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.
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.
Ragnar Granit compiled this collection of his scientific publications for his father. The Granit family were Swedish-speaking Finns. Ragnar Granit began his career as a researcher in Helsinki, before moving to Stockholm in 1940, where he became a professor at Karolinska Institutet. The scientific publications cover his work in sensory and neurophysiology.
The collection of scientific publications was donated to the Nobel Prize Museum by Ragnar Granit's family in 2024.
The float and net needle belonged to Ragnar Granit, who enjoyed fishing alongside his research into sensory mechanisms and neurophysiology. The initials RG on the net needle were engraved by Granit himself. The equipment is from the Granit family's summer cottage on the island of Korppoo outside Turku in Finland. Ragnar Granit spent many summers there, cleaning seaweed from the nets. His research colleagues who came to visit him from all over the world also helped out.
The float and net needle was donated to the Nobel Prize Museum by Ragnar Granit's family in 2024.
After Alfred Nobel's death, a cast of his face was made: a death mask. In the late 1800’s, death masks were often made of famous persons after they had died.
As a four-year-old, Demis Hassabis devoted a lot of his time to chess. His interest in chess eventually led to an interest in computers that could play chess. Hassabis devoted himself increasingly to computers and artificial intelligence (AI). He participated in creating the AI model AlphaFold, which can predict the three-dimensional structure of protein molecules.
Demis Hassabis donated this picture to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2024.
Mask and fly-whisks
The mask and fly-whisks are from the Kuba people in the Democratic Republic of Congo. James Robinson is deeply interested in African history and culture and has devoted 12 years to studying the Kuba people in his research on social institutions. The mask is a "bwoom", one of three primary masks used to narrate the history of the kingdom and retell a few key historic events. The fly-whisks, which are useful for whisking away flies, are also attributes used in this context. The fly whisk is a traditional symbol of power throughout central and eastern Africa.
James Robinson donated the mask and fly-whisks to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2024.
This passport belonged to Simon Johnson's grandfather Cyril John Dadswell who died when Johnson was only two weeks old. But Dadswell was nevertheless important to Johnson, as the first academic in their family. Dadswell was a metallurgist and worked for the steel industry in Sheffield. The passport was issued on 14 May 1942, during the Second World War, and it also reveals that Dadswell immediately obtained a visa for the USA. The purpose of his trip to the USA was to provide expertise on steel suitable for tanks. Dadswell's activities are related to one of Simon Johnson's areas of research: how technology is transferred between different countries and fields.
Simon Johnson donated the passport to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2024.
This paperweight is one of very few mementos that Daron Acemoglu has of his mother Irma, who meant a lot to him. Daron Acemoglu grew up in Istanbul, in a family of Armenian origin. His mother was a teacher and the headmistress of the Armenian school that her son attended, and she encouraged him to study. Irma Acemoglu died in 1991.
Daron Acemoglu donated the paperweight to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2024.
While she was writing the book I Do Not Bid Farewell, this tea cup was part of Han Kang's daily habits. On the sheet of paper, she describes her work routine. After getting up at 5.30 am and going for a walk, she would drink a cup of tea. (She drank black tea although the cup is intended for green tea.) When she stared at the vortex that formed in the cup, it became her universe.
Han Kang donated the cup to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2024.
This instrument was used in the late 1980s in Victor Ambros's research on microRNA, which is crucial to how different genes impact on different cells.
The instrument is a controller for a type of electrophoresis used to separate molecular fragments of different sizes. Ambros used it to detect and isolate large pieces of DNA. This was a crucial step in the examinations of the lin-4 gene and its impact on microRNA.
The instrument was the first to be developed by the company MJ Devices, founded by the brothers Michael and John Finney. Incidentally, Michael Finney was also a doctoral student in the future Nobel Prize laureate Robert Horvitz's laboratory.
Victor Ambros donated the instrument to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2024.
For Demis Hassabis and his colleagues at DeepMind, the cube is a symbol for how the solution to one problem can lead to the solution of many others. One of the cube sides shows move 37, the decisive move in a game of Go where the master Lee Sedol lost in 2016 against the AlphaGo program that had been developed by DeepMind. This was the first time a top-level master lost against a computer, and the event is a milestone in the development of artificial intelligence. AlphaGo was followed by AlphaZero, which plays chess, Shogi and Go. AlphaFold, which was developed later, can predict the thee-dimensional structure of protein molecules.
Demis Hassabis donated the cube to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2024.
