These glasses belonged to Seamus Heaney. They were donated to the Nobel Prize Museum by his wife Marie Devlin, who recalls one occasion when he was wearing them: In October 1995, when he received the phone call informing him that he had won the Nobel Prize in Literature.
The glasses were donated to the Nobel Prize Museum by Marie Devlin in 2014.
Tawakkol Karman sees her shoes as a symbol of how she is continuing her fight for democracy and human rights.
Tawakkol Karman donated the shoes to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2014.
This megaphone was the first one Tawakkol Karman used when calling for democracy and human rights. Many protests erupted against incumbent regimes in Arab countries during the Arab Spring in 2011. In the Yemeni capital, Sana'a, journalist and activist Tawakkol Karman led demonstrations against her country's regime. When she donated the megaphone to the Nobel Prize Museum she said: “I would like to give you my voice.”
Tawakkol Karman donated the megaphone to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2014.
A gas mask can provide protection against chemical warfare. The use of chemical weapons has long been banned, but they are still used. Civilians are usually the ones who suffer the most. The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) makes use of international cooperation to help eliminate chemical weapons.
After a visit to the Nobel Prize Museum by the organisation's Director General, Ahmet Üzümcü, the OPCW donated this gas mask to the museum.
OPCW donated the gas mask to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2014.
This painting is an artistic representation of a diagram in a ground-breaking scholarly article by Susumu Tonegawa.
To fight all viruses, bacteria and other damaging substances that we can be exposed to, we need the capacity to produce enormous amounts of different antibodies. The production of antibodies is controlled by genes, but the number of genes is much smaller than the number of antibodies that can be produced. In 1976, Tonegawa showed how this was possible. The genetic material in B cells, a type of white blood cell, can move and form new combinations, while B cells can convert to produce antibodies.
Susumu Tonegawa donated the painting to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2013.
In his 2002 Nobel Prize lecture, Kurt Wüthrich used his belt to illustrate research on proteins he and his co-laureates had conducted. If the belt represented a polypeptide chain, which forms proteins, then the co-laureates’ work measured the belt’s length. Wüthrich's task was to map the three-dimensional coils of the belt.
Kurt Wüthrich donated the belt to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2013.
With two beer bottles, François Englert wanted to pay tribute to his friend and colleague Robert Brout, whose portrait is on the labels of the bottles. The Englert-Brout partnership stretched from 1961 more or less until Brout's death in 2011. In 1964, they co-authored an article that was a decisive step on the road to discovering the Higgs particle. It was not until 2012 that the existence of the Higgs particle could be conclusively proven by an experiment at the CERN laboratory, and Englert and Peter Higgs were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics the following year.
François Englert donated the bottles to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2013.
The Frisch Medal, awarded by the Econometric Society, was named after Ragnar Frisch. For many years, Frisch served as editor of the society's journal and became the first recipient of the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. Lars Peter Hansen was jointly awarded the prize together with Kenneth Singleton in 1984. Hansen donated his medal to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2013.
One of the authors who inspired Alice Munro is Anton Chekhov. For years, Munro has brought a worn paperback edition of some of Chekhov's works, The Portable Chekhov, wherever she went. “It is a very battered copy!”, Munro commented when she donated it to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2013.
This picture is not just a collection of photographs of members of Thomas Südhof's research team, but also gives an idea of their field of interest: the transportation of various substances inside the cell. Perhaps you could say that this is an image of organic collaboration in research. Thomas Südhof received the picture as a gift from his colleagues and in 2013 he donated it to the Nobel Prize Museum.
Randy Schekman’s interest in science was sparked early in childhood. When his father explained to 12-year-old Randy that his microscope was only a toy, Randy was very disappointed. To save up for a “real” microscope, Randy ran errands for neighbours and others. His parents borrowed money from Randy's piggy bank to buy groceries, however, and forgot to return it. Randy went to the police station and reported his parents for theft. After receiving a phone call from the police, Randy’s father collected him from the station. On the way home, they stopped to buy this microscope.
