddart: Thank you. All Nobel Laureates are asked to bring an artefact to donate to the Nobel Museum here in Stockholm, what did you bring? Fraser Stoddart: I brought…

Interview with Jean-Pierre Sauvage on 6 December 2016, during the Nobel Week in Stockholm, Sweden. Jean-Pierre Sauvage, welcome to the Nobel Week in Stockholm. Jean-Pierre Sauvage: Thank you. All Nobel Laureates are asked to bring an artefact to donate to the Nobel Museum here in Stockholm, what did you bring? Jean-Pierre Sauvage: I brought some…

Interview with J. Michael Kosterlitz on 6 December 2016, during the Nobel Week in Stockholm, Sweden. Michael Kosterlitz, welcome to Nobel Week. And you brought some artefacts for the museum, what did you bring? Michael Kosterlitz: I brought some things representing my two passions in life, or my two passions in life at the time.…

Interview with F. Duncan M. Haldane on 6 December 2016, during the Nobel Week in Stockholm, Sweden. Duncan Haldane, welcome to Nobel Week in Stockholm Duncan Haldane: Thank you. I noticed that you brought an artefact for the museum, what is it? Duncan Haldane: Well, when I initiated the work, which this prize was given…

English 4 October 2016 has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Physics 2016 with one half to David J. Thouless University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA and the other half to F. Duncan M. Haldane Princeton University, NJ, USA and J. Michael Kosterlitz Brown University, Providence, RI, USA ”for theoretical discoveries of topological phase…

English 5 October 2016 has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2016 to Jean-Pierre SauvageUniversity of Strasbourg, France Sir J. Fraser StoddartNorthwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA and Bernard L. FeringaUniversity of Groningen, the Netherlands “for the design and synthesis of molecular machines” They developed the world’s smallest machines A tiny lift, artificial muscles…

I was born in Helsinki in 1949. My sister Marianne was born in 1946. Our parents were married when the war against the Soviet Union ended in 1944. My father had spent five years on the front like so many young Finnish men. The post-war years were challenging socially and economically. The government had to…

I was born in London in 1948. My parents were both doctors. My mother was a gynecologist at a time when women doctors in the U.K. were relatively uncommon; she was a German-born Jew, who had left Germany in 1933 just after Hitler came to power. My father was an epidemiologist of some distinction whose…

Pragmatist by nature, disciplined, cosmopolitan, committed to his country, Juan Manuel Santos has been an effective leader throughout his life. He was effective when it was time to wage war against illegal armed groups and he was even more effective in seeking and obtaining, against all odds, a peace agreement with Latin America’s oldest and…