In the 20th century, the telephone became an increasingly important way to keep in touch with colleagues. This phone belonged to Gunnar Myrdal, who had a wide network as a researcher and politician. In 1933, he became professor of economics, and the following year a member of the Swedish parliament for the Social Democrats.
Myrdal also worked internationally. He spent the years before and after the Second World War in the U.S., writing such works as the highly-acclaimed An American Dilemma, a study of race relations and the conditions of the African American population. He also received assignments from the United Nations. Myrdal's analyses focused not just on economic factors. He also wove in historical, social, political, and other aspects. In the latter part of his life, he became committed to fighting the unequal distribution of global resources between rich and poor countries.
The telephone was donated to the Nobel Prize Museum by the Myrdal family in 2004.
This cap belonged to Herbert Simon. It is Chinese and was worn by Simon i China and the U.S.
The cap were donated to the Nobel Prize Museum by Herbert Simon’s family in 2003.
A pocket calculator can be associated an analytical and deeply reasoning mind. Herbert Simon, who used this calculator for many years, had that, but was very versatile and also partly had a different view of man. In Simon's day, established economic theories were based on the notion that all businesses and entrepreneurs acted in a strictly rational manner, with their own profit maximization as their only goal. Simon believed that people's choices diverge from the strictly rational, and he described businesses as adaptable systems with physical, personal, and social elements. Adopting this viewpoint, he was able to describe modern society's decision-making processes from a completely different perspective.
The calculator was donated to the Nobel Prize Museum by Herbert Simon’s family in 2003.
These drawings were made by Herbert Simon, who had many interests apart from his economic research. He enjoyed travelling and hiking and often brought his sketch pad and charcoal along.
The drawings were donated the to the Nobel Prize Museum by Herbert Simon’s family in 2004.
This beret is a Bakarra black wool felt beret worn by Herbert Simon in cold weather. When a beret wore out, he either bought a new one on his next trip abroad, or he ordered a new beret from the Bakarra Company.
The beret was donated to the Nobel Prize Museum by Herbert Simon’s family in 2003.
This silk scarf was worn by Herbert A. Simon on his way to the Nobel Prize award ceremony in December 1978.
The scarf was donated to the Nobel Prize Museum by Herbert Simon’s family in 2003.
Herbert Simon received this doctoral hat when he was made an honorary doctor at Lund University in 1968. He also wore it to the Nobel Prize award ceremony and banquet in December 1978.
The hat was donated to the Nobel Prize Museum by Herbert Simon’s family in 2003.
Herbert Simon was awarded the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel in 1978. His diploma was designed by artist Sven Ljungberg. The artwork depicts a sunflower.
The diploma was donated to the Nobel Prize Museum by Herbert Simon’s family in 2003.
This medal for the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel was awarded to Herbert Simon in 1978.
The medal was donated to the Nobel Prize Museum by Herbert Simon’s family in 2003.
In his 1963 research report, Herbert Kroemer developed a proposal for a heterostructure that works like a laser. Heterostructures entail that different semiconductor materials are placed in thin layers on top of each other, enabling characteristics that allow them to be used as electronic components. Kroemer’s proposal, which was made simultaneously and independently of a similar proposal from Zhores Alferov, was key to the development of semiconductor lasers, which became crucial in telecommunications and other fields.
Herbert Kroemer donated the research report to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2003.
This device, a goniometer, was used by Roderick MacKinnon in his discovery of the structure of ion channels – an important part of our cells. A crystal is mounted on the pin. When the goniometer is turned, the crystal is irradiated with X-rays from different angles. Patterns from rays passing the crystal provide a key to the structure of the crystal. On New Year’s Eve 1998, Roderick MacKinnon was alone in the laboratory. All of his colleagues had left to celebrate the new year. Late that night, he saw the first image of an ion channel on his computer screen.
Roderick MacKinnon donated the goniometer to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2003.
This cap, which belonged to Roderick MacKinnon, has the logo of Rockefeller University, where he worked.
Roderick MacKinnon donated the cap to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2003.
This photomultiplier tube represents Masatoshi Koshiba's research at the Kamiokande and Super-Kamiokande facilities in Japan. These large facilities are located in a water-filled mine. More than 1,000 photomultiplier tubes were placed in the Super-Kamiokande.
