Nobel Prize

Glenn T. Seaborg’s speech at the Nobel Banquet in Stockholm, December 10, 1951 (in Swedish) Ers Majestät, Era Kungliga Högheter, mina damer och herrar: Jag ska försöka att säga några ord på svenska. Nobelpriset har ett högt värde hos vetenskapsmän i hela världen. Ja, det är den största ära som en forskare kan få. Varför…

Sir Peter Mansfield delivering his banquet speech. Sir Peter Mansfield’s speech at the Nobel Banquet, December 10, 2003 Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Honoured Laureates, Ladies and Gentlemen:- The sparkle, the jubilation, the sheer grandeur of the Nobel Fest, is a most splendid occasion in which we, by your grace, have been invited…

George Wald’s speech at the Nobel Banquet in Stockholm, December 10, 1967 Your Majesty, Royal Highnesses, Exellencies, Ladies, Gentlemen, and fellow students: A scientist should be the happiest of men. Not that science isn’t serious; but as everyone knows, being serious is one way of being happy, just as being gay is one way of…

Ragnar Granit’s speech at the Nobel Banquet in Stockholm, December 10, 1967 (in Swedish) Eders Majestät, Eders Kungliga Högheter, Ärade Festförsamling: Ingen kan ta emot ett nobelpris utan känslor av djup tacksamhet och glädje. Mitt tack riktar sig inte enbart till prisutdelarna – intill helt nyligen mitt eget lärarkollegium – utan också till personer och…

Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Honored Laureates, Ladies and Gentlemen: During my long, and still ardent, affair with molecular beam technology, I have been able to make tape recordings of one-on-one conversations with some of its greatest practitioners. One of the most memorable of those conversations was with , a true citizen-statesman…

Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Ladies and Gentlemen: A dinner speech is harder for me than a lecture. Therefore, I will simply share with you some of the feelings and thoughts I have had about this Nobel week. At first, upon learning that we have become Nobel Laureates there is a feeling…

Val Fitch’s speech at the Nobel Banquet, December 10, 1980 Your Majesty, Your Royal Highnesses, Ladies and Gentlemen, Earlier today Professor Ekspong described our research which showed a basic lack of symmetry between matter and antimatter, world and antiworld. He observed that, if from some remote stellar region an alien space craft comes to visit,…

Edward V. Appleton’s speech at the Nobel Banquet in Stockholm, December 10, 1947 Your Royal Highness, Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen: I wish to thank you, Professor , for the kind and generous way in which you have commended us to the distinguished gathering assembled here tonight; and I want to thank all of you…

Claude Cohen-Tannoudji’s speech at the Nobel Banquet, December 10, 1997 Vos Majestés, Vos Altesses Royales, Mesdames, Messieurs, C’est sous le signe de la lumière que je voudrais m’adresser à vous. Depuis l’antiquité, la lumière a toujours fasciné l’esprit humain par ses multiples aspects et son caractère mystérieux. En se manifestant, tantôt comme une succession de…

Joseph Brodsky’s speech at the Nobel Banquet, December 10, 1987 Your Majesties, Ladies and Gentlemen, I was born and grew up on the other shore of the Baltic, practically on its opposite grey rustling page. Sometimes on clear days, especially in autumn, standing on a beach somewhere in Kellomaki, a friend would poke his finger…