Randy Schekman donated the microscope to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2013.
This film shows a simulation of a structural change in a molecule that is vital to vision. The retinal molecule is embedded in the protein rhodopsin, which is found in the light-sensitive rod cells in the retina of the eye. When the molecule absorbs light, one of the atoms in the structure changes position: from a cis form to a trans form. Using computer calculations, Arieh Warshel made simulations of the process. The film based on these simulations was made in 1980.
Arieh Warshel donated the film to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2013.
This book contains photographs taken by Martin Karplus on his travels in the 1950s. Karplus is a devoted photographer in addition to conducting research into chemical reactions.
Martin Karplus donated the book to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2013.
This film shows simulations of chemical reactions between a hydrogen atom and a hydrogen molecule, which consists of two hydrogen atoms. The hydrogen molecule splits into two hydrogen atoms, after which one of these forms a new hydrogen molecule with the free hydrogen atom. The simulations were pivotal to Martin Karplus's pioneering work with computer-based methods to simulate the movements and reactions of atoms and molecules under diverse conditions. The film was made in 1967.
Martin Karplus donated the reel of film to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2013.
On September 11, 1916, Robert Bárány received his medal and his diploma, designed by Anna Berglund, from King Gustav V at the Royal Palace. On this occasion he wore these gloves. Bárány had been awarded the Nobel Prize the year before, but no award ceremonies were held during the First World War and Bárány had also been prevented from coming to Stockholm. As a volunteer, he served as a surgeon in the Austrian army on the Eastern Front. In 1915, he was a prisoner of war in Russia when it was announced that he had won the 1914 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. As a result of negotiations headed by Sweden's Prince Carl on behalf of the Red Cross, he was released in 1916.
The gloves were donated to the Nobel Prize Museum by the Bárány family in 2013.
This towel reminds Shirin Ebadi of her time in prison. The background is that in the wake of the student protests in Iran in 1999, lawyer Shirin Ebadi offered to represent a family whose son had been killed when armed groups cracked down on the protests. In June 2000, she was arrested on charges of having manipulated the filmed testimony of a defector from one of the armed groups. When Ebadi asked to wash herself in the prison, she was denied a towel. She did, however, have just enough money to buy a towel in the prison store. After her release, Ebadi kept the towel as a memento.
Shirin Ebadi donated the towel to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2012.
This T-shirt was given to Alvin Roth by his students. Connecting different agents in the best possible way is central in Roth's Nobel Prize-awarded work. Among other achievements, he has developed a system for matching organ donors with patients in need of transplants. What T-shirt could be more fitting for Roth than one with his portrait and the title "Mr. Matching" printed on the front?
Alvin Roth donated the T-shirt to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2012.
Inside the glass cube is a 3D image portraying an important process that occurs on the surface of our cells: a "receptor" is first activated by the hormone adrenaline, then transmits a signal down inside the cell through a connection to what is known as a G protein. The model was etched in glass in three dimensions. Brian Kobilka and his colleagues created the model after successfully mapping the structure of the linked molecules in 2011.
Brian Kobilka donated the model to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2012.
This ingeniously-designed wooden case with fifteen books contains a collection of Mo Yan's works.
Mo Yan donated the books to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2012.
This book was written by Shinya Yamanaka, Nobel Prize laureate in physiology or medicine 2012, and Toshihide Masakawa, Nobel Prize laureate in physics 2008.
Shinya Yamanaka donated the book to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2012.
This video camera was used by Steven Chu in a series of experiments where atoms were captured in a trap using laser. Atoms normally move at enormous speed, but Chu developed a method in 1985 for slowing them down with laser beams. When an atom is hit by light particles, photons, with particular energies, this affects its movement, like a shock. With six laser beams arranged two and two in opposite directions, around one million atoms could be captured. They formed a shimmering cloud the size of a pea, and the sequence could be recorded with a video camera.
