Nobel Prize

Henry Taube’s speech at the Nobel Banquet, December 10, 1983 Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Ladies and Gentlemen: I have the honor to represent the science professed by Alfred Nobel, an honor enhanced by the presence here of so many of the Nobel family. My friend professor Lindqvist earlier today referred to chemistry as a…

Roald Hoffmann’s speech at the Nobel Banquet, December 10, 1981 Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Fellow Laureates, Ladies and Gentlemen, Students of Stockholm, Students of all Sweden! I salute you for all that you represent: For your youth, your beauty and your strength – symbolic of mankind’s constant renewal! For your devotion to knowledge, your…

Kenichi Fukui’s speech at the Nobel Banquet, December 10, 1981 Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Ladies and Gentlemen, I have the privilege to speak on behalf of Professor Roald Hoffmann and myself and to express first of all our deepest gratitude for the high honour and warm hospitality that have been given us on this…

Paul Berg’s speech at the Nobel Banquet, December 10, 1980 Your Majesty, Your Royal Highnesses, Ladies and Gentlemen, I have the privilege and distinct pleasure to speak on behalf of the three Laureates in Chemistry and to express to you all our gratitude for the very high honor and warm hospitality that has been given…

Peter Mitchell’s speech at the Nobel Banquet, December 10, 1978 Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Ladies and Gentlemen, Emile Zola described a work of art as a corner of nature seen through a temperament. The philosopher Karl Popper, the economist , and the art historian K. H. Gombrich have shown that the creative process in…

Ilya Prigogine’s speech at the Nobel Banquet, December 10, 1977 Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Ladies and Gentlemen, It is now a little more than eighty years ago that Alfred Nobel decided to create the Nobel Foundation responsible for the attribution of the Nobel Prizes. These eighty years have seen important and sometimes tragic events…

William Lipscomb’s speech at the Nobel Banquet, December 10, 1976 Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Ladies and Gentlemen, The award this year of the Nobel Prize in chemistry for research in pure inorganic chemistry is an important event. It is a reminder that we know even now considerably less about most of the chemical elements…

John Cornforth’s speech at the Nobel Banquet, December 10, 1975 Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Ladies and Gentlemen, My old friend Vlado Prelog has asked me to offer, from both of us, our thanks to the Royal Academy of Sciences and to the Nobel Foundation for the honour conferred on us. Our backgrounds, and the…

Paul J. Flory’s speech at the Nobel Banquet, December 10, 1974 Your Majesty, Your Royal Highnesses, Ladies and Gentlemen, Acknowledgment of the privilege of receiving the Nobel Prize in words commensurate with the distinction it conveys overtaxes the resources of language. It must suffice to say that I am profoundly grateful to the Royal Swedish…

Stanford Moore’s speech at the Nobel Banquet in Stockholm, December 10, 1972 Mr. Prime Minister, Ladies and Gentlemen, Christian B. Anfinsen, William H. Stein, and I have the honor of co-authoring the response of three chemists to your toast on this memorable occasion. This ceremony and the intellectual aura associated with the Nobel Prizes have…