The book Game Changer by Matthew Sadler and Natasha Regan is about the computer program AlphaZero, developed by Demis Hassabis and his colleagues at DeepMind. The introduction is written by Hassabis and the foreword by Garry Kasparov, who in 1997 was the first world champion chess player to lose against a computer.
Demis Hassabis donated the book to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2024.
As a four-year-old, Demis Hassabis devoted a lot of his time to chess. His interest in chess eventually led to an interest in computers that could play chess. Hassabis devoted himself increasingly to computers and artificial intelligence (AI). He participated in creating the AI model AlphaFold, which can predict the three-dimensional structure of protein molecules.
Demis Hassabis donated this picture to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2024.
This paper crown was a kind of challenge prize in John Jumper's research team, which explores the structure of protein molecules. The research team was called "the Origami team" at an early stage, since they saw links between how long protein molecules are folded and the art of folding paper into figures. Whenever someone in the group made progress, they got to wear the paper crown as a reward, and kept it until they passed it on to the next person who did something worth rewarding.
Jumper and his colleagues don't usually work with paper models but with computers and artificial intelligence. They developed AlphaFold2, an algorithm that can predict the three-dimensional structure of any imaginable protein.
John Jumper donated the paper crown to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2024.
This microchip contains an early version of a Boltzmann machine, which Geoffrey Hinton plays a decisive part in developing. The Boltzmann machine is vital to machine learning with neural networks, and Hinton is one of the leading figures in artificial intelligence (AI).
The microchip, made by Joshua Alspector in 1987, demonstrates that Boltzmann machines can be placed on specially-constructed chips. The Boltzmann machine on this chip is tiny; it is a network with six nodes, and it has a rather limited field of use. As a demonstration of a principle, however, the microchip showed the way toward further progress in machine learning and AI.
Geoffrey Hinton donated this microchip to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2024.
This electronic circuit was built by John Hopfield in the early 2000s in connection with a course he taught at Princeton University. Hopfield had made significant contributions to machine learning in the 1980s, with neural networks, which are crucial in artificial intelligence.
Hopfield considers practical building to be essential to understanding.
"I designed a lab course in electronics for neural networks. My strong feeling was that we obtain a deep understanding of how a NN behaves by building and exploring the activity dynamics. Begin with small circuits, each student has her/his own assembled by hand from a pile of electronic components. This is my own demonstration-assembly of the 4th week project."
The circuit consists partly of diodes that turn on and off when different parts of it interact.
John Hopfield donated the circuit to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2024.
Hazmat suits such as this one are used by people working for Doctors without borders (Médecins Sans Frontières) in outbreaks of Ebola, a contagious and very dangerous disease. The Ebola hazmat suit consists of protective goggles, face mask, an overall, double supply of plastic gloves, a plastic apron and rubber boots.
Doctors without borders recruits both medical and non-medical professionals for humanitarian work in crises and disasters all over the world. Doctors without borders responds rapidly to outbreaks of contagious diseases by providing medical care, pharmaceuticals and vaccinations. Often, major logistic efforts are also needed. This can include opening temporary healthcare facilities to treat and isolate patients, or improving practices for disease control, water and sanitation, and preventing diseases from spreading among healthcare staff and the local community.
The largest Ebola outbreak to date was in west Africa in 2014–2016. It led to Doctors without borders' largest intervention ever. Since 2022, there have been several outbreaks in Kongo-Kinshasa, including in the conflict-stricken North Kivu province, and Uganda suffered an Ebola outbreak in 2022. Medical research has led to improved prevention of the disease through vaccines.
The hazmat suit was donated to the Nobel Prize Museum by Doctors without borders in 2024.
Vests such as this are used by staff working for the UN's World Food Programme (WFP) in different parts of the world. It signals that the wearer has good intentions, is reliable and is there to help. In areas of conflict, the vest also says that the wearer belongs to a neutral agency.
The vest was donated to the Nobel Prize Museum by World Food Programme in 2024.
This apparatus is the measurement-related part of the setup used in Ferenc Krausz' experiments with attosecond laser pulses. The pulses are generated through interactions between laser light and electrons.
A spherical double mirror is used to focus the laser beam at a nozzle that emits a ray of crypton atoms. A spectrometer is used to measure the distribution of kinetic energy of electrons that the laser light has released from the crypton atoms. The duration of the laser pulses can be determined by analysing the kinetic energy of the electrons and the displacements in different sections of the laser beam.
Ferenc Krausz donated this apparatus to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2024.
Herbert Simon spent a lot of time at this board. The detailed rules of the game, and its almost infinite scenarios and strategies, had similarities with his research in economics and psychology. Can the human mind be translated into procedures that could be performed by a machine? Way back in the 1950s, he was already working on artificial intelligence (AI), and developing a chess program.