Steven Chu donated the video camera to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2012.
In 1946, when Tomas Tranströmer was fifteen, he began using this notebook. Insects were one of his great interests early in life, and the first page shows a drawing of a beetle. A few years later, in 1951, when he started writing poems, he began to use the notebook again. On the page that is open here is a draft version of the first poem in his debut collection Seventeen Poems from 1954. Tranströmer’s interest in music, which isevident in his poems, is also noticeable in the notebook, in the form of drafts for musical compositions.
Tomas Tranströmer donated the notebook to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2011.
As president of Liberia, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has worked to promote peace, reconciliation and social and economic development. This mortar and pestle was given to her by rural women farmers as a gift.
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf donated the mortar to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2011.
This token was given to Thomas Sargent by his grandfather and was the key object that sparked his interest in economics. Hard-times tokens were privately issued, unofficial currency. They were issued in the U.S. during the financial and political turmoil of 1833-1843. Hard-times tokens often had a satirical political content. This particular token, issued in 1834, is advocating against President Andrew Jackson. Sargent has subsequently published papers on the history and development of economics in the U.S.
Thomas Sargent donated the token to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2011.
This medal, the Belden Mathematical Prize, was awarded to Moses Greenfield in 1935, on the occasion of being the second best mathematics student in the New York City public schools. Greenfield is Thomas Sargent’s father-in-law and gave him this medal after they co-authored a research paper in 1993.
Thomas Sargent donated the medal to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2011.
This T-shirt is from the Minnesota Economics Department at the University of Minnesota, where Thomas Sargent worked in the 1970s and 1980s. The image is a paraphrase of Eugène Delacroix’s painting "Liberty Leading the People", which celebrates the July Revolution in France in 1830. Instead of the national motto of France, “Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité” (“Liberté, égalité, fraternité”) it says “Equilîbrité, Optimâlité, Calîbrité”, which is faux-french for “Equilbrium, Optimality, Calibration” – key concepts in econometrics.
Thomas Sargent donated the T-shirt to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2011.
In the lead-up to the Nobel Prize award ceremony 2011, physics laureate Adam Riess had cufflinks made for himself and the 18 members of his research team.
The cufflinks have a formula, “q0<0”, engraved on them. The meaning of the formula is that our universe is expanding at an ever-increasing rate. This was the discovery that Riess and his co-laureates were awarded the physics prize for.
Riess commissioned the cufflinks seen here before ordering a pair for each researcher. He donated the prototypes to the Nobel Prize Museum 2011.
The pattern on this tie is a quasicrystal, a structure that is ordered but not periodic. Physicists had long agreed that all crystal structures followed a periodic pattern, and , Dan Shechtman met with scepticism in 1982, when he showed that quasicrystals existed. It eventually turned out that he was right, and he was awarded the 2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for this discovery. Shechtman received the tie for his 70th birthday from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, whose vice-chancellor Peretz Lavie had had it custom-made.
Dan Shechtman donated the tie to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2011.
Arvid Carlsson and his colleagues designed this device for cleaning tissue extract and isolating dopamine and other substances. Cleaning takes place by pressing the extract through an ion exchange column thatcan take up and bind the dopamine. Thereafter, a liquid is pressed through the column. The liquid releases the dopamine and separates other components. This enables a subsequent determination of the amount of dopamine.
Arvid Carlsson donated the apparatus to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2011.
This rosary, a japa mala, is an eastern rosary with 108 beads, used in both Buddhism and Hinduism for counting mantras.
The 14th Dalai Lama donated the rosary to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2011.
One of the first things you notice about Tenzin Gyatso, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama of Tibet, is his glasses. Does the Dalai Lama see the world differently than we do? For the Dalai Lama, the cultivation of inner peace and integrity is the ultimate means of achieving positive change in an irrational world. Tolerance and understanding are the key components in his world view.
