Nobel Prize

New York City is my world. I was born in Brooklyn, the first child of immigrant parents whose education was disrupted by the Nazi invasion of Poland. Although not themselves learned, my parents shared a deep respect for learning. I grew up in a home rich in warmth, but empty of books, art or music.…

I was born in 1947 in Seattle, Washington, a city surrounded by mountains, forests, and the sea. My mother was the daughter of Swedish immigrants who had come to the US in the late nineteenth century while my father’s family had Irish roots on one side and ancestors extending back to the American Revolution on…

I was born on March 21, 1932 in Boston, Massachusetts. My father, Richard V. Gilbert, an economist, was at that time at Harvard University. He worked for the Office of Price Administration during the second World War and later headed up a planning group advising the Pakistani government. My mother, Emma Cohen, was a child…

I was born in New York City on February 14, 1917, the oldest child of Israel Hauptman and Leah Rosenfeld. I have two brothers, Manuel and Robert. I married Edith Citrynell on November 10, 1940. We have two daughters, Barbara (1947) and Carol (1950). My interest in most areas of science and mathematics began at…

The beginning is distant, and was a time when we as a people were without much of the fruits of science that now refine our lives. But it was also a good time, when family and town were the domain of our existence. My father of Scottish, and mother of German extraction, migrated with their…

I was born in Pusan, Korea, on October 3, 1904. My father Brede Pedersen, was a Norwegian marine engineer who left home as a young man and shipped out as an engineer on a steam freighter to the Far East. He eventually arrived in Korea and joined the fleet of the Korean customs service, which…

I was born on September 30, 1943 in Zusamaltheim, Bavaria, now Federal Republic of Germany, as the first son of Thekla and Johann Deisenhofer. After my father’s return from military service my parents ran the family farm. In 1948, our family grew to its final size with the birth of my only sister, Antonie. My…

I was born in Ludwigsburg, Württemberg, in the southwestern part of the Federal Republic of Germany on July 18, 1948, as the elder son of Karl and Frieda Michel. My ancestors lived in that area for generations, mainly as farmers. There the inherited land is equally divided among sisters and brothers, and not enough land…

Walther Hermann Nernst was born in Briesen, West Prussia, on June 25, 1864. His father, Gustav Nernst, was a district judge. He spent his early school years at Graudentz, and subsequently went to the Universities of Zurich, Berlin and Graz (Ludwig Boltzmann and Albert von Ettinghausen), studying physics and mathematics, before proceeding to Wurzburg (Friedrich…

Francis William Aston was born in September 1877 at Harborne, Birmingham, England, the third of a family of seven children. He was educated at Harborne Vicarage School and Malvern College where his interest in science was aroused. In 1894 he entered Mason College, Birmingham (later to become the University of Birmingham) where he studied chemistry…