The chess set and the scorebook were donated to the Nobel Prize Museum by Herbert Simon’s family in 2003.
Tweezers, a coin and a glass pipette – thanks to John Gurdon’s inventiveness, these became crucial instruments in his stem cell research. With these tools and sensitive fingers, he managed to replace the cell nucleus in a fertilised frog egg with a cell nucleus from a mature tadpole – the first creation of a genetic copy, a clone, of a higher organism.
John Gurdon donated the pipettes to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2012.
The first things that Shinya Yamanaka bought when he was appointed head of his own laboratory were pipettes. This pipette is of the same kind as those commonly used in laboratories all over the world. Yamanaka made regular use of pipettes in his work researching pluripotent stem cells. This research focuses on turning a mature cell from our bodies into a stem cell, which, in turn, can then be converted into a cell of any of the types found inside the human body.
Shinya Yamanaka donated the pipettes to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2012.
This horn antenna was intended for the COBE satellite, which was used to measure cosmic background radiation.
The antenna was presented to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2006 by George Smoot and NASA.
Using this apparatus, Ahmed Zewail demonstrated the principle behind his method of studying chemical reactions using laser technology. It is hard to study how chemical reactions occur in detail because they happen so quickly, in just a few femtoseconds. A femtosecond is to a second what a second is to 32 million years. Zewail explained that his technique is like making a 32-million-year-long film and then watching it second by second—a “femtofilm”!
The apparatus is installed after instructions originally given by Ahmed Zewail.
These copies of batteries reflect the development of lithium-ion batteries. Akira Yoshino played a pivotal role in this development.
The cylindrical battery, from 1985–1986, was the first lithium-ion battery that was produced for user evaluation. The battery had a cathode of LiCoO2, and a carbon anode.
The prismatic battery is a lithium-ion battery for mobile phones from 2000–2010.
The thin battery is a laminate battery for a smartphone from 2019.
Akira Yoshino donated the lithium-ion batteries to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2019.
These are models of two types of molecular machines: they are composed of interlinked molecules that can rotate in relation to each other. The model with two interlinked rings represents two catenane molecules. The model with a ring on an axle represents a rotaxane molecule. The colours represent different electric charges. These determine the motion of the different parts can move in relation to one another. Fraser Stoddart used the models to explain his research results. The models were made at Sheffield University, and Stoddart has had them with him throughout his career at various universities.
Fraser Stoddart donated the models to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2016.
In certain situations in the past, Wole Soyinka used hats to hide his characteristic bushy hair when he wanted to avoid being recognised.
This is how Soyinka describes these two hats:
Peripeteia (from the Hunter to the Hunted)
Floppy Hat
Peripeteia is the Greek expression (used especially in drama) for a reversal of fortunes. At home, my favourite form of relaxation is hunting, and I wore the faded khaki hat when I undertook my final hunt in Nigeria in November 1994, ‘got lost’ in the forest and surfaced in the neighbouring Republic of Benin – a fugitive from the dictatorship of Sanni Abacha. Later – on my exile circuit in African countries, Europe, the US etc – the hat was pressed into service as part of a prudent disguise as I continued to evade the dictator’s rather persistent agents – my head of hair being the most obvious giveaway.
Yoruba Cap
The black Yoruba cap was part of my formal attire – mostly retained in my hand - when I received the Nobel Prize in 1986. It surfaced again among the wardrobe which joined me later in exile, so I added it to the other head camouflage. (I still wear a headgear on occasion, despite the end of the dictatorship, but only to enjoy some anonymity).
While working on a project of the International Parliament of Writers, the setting up of a network of Cities of Asylum for persecuted writers, I received a complimentary ticket of a $1000 (!!!) ringside seat for a boxing match from a casino-hotelier-cum-bibliophile who was once an aspiring writer. He had spearheaded the creation of the first such city in the United States in – of all places! – Las Vegas! Again, I wore this very cap – to avoid easy recognition. After this novel and extravagant addition to its mixed fortunes, what else is left but to retire the cap, in grand style, from active service!
Wole Soyinka
Wole Soyinka donated the hats to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2000.
These spectra carry information about a chemical compound that Richard Schrock produced in 1973. The spectra are produced with nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), a method where radio waves are used to map molecular structure and composition. This chemical compound was a decisive step in the development of new ways of assembling organic molecules. Schrock’s methods amounted to facilitating metathesis. This means that the double bonds between carbon atoms are broken and reorganised at the same time as atomic groups change place.
Richard Schrock donated the spectra to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2018.