The Dalai Lama donated the glasses to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2011.
Even today’s world, the Dalai Lama finds wisdom and inspiration in a sutra with old Buddhist texts.
For the Dalai Lama, the cultivation of inner peace and integrity is the ultimate means of achieving positive change in an irrational world. In his Nobel Prize lecture, he said, “Inner peace is the key: if you have inner peace, the external problems do not affect your deep sense of peace and tranquility. In that state of mind, you can deal with situations with calmness and reason, while keeping your inner happiness.”
The 14th Dalai Lama donated the sutra to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2001.
This workbench is from the workshop at the former Lenin Shipyard in Gdansk, where Lech Wałęsa worked as an electrician. The independent trade union Solidarity was established after a major strike in Poland in 1980. Wałęsa was one of its founders and became its leader and spokesperson.
Solidarity was crucial in developments that eventually led to the fall of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe. Wałęsa was elected president of Poland in 1990. The massive weight of the workbench is a reminder of Wałęsa’s background as a worker but also symbolises the force of the upheavals that he helped instigate.
The bench was donated to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2010 by the shipyard in Gdansk in connection with an art installation by Grzegorz Klaman at the museum.
Using ordinary tape and a piece of graphite, Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov conducted an experiment with surprising results.
Graphite is a form of carbon that is used in pencils, for example. Physicists had calculated that layers of graphite just one atom thick would have interesting properties, but it was considered impossible to produce in reality. Nevertheless, Geim and Novoselov attempted to separate thin flakes of carbon from a piece of graphite using ordinary tape. Some of these flakes were extremely thin. The new material – “graphene” – had been created.
This device is one of the first where graphene was used.
Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov donated the graphite, tape dispenser and electronic device to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2010.
A notepad is often an author’s most important tool. This one originally belonged to Mario Vargas Llosa. It was given to him by El País, Spain’s largest newspaper, to which Vargas Llosa sometimes contributes. Vargas Llosa often takes part in discourse on current issues. He wrote about world events that took place in 2004 in this notepad. Apart from writing, he has also been politically active, running for president in his native Peru in 1990.
Mario Vargas Llosa donated the notepad to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2010.
Mario Vargas Llosa has a large collection of hippopotami at home. They even occur in his literary works, as in the play Kathie and the Hippopotamus. Vargas Llosa took a particular liking to a story about a baby hippopotamus that lost its mother when the tsunami hit Kenya in 2004. The baby hippopotamus began searching for a new mother and made an unexpected choice – a 100-year-old tortoise! The tortoise took care of the baby hippo and, when the hippo was fully-grown, it cared for the aged tortoise. Vargas Llosa suggests we should be more like the hippo and the tortoise.
Mario Vargas Llosa donated the hippopotamus to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2010.
The pipe holder was Oliver Williamson's companion when he wrote one of his major works, Transaction Cost Economics, during the 1970s.
Oliver Williamson donated the pipe holder to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2009.
Baseball was a sport dear to Oliver Williamson's heart. The mitt also had a special meaning to him because baseball taught him a lot about the importance of teamwork.
Oliver Williamson donated the baseball mitt to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2009.
The film, from 1966, shows Charles Kao during his early experiments with optical fibres conducted at the British telecom company Standard Telecommunication Laboratories.
Kao's findings from the experiments were that optical fibres could be used for efficient transfer of information, if only the glass they were made of could be purified. This was eventually made possible, and a large part of our communication today is through optical fibres.
The film was donated to the Nobel Prize Museum by Richard Epworth at Standard Telecommunication Laboratories when Kao was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2009.
The Evolution of Physics is a popular science book by Albert Einstein and Leopold Infeld. Reading a Japanese edition of it as a high school student it inspired Makato Kobayashi to pursue the study of physics.
Makato Kobayashi donated the books to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2009.