Neutrinos are elusive particles that can arise in nuclear reactions in the sun and during supernova explosions. Only one in a trillion neutrinos are stopped on their way through planet earth. When this happens, an electron is formed that generates a small flash of light. To prove the existence of neutrinos, Masatoshi Koshiba used photomultipliers like this one. The photomultiplier captured the flashes and amplified them so that they could be registered.
Masatoshi Koshiba donated the photomultiplier to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2002.
Amartya Sen used these maths textbooks at school. They are in Hindi, even though this is not the most common language in West Bengal, where he grew up. Mathematics is important in economics, a field where Sen conducted groundbreaking studies.
Amartya Sen donated the textbooks to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2001.
A bicycle is not the most commonly-used tool in economic science, but Amartya Sen's bicycle has had a special significance in his research. A large part of his work is concerned improving conditions for the most impoverished members of society. In a study on differences between infant girls and boys, he employed an assistant to weigh the children. Problems arose when the children did not want to be weighed and bit the assistant. The episode ended with Amartya Sen bicycling through the countryside of West Bengal to weigh the infants himself.
Amartya Sen donated the calligraphy to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2001.
In prison Kim Dae-jung was only allowed one sheet of paper per month. The letters to his wife Lee Hee-ho had to be written with small characters.
Kim Dae-jung donated the facsimiles of the letters to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2001.
The Bible was a key source of energy for Kim Dae-jung. His struggle for democracy in South Korea led to attempts on his life, imprisonment and forced exile. Thanks to support from the South Korean people and democratic efforts around the world, he could keep on fighting. But his deep personal faith also gave him strength. In his Nobel Prize Lecture he said: “I have lived, and continue to live, in the belief that God is always with me.”
Kim Dae-jung donated the bible to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2001.
These clothes were worn by Kim Dae-jung during his time in prison. After being sentenced to death in 1981, Kim Dae-jung was sent to the Chungju prison. Visits from his family were restricted. Kim’s wife Lee Hee-ho knitted clothes and blankets to give more warmth than the prison uniform. The death sentence was later commuted, and he was allowed in 1982 to go into exile in the United States.
Kim Dae-jung donated the prison clothes to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2001.
Joseph Brodsky used to always pack two portable typewriters on his travels, one for Latin characters and one with the Cyrillic alphabet. But he didn't need to think of that when he spent his summers in Sweden in 1988–1994, because the writer Bengt Jangfeldt let him borrow this typewriter with Cyrillic characters.
Brodsky often had problems with machines with complicated features. That was one of the reasons why he never switched to computers, even though this would have enabled him to alternate freely between Latin and Cyrillic letters without having to drag two typewriters around with him. According to Bengt Jangfeldt, "the clatter of the typewriter and the imprint of black letters on white paper was a veritable holy process" for Brodsky.
The typewriter was donated to the Nobel Prize Museum by Bengt Jangfeldt in 2023.
Kofi Annan’s bracelet has an ankh symbol, an Egyptian hieroglyphic symbol which has been interpreted as “the key to life”. The Copts – a Christian people of Egypt – retained the symbol in their depiction of the cross used in Christian churches.
The ankh symbol reflects Kofi Annan's primary goal with his work on behalf of the United Nations: to save and improve people’s lives. He bought the bracelet when he was stationed in Cairo with the Sinai peace-keeping forces.
In his book Interventions: A life in War and Peace, Annan describes his work in Egypt:
“I had been sent to Egypt as chief administrative officer for civilian personnel serving in the peacekeeping operation that was under way. The UN Emergency Force in Egypt (known as UNEF II) was stationed to supervise the withdrawal of forces from the Sinai Peninsula after the 1973 Arab-Israeli War. The job of the force was to demarcate the cease-fire line between the Egyptians and Israelis, and reinforce both parties’ confidence in the other’s commitment to the ‘line in the sand.’ The mission was beset with complications, as all peacekeeping operations were, which affected my work every single day: there were administrative and logistical challenges arising from a force made up of multiple troop-contributing nations, including Finland, Sweden, Peru, Ireland, Canada, Poland, Panama, and others. This meant multiple lines of command and logistics chains, numerous languages, clashes in military and administrative cultures, and irregular fluctuations in the size of the force, as different countries provided and withdrew troops at different times.”
Kofi Annan donated the bracelet to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2010.
These micrographs of crystals show substances closely related to pepsin and chymotrypsin, enzymes that are active in digestion. John Northrop managed in 1929 to produce a pure crystal form of these enzymes. His studies revealed that they are proteins.
