This cap is one that Desmond Tutu owned and wore for more than 30 years of his life. His enthusiasm for this type of cap arose in the 1970s when he saw German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt wearing one. After a while, he bought one for himself and was later given several as gifts. This type of cap probably originated in France and is used by sailors. Tutu used it in the winter to protect against the cold and in the summer to protect against the sun.
Desmond Tutu donated the cap to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2016.
This small reaction vessel was used for the synthesis of small amount of peptides that Bruce Merrifield used in experiments. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for his efficient methods for the synthesis of peptides and proteins. The reaction vessel was made at the Rockefeller University glass blowing shop.
The reaction vessel was donated to the Nobel Prize Museum by Bruce Merrifield's family in 2016.
This book, Philosophy of Mathematics and Natural Science by Herman Weyl, was an important source of inspiration for Frank Wilczek, who has done his ground-breaking work in theoretical physics. In an introduction to a new edition of Weyl’s book, Wilczek wrote: “I’ve consulted Philosophy of Mathematics and Natural Science many times, and each time I've come away enriched.”
Frank Wilczek donated the book to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2016.
These high jumping shoes with spikes were used by Kurt Wüthrich in the early 1960s. Wüthrich’s interest in competitive sports was awakened during his years as a high school student at Biel high school in Switzerland. Although he decided to pursue a career in chemistry and physics, athletics remained an important part of his life.
Kurt Wüthrich donated the shoes to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2016.
The knowledge found in the Encyclopaedia Britannica was vital for chemist Archer Martin. But obtaining knowledge from the world of books was not easy at first. As a child, he struggled with dyslexia, and he took a long time learning to read. His love of science began with devices and experiments that he assembled in his family’s basement.
The encyclopedia was donated to the Nobel Prize Museum by Archer Martin's daughter Sara Beck in 2016.
This watercolour, dedicated to Edward B. Lewis, was painted by his wife Pamela Lewis. Butterflies and other insects refer to Edward Lewis’s scientific interest in genetic traits and the development of organisms. In addition to science, the flute was central to his life. He played the instrument from early childhood and continued playing in a chamber orchestra and taking lessons. While fighting his losing battle against cancer, he found comfort in playing the flute. Chess pieces also feature in the picture, reflecting another of Lewis’s interests. The keys hint at his absent-mindedness, which caused him to lose his car keys, glasses and other important objects.
The watercolour was donated to the Nobel Prize Museum by Pamela Lewis in 2016.
This is Françoise Barré-Sinoussi’s description of these puppets:
“In the 90s, I attended the show of the world-famous Thang Long Water Puppet Theatre in Hanoi and received this gift from Vietnamese colleagues when visiting Vietnam to develop an official partnership with the Health Authorities.
This is symbolic of the day-to-day life of people in low-middle-income countries, with their culture and traditions from which I personally have learned a lot. It embodies my respect for these people, but also my love for theatre.
I think this gift also quite well represents my commitment to strengthening capacity and for developing evidence-based interventions, including community-based interventions to improve access to health care services in low-middle-income countries.”
Françoise Barré-Sinoussi donated the puppets to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2016.
A 1994 issue of the journal Science largely focused on the cell’s system for repairing continuous damage to DNA. The enzymes that handle DNA repair were named Molecule of the Year. Aziz Sancar and Paul Modrich were among the scientists noted in the journal, and they also contributed articles.
Aziz Sancar donated the journal issue to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2015.
Using this model, Aziz Sancar illustrates how our cells repair damage to their DNA molecules. It was built in 1986 and shows at the red mark how UV radiation has caused two base pairs of the DNA double helix to join together. Bacteria and humans have molecules – repair enzymes – that sense damage and remove strings of 12 or 27 half-base pairs around the damage. The model indicates the boundaries of these areas with the yellow and green markers. The double spiral's remaining strand then acts as a template to recreate the damaged strand.
Aziz Sancar donated the model to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2015.
Peter Agre has completed the 90-kilometre Swedish ski-race Vasaloppet five times together with his brother Jim. This is some of the equipment he used.
A descendent of Norwegian and Swedish emigrants to the US in the 19th century, Peter Agre has always felt a strong link to his Scandinavian heritage. Besides research in biochemistry, Agre enjoys outdoor life, especially canoeing and cross-country skiing.
Peter Agre donated the skiing equipment to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2016.
This is part of a microscope that was vital to Eric Betzig’s work on super-resolved fluorescence microscopy. Betzig made his breakthrough after leaving academia. Together with his colleague and friend Harald Hess, he built the new microscope in Hess’s living room.