This model represents a ribosome. The ribosomes in our cells are where one of the most fundamental processes in the chemistry of life takes place: the production of proteins based on the genetic information in RNA molecules.
The highly complex ribosome structure could be mapped thanks to the efforts of many scientists, including Thomas Steitz, Venkatraman Ramakrishnan and Ada Yonath.
Thomas Steitz donated the model to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2009.
Can an authorship be symbolised by a nut? Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio picked this nut from one of the few surviving tambalacoque trees on the island of Mauritius. According to legend, the seeds of this tree were once spread via the droppings of the dodo. When the Europeans arrived on the island in the 1600s, all the dodos were gradually killed and the seeds of the tambalacoque tree could no longer germinate. Le Clézio often writes about the encounter of Western and other cultures. He is often critical of the way Europeans have treated peoples in other parts of the world.
Jean Marie Gustave Le Clézio donated the nut and the letter to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2009.
These scissors suggest an experimental approach to writing poetry. When she is not writing novels, Herta Müller creates poetry in the form of collage. She cuts out words and phrases from printed texts and arranges them in new combinations and images.
The nail scissors were used when she first began creating her collages. When a travelling cutler came to Müller's neighborhood, she left her scissors with him for sharpening. However, when he returned the scissors, one of the blades was crooked. When her husband tried to bend it back into shape, it broke off. In despair, she began searching for a new pair.
Herta Müller donated the scissors to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2009.
The model is a simplified representation of a ribosome – one of many refined and complex structures found in our cells. A ribosome consists of hundreds of thousands of atoms. Mapping all of their positions in detail was generally considered impossible when Ada Yonath began her work. But it wasn't!
In this model, the red string represents an mRNA molecule, which transfers the genetic code to the ribosome. The blue string represents a protein produced by the ribosome.
Ada Yonath donated the model to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2009.
This napkin was meticulously hemmed and embroidered by Alva Myrdal. Sewing was a valuable and relaxing pastime for her, and she kept on doing it well into her old age.
The napkin was donated to the Nobel Prize Museum by the Myrdal family in 2009.
This typewriter was used by Alva Myrdal while working on her book The Game of Disarmament, published in 1976.
A typewriter is associated primarily with writing and solitary thinking. These were also aspects of Alva Myrdal's life, although much of her work took place with an audience and at the negotiating table. With a background in psychology, sociology, and pedagogy, Alva Myrdal focused in the 1930s on family policy and social policy. From the 1950s, her career became increasingly international. She had several assignments for the UN. In particular, she engaged in peace and disarmament issues. As the leading Swedish delegate to the Disarmament Conference in Geneva (1962-1973), she worked to diminish the arms race between the superpowers. In addition to her involvement in peace efforts, she also worked intensely for gender equality.
The typewriter was donated the to the Nobel Prize Museum by the Myrdal family in 2009.
Osamu Shimomura and his colleagues used this dip net to capture large numbers of the jellyfish Aequorea aequorea to extract a substance that makes their edges luminous. The net was made in 1968 and was designed to be light and easy to drag through water. The jellyfish had to be captured in the right direction to avoid damaging their edges. The handle was painted black and orange, the colours of Princeton University.
Osamu Shimomura donated the net to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2009.
Osamu Shimomura's research on luminous biological substances started with the small, shelled organism Cypridina hilgendorfii. The test tube contains dried specimens of the organism.
When the sand-like material is moistened, it becomes luminous. The material was collected by Japanese soldiers during the Second World War to make discreet sources of light. At the end of the war, the U.S. Navy took over the material, and it eventually ended up at Princeton University.
These luminous shelled organisms also caught the interest of Japanese researchers after the war. In 1955, the young chemist Osamu Shimomura was given the task of discovering why these animals were luminous. After extensive work, he managed to find the cause: a luminous protein. Shimomura would later pursue his research on luminous biological substances at Princeton University.
Osamu Shimomura donated the test tube to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2009.