The photographs were donated to the Nobel Prize Museum by the Northrop family in 2009.
This passport was issued to John Northrop for his trip to Sweden in December 1946 to attend Nobel Prize award ceremony.
The passport was donated to the Nobel Prize Museum by John Northrop’s family in 2009.
This inkstand belonged to John Northrop.It includes an inkwell, which was used to store ink during writing with a quill or dip pen.
The inkstand was donated to the Nobel Prize Museum by the Northrop family in 2009.
This microscope belonged to John Northrop. It was made by the distinguished microscope maker Joseph Zentmayer in Philadelphia.
The microscope was donated to the Nobel Prize Museum by the Northrop family in 2009.
This small microscope belonged to John Northrop. who probably used it when he was young. Northrop spent his entire life dedicated to chemistry, in which he made ground-breaking discoveries on proteins.
This microscope, which belonged to John Northrop, was made by the distinguished microscope maker Joseph Zentmayer in Philadelphia. This model was patented in 1876. Northrop was born in 1891 and was likely given the microscopes when he was young. Perhaps he inherited it from his father, a zoologist who died tragically in an explosion two weeks before his son’s birth. John Northrop dedicated his entire life to chemistry, making ground-breaking discoveries on proteins.
The microscopes were donated to the Nobel Prize Museum by the Northrop family in 2009.
This electronic control panel was used by Wolfgang Ketterle in experiments to create “Bose-Einstein condensates”. The electronic control panel was built by the researchers themselves. It was installed between the experimental apparatus and a computer to protect against water failure in the cooling of the coils in the apparatus.
Wolfgang Ketterle donated the equipment to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2001.
This atomic beam shutter in two parts was used by Wolfgang Ketterle to create “Bose-Einstein condensates” in experiments in 1994–2001 .
Wolfgang Ketterle donated the atomic beam shutter to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2001.
This coil was used in Wolfgang Ketterle's experiments in 1996 to create “Bose-Einstein condensates”. The material called that keeps the coil together is epoxy. The coil was cooled by water through the tubes.
Wolfgang Ketterle donated the coil to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2001.
Under flera decennier syntes på många svenska kuvert en scen ur Selma Lagerlöfs bok Nils Holgerssons underbara resa genom Sverige. Med träffsäker symbolik fungerade bilden som stämpel på försändelser på väg till mottagare i landets olika delar. Bilden togs fram av reklamkonstnären Bengt Mellberg 1969 och detta är en reproduktion från originalet.
Bilden fungerade som utdelningsstämpel för masskorsband, en form av massförsändelser som tidigare användes. Avsändaren avtalade med Posten ett rabatterat pris och försändelserna behövde ej frankeras. Förlagor för stämpeln lämnades i stället ut till tryckerier och stämpeln trycktes direkt på försändelser som skickades ut till många adressater.
Hur många försändelser som stämpeln tryckts på går inte att säga exakt, men det kan röra sig om sex miljarder.
Bilden donerades till Nobelprismuseet av Bengt Mellberg 2001.
These records are from the Swedish neurophysiologist Yngve Zotterman’s experiments confirming the theories of the medicine laureate Corneille Heymans.
Nerve impulses are weak electrical currents that can be converted into sound. The recordings document nerve signals from the carotid sinus (a bulge in the carotid artery on the neck) of cats at different blood oxygen levels. Heymans’s research focused on the carotid sinus and how it regulates breathing, and Zotterman’s results further corroborated his hypotheses.
In 1939, when Heymans was awarded the 1938 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, the Second World War had just started, and the Nobel Prize laureates were unable to visit Stockholm. In a lecture on Swedish Radio, Zotterman used his own recording of nerve impulses in his presentation of Heymans’s research. He informed Heymans of the broadcast times, so he could listen to the presentation. Heymans understood the lecture even though it was in Swedish, and asked if he could have the recordings. This was probably when Zotterman added the descriptions in English which can be heard on these records. Heymans used them in his lectures for many years. When they were worn out, he asked Zotterman to send him new ones.
The records were donated to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2001.
In his doctoral thesis from 1884, Svante Arrhenius presented a revolutionary theory on how salts, when dissolved in water, divide into electrically charged ions. At Uppsala University, his ideas met with skepticism, and his dissertation was barely approved. His theory eventually became accepted and resulted in his Nobel Prize.