Eric Betzig donated the microscope parts to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2016.
On the title page of this copy of his collected works, Sully Prudhomme has written and signed one of his poems, “Les Yeux” – “The Eyes”.
The book was presented to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2016 by Dr. Maarten Asscher, director of Athenaeum Booksellers in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
This document, known as the Road Map, describes a way toward democracy in Tunisia. After the Jasmine Revolution in 2011, Tunisia experienced social unrest. To establish a stable democracy, the Tunisian General Labour Union (UGTT), the Tunisian Confederation of Industry, Trade and Handicrafts (UTICA), the Tunisian Human Rights League (LTDH), and the Tunisian Order of Lawyers formed the National Dialogue Quartet. In this document, the quartet presented four proposals: the government would resign, a new constitution would be adopted, a new prime minister would be appointed, and a date for general elections would be determined. The document was signed by the leaders of the four organisations on 17 September 2013 and presented to the parties the following day.
The National Dialogue Quartet donated the road map to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2015.
Even in his youth, Angus Deaton eagerly went on fishing trips for some time alone. These fishing trips taught him that he is often at his most creative when doing something other than his regular routine. While fishing, he could unconsciously explore scientific problems – an experience he shares with many. This box of flies is from the mid-1950s. The flies are all different and have specific names. Deaton has tied some of them himself but says his talent lies more in economics.
Angus Deaton donated the fishing flies to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2015.
Dictaphones have been important to Svetlana Alexievich's literary process. Her documentary novels are based on large numbers of interviews. This dictaphone was used when collecting material for the books Zinky Boys and Voices from Chernobyl. The tapes contain some of the many interviews.
In her Nobel Prize lecture Alexievich said,
“It always troubled me that the truth doesn’t fit into one heart, into one mind, that truth is somehow splintered. There’s a lot of it, it is varied, and it is strewn about the world. Dostoevsky thought that humanity knows much, much more about itself than it has recorded in literature. So, what is it that I do? I collect the everyday life of feelings, thoughts, and words. I collect the life of my time.”
Svetlana Alexievich donated the dictaphone and the tapes to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2015.
This book is the first publication describing the results of a project on antimalarial drugs. Tu Youyou played a crucial role in the project.
Malaria is a widespread disease in tropical countries. It is caused by a parasite that spreads through mosquitoes and is often treated with quinine. During the Vietnam War, North Vietnamese soldiers suffered from a form of malaria in which the parasite was resistant to quinine. After North Vietnam asked China for help in developing a new treatment for malaria, China initiated a project where Tu Youyou participated. Drawing inspiration from ancient Chinese herbal recipes, she was able to extract a substance, artemisinin, from sweet wormwood extract. Artemisinin inhibits the malaria parasite.
Tu Youyou donated the research report to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2015.
This picture is a collotype photograph and is an image of the bacterium Streptomyces avermectinius. The image, originally taken with a scanning electron microscope, highlights the captivating beauty that Satoshi Ōmura sees in bacteria.
Satoshi Ōmura donated the collotype photograph to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2015.
This dish contains the bacteria Streptomyces avermectinius, cultivated by Satoshi Ōmura, who often cultivated bacteria from soil, which can produce substances that inhibit other microorganisms. This can be useful when developing pharmaceuticals. Ōmura’s bacterial strain led to the drug avermectin, used to fight the diseases elephantiasis and river blindness.
Satoshi Ōmura donated the bacterial culture to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2015.
This model shows the structure of the ivermectin B1a molecule. The substance could be extracted from a bacterial strain cultured by Satoshi Ōmura. This led to the drugs used to fight the diseases elephantiasis and river blindness.
Satoshi Ōmura donated the model to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2015.
When Paul Modrich was 15 years old, he convinced his father to order samples of radioactive isotopes of different substances. At that time, small amounts of radioactive isotopes could be purchased without a license. Modrich made solutions of isotopes in which he then put seeds to germinate and leaves that absorbed the isotopes. He also injected isotopes into frogs. He could then use X-ray photographs to see how the substances were distributed in the sprouts, the leaves and the frogs.
Paul Modrich donated the photographs to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2015.
The picture shows the structure of the protein MutS alpha, which was discovered by Paul Modrich in 1996. The protein is vital in detecting when errors have occurred in the replication of DNA molecules in our cells. A few years after Modrich's discovery, Lorena Beese determined the structure of the protein. It hung in Paul Modrich’s laboratory until he donated it to the Nobel Prize Museum.
