Bengt Samuelsson noted all his travels and meetings in his calendar by hand. The calendar had to be very small, with not much space for entries, because it was important for him to have time for his own research. Samuelsson had many assignments, especially after being awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1982. He was involved in multiple research collaborations and boards. He was also the president of Karolinska Institutet in 1983–1995 and chair of the Nobel Foundation in 1993–2005. When this calendar was in use in 2006, he was still active in research, and he remained with the Karolinska Institutet until his death in 2024. The spread for May shows a few of Samuelsson's commitments and interests. He travelled to La Jolla, California, for a meeting on lipidomics, a field of research where Samuelsson's contributions have been seminal. One meeting concerned the research-based pharmaceutical company Biolipox, of which Samuelsson was a board member. A meeting with the food society Måltidsakademien reveals his passion for gastronomy. A conference in Stockholm organised by the scientific journal Nature is also scheduled. For his wife Karin, the calendar and pen are intimately associated with memories of her husband. She donated the items to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2025.

T-shirts such as these were worn by staff at the Philippine web magazine Rappler that Maria Ressa co-founded in 2012. While giving her Nobel lecture in 2021, she held up a t-shirt such as this to emphasise her message. She spoke of how information technology had become a forum for spreading fear, anger and hate, but that we needed to turn this around. The text on the t-shirts says “In order to be the good, we have to BElieve THEre is GOOD in the world.” When she donated the t-shirts to the Nobel Prize Museum, she said that they had caused discussions among her colleagues at Rappler. As investigative journalists, they are usually "grim and determined", since their attention is focused on atrocities. But they are doing it for their society, and Ressa is hopeful about the future. Maria Ressa's hope lives on despite the adversities she encounters working as an investigative journalist. Her efforts to uncover power abuse and brutality in the Philippines has led to her being arrested several times. The first time was on 13 February 2019, and she chose to see the fact that she got released on bail the day after as her Valentine's gift from the government. Maria Ressa donated the T-shirts to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2025. She also handed over a video from her first arrest.

This copy of the second volume of Bertha von Suttner’s novel Die Waffen nieder! is from Alfred Nobel’s own library. The book was published in 1889 and made Bertha von Suttner one of the main representatives of a growing peace movement. Bertha von Suttner was Alfred Nobel’s secretary during a short period, and they became friends. Their conversations on peace are likely to have influenced how he expressed his intentions with the Nobel Peace Prize in his will. von Suttner received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1905.

This equipment was used by Wolfgang Ketterle in experiments to create “Bose-Einstein condensates”, which only occur at extremely low temperatures. To the left is one of the coils first used in the experiments in 1996, which was cooled by water through the tubes. In the middle is an electronic control panel built by the researchers. It was installed between the experimental apparatus and a computer to protect against water failure in the cooling of the coils. To the right is an atomic beam shutter in two parts, used in the experiments in 1994–2001. Wolfgang Ketterle donated the equipment to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2001.

These books contain the accounts from a nitroglycerin factory in Fredriksberg outside Helsinki. The factory was established by Robert Nobel in 1865. When Alfred Nobel began his attempts to launch nitroglycerin internationally as an explosive, it must have seemed natural to approach Russia and Finland, which was a grand duchy in the Russian Empire. Parts of his family still lived there. Robert Nobel’s wife Pauline was from Helsinki, and the family were residents of the city around 1865. Like his brother Alfred and his father Immanuel, Robert Nobel was involved in the early production of nitroglycerin and built a factory in Pasila outside Helsinki in 1865. However, the attempts to launch nitroglycerin in Finland failed. Robert Nobel moved to Sweden, where he was periodically the director of the nitroglycerin plant in Vinterviken outside Stockholm. The books were donated to the Nobel Prize Museum by Hans Nobel in 2002.

Overcoming obstacles is an inevitable part of both scientific work and life in general. This is how David Baker describes a pair of glasses and a broken ski pole: “The orange glasses and the broken ski pole both symbolize overcoming adversity. I had an eye injury several years ago that made it impossible for me to look at computer screens; I was in despair about how to work for a month, when I discovered that the orange glasses solved the problem. I wear them when I give presentations, and so they have almost become part of my persona—I often get as much positive feedback about the glasses as the content of the talks! I am an avid backcountry skier, and I have broken many ski poles in the backcountry and still had to make it back to the starting point, which I obviously have so far—they not only represent overcoming adversity but my love of the mountains where I spend almost every weekend year round.” David Baker donated the glasses and the ski pole to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2024.

The large, red part of the model is the spike protein from the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes Covid-19. The blue and green parts represent synthetic proteins developed by David Baker and his team. These proteins bind tightly to the spike protein and have proven to prevent the virus from infecting animals. The proteins have not yet undergone the required testing for use on humans. David Baker donated the model to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2024.

Boken Mekaniken i dess användning vid konster och handtverk har tillhört Immanuel Nobel. Boken är en svensk översättning av ett originalverk på tyska av den österrikiske fysikprofessorn Andreas von Baumgartner. När boken trycktes 1842 var Immanuel Nobel verksam i Sankt Petersburg i Ryssland. Han arbetade där med tekniska projekt inom flera olika områden och drev en mekanisk verkstad. Kanske skaffade han boken vid sin återkomst till Sverige vid slutet av 1850-talet, men han kan också ha använt den i Ryssland. Han lärde sig aldrig ryska utan klarade sig med svenska under sina 20 år i Ryssland. Boken anskaffades av Nobelprismuseet 2008.

This fountain pen belonged to Ivo Andrić and accompanied him throughout his literary practice. It symbolises his social and artistic commitment and is a reminder of the importance of the written word. The pen was donated to the Nobel Prize Museum by the Belgrade City Museum in 2025. The Belgrade City Museum manages the museum of Ivo Andrić’s estate that was founded after he died, according to his last will.

This spoon was used by Andrei Sakharov in the 1980s during the time he was banished to Nizhny Novgorod (then called Gorky). Sakharov was a physicist but had been a human rights advocate since the 1960s. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975 for his efforts. The Soviet authorities prevented him from going to the award ceremony. To hamper his work, he was exiled to Nizhny Novgorod in 1980. The apartment where he lived was under constant surveillance from across the street. Apart from visits from his wife, Yelena Bonner, he lived alone for long periods, cooking for himself. This traditional Russian wooden spoon was a utensil he used daily during his exile, for instance when he fried food in a Teflon pan, so as not to scratch it. One dish he liked to make was a kind of curd that he fried lightly, because he preferred hot food. He also used the spoon to make scrambled eggs. The spoon was donated to the Nobel Prize Museum by the Andrei Sakharov Foundation in 2025.

This glass holder was used by Andrei Sakharov in the 1950s and 1960s when he drank tea. The traditional Russian way of drinking tea was in a glass in a metal holder to avoid burning one's fingers. Tea was an essential part of Sakharov's daily life as a physicist and peace and human rights activist. A glass of tea had a given place on his desk. He used this glass holder at home in Moscow and may even have brought it with him during his frequent visits to Sarov (then called Arzamax-16) where he worked on the Soviet nuclear arms programme. The glass holder was donated to the Nobel Prize Museum by the Andrei Sakharov Foundation in 2025.

This slide rule was used frequently by Andrei Sakharov when he worked as a physicist. Sakharov has contributed significantly to basic research in physics and the development of nuclear energy and nuclear weapons. He played a key role in the Soviet hydrogen bomb project. Beginning in the late 1950s, he expressed his concern over nuclear weapons and worked to limit their proliferation. Later on in life, he was also active as a human rights advocate. The slide rule was donated to the Nobel Prize Museum by the Andrei Sakharov Foundation in 2025.