The doctoral thesis was acquired by the Nobel Prize Museum in 2001.
In 1948, Linus Pauling was trying to determine the three-dimensional structure of a component found in many biologically important molecules. He found the key to the solution while recovering from a cold, when he was bored and drew the molecular chain on a piece of paper and then folded the paper into a tube. He realised that the structure was helical. It is now known as alpha helix.
The model was presented to the Nobel Prize Museum by Linda Pauling Kamb in 2000.
This model was built by Ava Helen and Linus Pauling in the 1930s. It represents the crystal structure of the mineral zunyite, one of the many structures Linus Pauling discovered.
The model was presented to the Nobel Prize Museum by Linda Pauling Kamb in 2000.
Linus Pauling often wore a beret. With this artistic headgear, he demonstrated his radical standpoint during the Cold War in the USA. After the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, the chemist Pauling engaged in the fight against nuclear weapons. His activism led to accusations of communist sympathies, and his passport was revoked.
The beret was presented to the Nobel Prize Museum by Linda Pauling Kamb in 2000.
This dish contains mould from the Penicillium family. It was cultivated from the mould discovered by Alexander Fleming in 1928 in a dish that had been left standing in his laboratory. He noted that the mould had inhibited growth of the bacteria that the dish had been used for. It turned out that the mould had formed a substance, penicillin, which was later used in treatments for bacterial infections.
Ernst Boris Chain, Howard Florey and their colleagues succeeded in the early 1940s to produce penicillin in pure form and investigate its properties in greater detail. Additional efforts led to a drug that could be produced in large quantities.
A penicillium culture was given in 2001 to the Nobel Prize Museum by the Alexander Fleming Laboratory Museum at St Mary's Hospital in London. The culture is kept at the Karolinska Institutet, which regularly supplies the Nobel Prize Museum with a new dish of Penicillium culture.
The cloud chamber, developed by C.T.R. Wilson, became an important instrument for studying the tracks of speeding particles and radiation.
While hiking in Scotland, C.T.R. Wilson was fascinated by the light phenomena that sometimes occurred in clouds and fog. To study these more closely, he tried to create artificial fog in a laboratory environment. This was the beginning of Wilson’s cloud chamber. However, instead of providing a tool for the study of weather and light phenomena, the chamber was primarily used to investigate the components of matter. Particles passing through the fog chamber leave visible tracks when they knock out electrons from the atoms they pass.
This cloud chamber is a replica of Wilson’s early model.
The replica of the cloud chamber was acquired by the Nobel Prize Museum in 2001.
This cryostat is a replica of a device used by Pyotr Kapitsa around 1940 to study superfluid helium. A glass “spindle”with six capillaries is balanced on a needle in a container with liquid helium. If a ray of light is focused on the device so that the liquid is heated, the spindle begins to rotate. The explanation is that at temperatures below 2.19 Kelvin, liquid helium is a mixture of normal liquid helium and a suprafluid helium. When heated, the superfluid quantum liquid is transformed into normal liquid and squirts out through the capillaries. Because the superfluid liquid can seep in along the walls of the capillaries, this process goes on for as long as heat is added.
The cryostat was manufactured at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, which Pyotr Kapitsa helped to found. It was acquired by the Nobel Prize Museum in 2001.
Russian physicist Pyotr Kapitsa had a specially-designed key cut for the Mond Laboratory at Cambridge where he worked in the 1920s and 1930s. The key’s design was inspired by Kapitsa’s nickname for his mentor and 1908 chemistry laureate Ernest Rutherford, “The Crocodile”. This later became Kapitsa’s own nickname. There are several theories on how the nickname came about. Kapitsa’s wife Anna revealed in her later years that none of the more imaginative ones were true, but they are interesting nonetheless. Kapitsa himself offered one explanation: “In Russia, the crocodile is a symbol of the head of the family, and is both feared and admired because of its stiff neck and inability to move in any direction but forward. It just keeps on going straight ahead with its jaws wide open – just like science, just like Rutherford.”
This key is a copy of the original, which is kept at Kapitsa’s laboratory in Moscow. The replica was acquired by the Nobel Prize Museum in 2001.
A pair of scissors and a letter-knife are from the desk of William Butler Yeats.
The scissors and the letter-knife were donated to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2001.