Paul Modrich donated the image to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2015.
The Royal Medal is one of the top scientific awards in the United Kingdom, and was an important recognition for Tomas Lindahl's scientific achievements. Awarded annually, the medals are given for the most outstanding scientific efforts made in the British Commonwealth. Tomas Lindahl is from Sweden, but has conducted his most important scientific work in the UK and received the medal in 2007. The medal is awarded by Queen Elizabeth II on the recommendation from the Royal Society, the independent scientific academy of the UK and the Commonwealth.
Tomas Lindahl donated the medal to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2015.
Arthur McDonald has let heavy water represent his research at the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO). The bottles on the scales contain equal volumes of heavy and regular water respectively. As the scales show, the density of heavy water is about ten per cent higher.
(SNO) was an underground facility where physicists from Canada, the US and the UK studied neutrinos, some of the universe's smallest and most elusive particles. Almost all neutrinos zip unimpeded through the earth, but some of could be captured in the SNO detector. The detector used heavy water, where the nucleus of the hydrogen atoms has both a proton and a neutron. Heavy water allows the neutrinos to react differently than with regular water.
Arthur McDonald donated the heavy water to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2015.
This photomultiplier tube representa Takaaki Kajita's research at the Super-Kamiokande underground facility in Japan. The facility is a collaboration between several nations. This photomultiplier tube belongs to a part managed by the US.
Takaaki Kajita donated the photomultiplier tubes to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2015.
This photomultiplier tube represents Takaaki Kajita's research at the Super-Kamiokande underground facility in Japan. At the Super-Kamiokande, physicists study neutrinos, some of the smallest particles in the universe. The detector consists of a large water-filled container with walls lined with photomultiplier tubes. Neutrinos exist in large quantities but very rarely react with other particles. When they hit a particle in the Super-Kamiokande, this generates a small flash that can be detected and amplified by the photomultiplier tubes.
Takaaki Kajita donated the photomultiplier tube to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2015.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn gave this LP record of him reading his epic poem Prussian Nights to Swedish journalist Stig Fredriksson, who hade become his friend. Because of his criticism of the Soviet social system, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's books were banned in the Soviet Union. Fredriksson smuggled out several of Solzhenitsyn’s manuscripts, including his Nobel Prize lecture. After Solzhenitsyn was exiled from the Soviet Union in 1974, Solzhenitsyn and Fredriksson met in Zurich. That was when the author gave Fredriksson this LP. It had been recorded secretly in the Soviet Union in 1969 and was released in the West.
The LP was donated to the Nobel Prize Museum by Stig Fredriksson in 2015.
This model depicts the molecule butadiene, which consists of four carbon atoms and six hydrogen atoms. This molecule was crucial to Roald Hoffmann's work on the role of electron orbits for chemical reactions. In 1964, Hoffmann’s mentor Robert Woodward told him about the novelty of butadiene’s chemical characteristics. He suspected that this was due to how the electron at the outer edge of the molecule moves in an orbit. Hoffmann expanded on this explanation. This plastic model is flexible, and he was able to use it to illustrate how the molecule could change its shape.
Roald Hoffmann donated the model to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2015.
For Eric Kandel, this toy car is associated with memories from his childhood in Vienna in the 1930s.
When Kandel turned nine, he received a remote-controlled model car that had wished for. Two days later, on 9 November 1938, the November pogroms took place, when the Nazis persecuted Jews in Germany and Austria. The Kandel family was forced to leave their home, which was then looted. The toy car was lost, but Kandel never forgot it.
Later in life, Kandel devoted himself to research on the physiological foundations of memory: how memories are preserved in brain cells. In this context, he has told people about his memory of the toy car and received similar cars as gifts. This is one of those gifts.
Eric Kandel donated the toy car to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2015.
Paul Crutzen was wearing this tie on a memorable occasion, namely when he told his colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz that he had been awarded the Nobel Prize.
Crutzen was born in the Netherlands but has worked in many different countries. His research on the chemistry of the atmosphere began in Sweden. When he received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1995, he was working in Germany.
Paul Crutzen donated the tie to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2015.
In a 1954 letter Albert Einstein replies to Evert Fornäs, a teacher at a Swedish folk high school, who had written Einstein about his general theory of relativity and the limitations of science based on mathematics. Einstein believes that in principle the laws of nature can be described in mathematical terms, but that the limitations of human intelligence makes it impossible to describe even elementary rules of psychology on the basis of physics and chemistry.
This letter was donated to the Nobel Prize Museum by the Fornäs family.
Kailash Satyarthi wore this garment to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo in 2014. It is a khadi kurta, a traditional shirt of hand-spun and hand-woven cotton fabric. Khadi was also the name of a movement that the Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi began in the 1920s and which campaigned for domestically-produced goods and reduced imports. When Kailash Satyarthi visited the Nobel Prize Museum in Stockholm a few days after the Nobel Peace Prize award ceremony in Oslo, he donated his khadi to the museum.
This diode is an early version of the blue-light-emitting diode (LED) developed by Isamu Akasaki in 1978. It is a MIS (metal-insulator-semiconductor) LED and was the brightest until then. In the 1980s, working with Hiroshi Amano, Akasaki did further research on gallium nitride crystals, which eventually led to blue diodes that could be combined with red and green ones to make white light.
Isamu Akasaki donated the LED to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2014.
For Mario Molina, this umbrella symbolised both his old school and the fragile ozone layer, to which he devoted his research.
When Molina was 11 years old, his parents sent him to the Institut auf dem Rosenberg boarding school in St. Gallen, Switzerland. It was there he developed his interest in chemistry and mathematics. Many years later, Molina was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his research on the atmosphere’s ozone layer. His Nobel Prize diploma bears the image of an umbrella; a symbol for the way the ozone layer protects us from harmful ultraviolet radiation. When Molina later visited his old boarding school, this umbrella was presented to him as a gift.
Mario Molina donated the umbrella to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2014.
For women Nobel Prize laureates, the choice of attire for the Nobel Prize banquet is more complicated than for men. Men wear tailcoats, while women wear long evening dresses that can be in a variety of colours and designs. Elizabeth Blackburn, a 2009 laureate in medicine, had only a black dress and wanted to wear another colour to the banquet. The day before she went to the Nobel Week in Stockholm, she found this dress in a small shop in Paris. She wore her black dress to the award ceremony and changed into this red dress for the banquet.
The dress was donated to the Nobel Prize Museum by Elizabeth Blackburn in 2009.
Patrick Modiano often draws the inspiration for his books from interviews, old newspaper cuttings, and his own notes. For many years, he also had this photograph on his desk, which gave him inspiration for his writing. It was taken by photographer Willy Ronis and is entitled The Caretaker’s Cat.
Patrick Modiano donated the photograph to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2014.
For William E. Moerner, a paper with measurement data mark an important step in the development of microscopes capable of showing levels of detail that had previously been impossible.
When an electron shifts to a lower energy level, light is emitted. When it shifts to a higher energy level, light is absorbed. The wavelengths of the light emitted differ for each element. In 1989, Moerner succeeded in measuring the light-absorption for a single molecule. The curves on the paper show which wavelengths were absorbed.
William E. Moerner donated the graph to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2014.
When Stefan Hell read a section in this book, it opened up a new way of thinking. For many years, he had pondered the possibility of circumventing the theoretical boundary that limited the size of objects visible through a microscope. His idea met scepticism in Germany, so he left for Turku, Finland. While in Turku, he read this book about quantum optics. Reading about stimulated emission, the basis of laser technology, he had a new idea. This led to the development of a new form of microscopy that gave more detailed images than had previously been thought possible.
Stefan Hell donated the book to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2014.
Even after completing his Nobel Prize-awarded work on blue-light-emitting diodes (LEDs), Shuji Nakamura has continued to research this field. This LED lamp is an example of a later generation of LED lamps that Nakamura has helped to develop.
Shuji Nakamura donated the LED lamp to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2014.
Graphite, one of the forms in which pure carbon occurs, has played a part in many vital experiments. Together with his mentor, Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano worked doggedly to produce extremely pure crystals of gallium nitride. He used these pieces of graphite as a base and applied a layer of sapphire, followed by layers of gallium nitride.
Hiroshi Amano donated the graphite to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2014.
Using very thin electrodes to measure nerve impulses in the cells of rats' brains May-Britt Moser and Edvard Moser succeeded in mapping the brain’s navigation system.
May-Britt Moser och Edvard Moser donated the electrodes and the toy rat to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2014.
May-Britt Moser and Edvard Moser explored how rats navigate by letting them move around in this box. By registering a rat’s position and the impulses in different cells in its brain, they succeeded in mapping the brain’s navigation system.
May-Britt Moser och Edvard Moser donated the box to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2014.