This samizdat booklet with “Yuri Zhivago’s poems” by Boris Pasternak was written in the late 1940s. Samizdat was underground literature that circulated in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe during the communist regimes. Pasternak's novel Doctor Zhivago, which ends with a cycle of poems, was banned in the Soviet Union. In the booklet there are notes by Olga Ivinskaya, whom Pasternak lived with.
The booklet was presented to the Nobel Prize Museum by the Pasternak family in 2000.
This is a part of an antenna system which was designed and constructed in the 1960’s by a team led by astrophysicist Antony Hewish. The entire system covered a large field outside Cambridge, UK.
A young graduate student, Jocelyn Bell, observed a source of radiation which had not registered before. Further research verified that a new type of star had been discovered – a pulsar.
For the discovery of pulsars Antony Hewish was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics of 1974. A controversy broke out where several people argued that Jocelyn Bell should have been awarded a share of the prize.
Antony Hewish donated parts of the antenna system to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2001.
Using this box, Sperry studied apes whose hemisphere-connecting nerves had been cut.
In the monkey’s brain, the right and left visual fields are connected to the opposite hemisphere. Using filters in front of the monkey's eyes, the right or left field of vision could be shielded. In this way, an image projected on a screen in front of the monkey could be shown to only one hemisphere of the brain. This made it possible to train and study the two brain hemispheres separately. The studies provided a basis for studying the different functions of the two brain hemispheres in humans.
Roger Sperrys widow, Norma Sperry, presented the training box to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2001.
This prosthetic leg was produced by Handicap International (now Humanity & Inclusion), an organisation founded in 1982 to help refugees in camps in Thailand and Cambodia. Activities eventually expanded to other countries suffering from conflicts and catastrophes. It co-founded the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, the ICBL.
The prosthetic leg was donated to the Nobel Prize Museum by Humanity & Inclusion in 2001.
The Mekong wheelchair was made In Cambodia, where many people have lost one or both legs due to landmines. The wheelchair was made by the Jesuit Refugee Service, a member of the ICBL, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. The ICBL began operating in 1991 and is an umbrella for numerous people and organisations. At the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in 1997, the ICBL was represented by Tun Channareth, who began campaigning against landmines after losing both legs in a landmine explosion. He used this Mekong wheelchair at the award ceremony.
The development of the Mekong wheelchair began around 1990. The initiators and designers, David Constantine, Simon Gue, Richard Frost and Ian Harris, have striven to design it in a way that is suitable for low-income countries. They embarked on a partnership with the Jesuit Refugee Service, which has been producing the Mekong wheelchair at its factory in Phnom Penh since 1993.
A lot of wood was used for the wheelchair, since steel was not reliably available in Cambodia at the time. The wheelchairs were flat-packed at the workshop in Phnom Penh and distributed to local workshops where they were assembled.
Due to the country’s poor infrastructure at the time, shipping was a problem. The designers tried to factor in the conditions and still achieve a functional and comfortable product with the available materials.
The wheelchair was donated to the Nobel Prize Museum by the Jesuit Refugee Service in 2001.
This light guide comes from the large CERN particle physics laboratory outside Geneva, where the smallest particles of matter are studied. The experiments often involve hundreds of researchers, and the equipment is both large and small. Light guides like this one were used in an experiment to find “W” and “Z” particles. The energy from incoming particles is reradiated as light using the light guides, but with a lower energy. Light guides were used to adjust the radiation so that it matches the sensitivity of the apparatus and gives better measurements. The experiment earned Carlo Rubbia and Simon van der Meer the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1984.
The light guide was donated to the Nobel Prize Museum by CERN in 2000.
An oar symbolises the success of Cambridge University in science. Boat races are a common event in Cambridge. Every year, Cambridge competes against Oxford, a race that is taken very seriously. Standards are rigorous, also, for the scientists who work at Cambridge. To obtain a position at Cambridge, you have to constantly achieve new results. Only the best are allowed to remain. More than 120 Nobel Prize laureates have some link to Cambridge.
The oar was acquired by the Nobel Prize Museum in 2001.
These ears of maize were studied by Barbara McClintock in her research on genetics. As early as the 1940s, ground-breaking insights were being made thanks to her studies: parts of the maize genome can jump from one place to another in the chromosomes. This is what causes colour variation of kernels in an ear of maize. It took years before McClintock’s discoveries were acknowledged, however, but they eventually had a revolutionary impact on genetics.
The ears of maize were deposited at the Nobel Prize Museum by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in 2000.