May-Britt Moser and Edvard Moser used this electronic equipment to simultaneously register a rat’s position and the nerve impulses in the cells of the rat’s brain. The experiments aimed to understand how humans and animals find their way.
May-Britt Moser och Edvard Moser donated the laboratory equipment to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2014.
This shawl was worn by Malala Yousafzai on her 16th birthday on 12 July 2013, when she held a speech at the UN Headquarters in New York. Powerfully and persuasively, she conveyed her message – that all children have the right to schooling and education. Books and pencils are the mightiest weapons in the fight against poverty and terrorism.
Even as an eleven-year-old, Malala Yousafzai was campaigning for girls' right to education. When two men affiliated with the Taliban regime tried to kill her in 2012, her fight became internationally famous.
Malala Yousafzai donated the shawl to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2014.
Rigoberta Menchú Tum has received many traditional blouses, “huipil” or “güipil”, as gifts on her visits to different parts of her home country, Guatemala. Menchú Tum has fought for the rights of indigenous people in her country. They belong to the Mayan people, who speak different languages and dialects. Their blouses vary from region to region in Guatemala. This blouse is from the Maya Ixil people in the Ixil region, next to Uspantán, where Rigoberta Menchú Tum was born and grew up. She herself is Maya Quiché.
Rigoberta Menchú Tum donated the blouse to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2014.
These computer printouts show data and calculations behind a 1981 pioneering study on the rise and fall of share prices by Robert Shiller. In contrast to the dominating idea at the time, he showed that stock prices fluctuated much more than corporate dividends. Shiller’s conclusion was that the market is inefficient.
Robert Shiller donated the computer output to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2014.
These metal boxes contain electronics and have been part of the equipment in Keffer Hartline's laboratory at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland. Hartline studied how the signals from photoreceptor cells are processed in networks of neurons. The electronics in the boxes were used to amplify the electrical signals from the neurons. The devices were built by Ted MacNichol, who was Hartline's first graduate student. When the devices were no longer used in the laboratory, Hartline took them home so his sons could use them in school projects.
The apparatus was donated to the Nobel Prize Museum by Keffer Hartline's family in 2014.
Hugo Theorell made this puzzle at the age of 15 out of a painting by Swedish artist Carl Larsson. At school, Theorell was very interested in woodwork and crafts. Using a jigsaw of his own design, he became skilled at making jigsaw puzzles. By selling them, Theorell paid for violin lessons at home in Linköping and, later, trips to Stockholm for more lessons and other studies. He was a talented violinist, but an even better chemist, receiving the 1955 Medicine Prize for his work on enzymes.
The puzzle was donated to the Nobel Prize Museum by Hugo Theorell’s family in 2014.
This letter was written in 1914 by the young physicist Henry Moseley to George de Hevesy, who many years later would be awarded the 1943 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Moseley talks about his investigations of various elements and asks for help in obtaining samples of various elements.
Moseley used X-ray diffraction to study the spectra of different elements and found a relationship between the wavelengths of X-rays and the element's atomic number. This allowed the periodic table to be revised and supplemented.
Moseley's life came to a tragic end when he was killed in the First World War in August 1915. Could his discoveries have resulted in a Nobel Prize? Yes, probably. Svante Arrhenius nominated him for the Nobel Prize in both Physics and Chemistry in 1915. In presenting a later Nobel Prize in a related field, the 1924 physics prize to Manne Siegbahn, Nobel Committee Chairman Allvar Gullstrand said: "Moseley fell at the Dardanelles before he could be awarded the prize... ". Gullstrand said that Moseley's work, however, had drawn the committee's attention to Charles Barkla, who was awarded the 1918 physics prize for his work on the X-ray spectra of atoms.
The letter was presented to the Nobel Prize Museum by the Hevesy family in 2000.
A Soldbuch is a military paybook and identity document. This Soldbuch belonged to Werner Forssmann, who became a medical officer in the German army in 1939, when the war broke out. He eventually rose to the rank of major. Forssmann had joined the Nazi party in 1932 and remained a member until 1945. At the end of the war he was a prisoner of war. After being released, he worked as a lumberjack and then as a district surgeon.
The Soldbuch was donated to the Nobel Prize Museum by Werner Forssmann's family in 2014.
Werner Forssmann was given this inkwell by a Japanese physician in the 1930s. According to his daughter, he valued the gift highly; why else would he have done his utmost to preserve it throughout the turbulent Second World War?
The inkwell was donated to the Nobel Prize Museum by Werner Forssmann's family in 2014.
