The Nobel Prize is an international award given yearly for oustanding achievements in the fields of physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, economic science, and for peace. Since its inception in 1901 by Alfred Nobel, many have received the prestigious award. Listed below are the Americans who have received the prize amount, a gold medal and a diploma (with any non-American co-recipients listed in parentheses, as applicable).
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Recipient Name |
Nobel Prize Category |
Year Awarded |
Summary |
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Peace> |
1906> |
President of United States; collaborator of various peace treaties"> |
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Alexis Carrel |
Medicine |
1912 |
"In recognition of his work on vascular suture and the transplantation of blood vessels and organs" |
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Peace |
1912 |
Former Secretary of State; "Originator of various treaties of arbitration" |
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Theodore W. Richards |
Chemistry |
1914 |
"In recognition of his accurate determinations of the atomic weight of a large number of chemical elements" |
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Peace |
1919 |
President of United States of America; Founder of the League of Nations |
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|
Physics |
1921 |
"For his services to Theoretical Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect" |
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Robert A. Millikan |
Physics |
1921 |
"For his work on the elementary charge of electricity and on the photoelectric effect" |
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Charles G. Dawes |
Peace |
1925 |
Vice-President of United States of America; Chairman of Allied Reparation Commission (Originator of "Dawes Plan") |
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Arthur H. Compton |
Peace |
1925 |
"For his discovery of the effect named after him" |
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Peace |
1929 |
Former Secretary of State; Part originator of the Kellogg-Briand Pact |
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|
Literature |
1930 |
"For his vigorous and graphic art of description and his ability to create, with wit and humour, new types of characters" |
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Peace |
1931 |
Sociologist; International President for the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom |
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Nicholas Murray Butler |
Peace |
1931 |
President, Columbia University; Promoter of the Kellogg-Briand Pact |
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Irving Langmuir |
Chemistry |
1932 |
"For his discoveries and investigations in surface chemistry" |
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Thomas H. Morgan |
Medicine |
1933 |
"For his discoveries concerning the role played by the chromosome in heredity" |
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Harold C. Urey |
Chemistry |
1934 |
"For his discovery of heavy hydrogen" |
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George R. Minot, William P. Murphy, George H. Whipple> William P. Murphy> George H. Whipple |
Medicine |
1934 |
"For their discoveries concerning liver therapy in cases of anaemia" |
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Eugene O'Neill |
Literature |
1936 |
"For the power, honesty and deep-felt emotions of his dramatic works, which embody an original concept of tragedy" |
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Carl D. Anderson |
Physics |
1936 |
"For his discovery of the positron" |
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Clinton Davisson (George Paget Thomson) |
Physics |
1937 |
"For their experimental discovery of the diffraction of electrons by crystals" |
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Pearl Buck |
Literature |
1938 |
"For her rich and truly epic descriptions of peasant life in China and for her biographical masterpieces" |
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Edward A. Doisy |
Medicine |
1943 |
"For his discovery of the chemical nature of vitamin K" |
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Joseph Erlanger Herbert S. Gasser |
Medicine |
1944 |
"For their discoveries relating to the highly differentiated functions of single nerve fibres" |
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Peace |
1945 |
Former Secretary of State; significant participant in the establishment of the United Nations |
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John H. Northrop Wendell M. Stanley |
Chemistry |
1946 |
"For their preparation of enzymes and virus proteins in a pure form" |
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James B. Sumner |
Chemistry |
1946 |
"For his discovery that enzymes can be crystallized" |
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Hermann J. Muller |
Medicine |
1946 |
"For the discovery of the production of mutations by means of X-ray irradiation" |
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Emily Greene Balch |
Peace |
1946 |
Former Professor of History and Sociology; Honorary International President, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom |
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John R. Mott |
Peace |
1946 |
Chairman, International Missionary Council; President, World Alliance of Young Men's Christian Associations |
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Percy W. Bridgman |
Peace |
1946 |
Former Professor of History and Sociology; Honorary International President, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom |
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Carl Cori Gerty Theresa Cori, née Radnitz |
Medicine |
1947 |
"For their discovery of the course of the catalytic conversion of glycogen" |
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American Friends Service Committe (Quakers) (Friends Service Committee (Quakers)) |
Peace |
1947 |
For their relief and reconstruction work in many European countries, as well as in India, China, and Japan |
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William F. Giaugue |
Chemistry |
1949 |
"For his contributions in the field of chemical thermodynamics, particularly concerning the behaviour of substances at extremely low temperatures" |
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Literature |
1949 |
"For his powerful and artistically unique contribution to the modern American novel" |
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Philip S. Hench Edward C. Kendall (Tadeus Reichstein) |
Medicine |
1950 |
"For their discoveries relating to the hormones of the adrenal cortex, their structure and biological effects" |
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Ralph Bunche |
Peace |
1950 |
"Professor, Harvard University Cambridge, MA; Director, division of Trusteeship, U.N.; Acting Mediator in Palestine, 1948" |
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Edwin M. McMillan Glenn T. Seaborg |
Chemistry |
1951 |
"For their discoveries in the chemistry of the transuranium elements" |
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E.M. Purcell Felix Bloch |
Physics |
1952 |
"For their development of new methods for nuclear magnetic precision measurements and discoveries in connection therewith" |
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Fritz Lipmann |
Medicine |
1953 |
"For his discovery of co-enzyme A and its importance for intermediary metabolism" |
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Peace |
1953 |
General President American Red Cross; former Secretary of State and of Defense; U.N. Delegate ; Originator of the "Marshall Plan" |
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Linus Pauling |
Chemistry |
1954 |
"For his research into the nature of the chemical bond and its application to the elucidation of the structure of complex substances" |
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Literature |
1954 |
"For his mastery of the art of narrative, most recently demonstrated in The Old Man and the Sea, and for the influence that he has exerted on contemporary style" |
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John F. Enders Frederick C. Robbins Thomas H. Weller |
Medicine |
1954 |
"For their discovery of the ability of poliomyelitis viruses to grow in cultures of various types of tissue" |
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Vincent du Vigneaud |
Chemistry |
1955 |
"For his work on biochemically important sulphur compounds, especially for the first synthesis of a polypeptide hormone" |
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Polykarp Kusch |
Physics |
1955 |
"For his precision determination of the magnetic moment of the electron" |
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Willis E. Lamb |
Physics |
1955 |
"For his discoveries concerning the fine structure of the hydrogen spectrum" |
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Andre F. Cournand Dickinson W. Richards (Werner Forssmann) |
Medicine |
1956 |
"For their discoveries concerning heart catheterization and pathological changes in the circulatory system" |
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John Bardeen Walter H. Brattain William B. Shockley |
Physics |
1956 |
"For their researches on semiconductors and their discovery of the transistor effect" |
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Joshua Lederberg |
Medicine |
1958 |
"For his discoveries concerning genetic recombination and the organization of the genetic material of bacteria" |
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George W. Beadle Edward Tatum |
Medicine |
1958 |
"For their discovery that genes act by regulating definite chemical events" |
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Joseph Lederberg |
Medicine |
1958 |
"For his discoveries concerning genetic recombination and the organization of the genetic material of bacteria" |
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Arthur Kornberg Severo Ochoa |
Medicine |
1959 |
"For their discovery of the mechanisms in the biological synthesis of ribonucleic acid and deoxyribonucleic acid" |
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Owen Chamberlain (Emilio Segre) |
Physics |
1959 |
"For their discovery of the antiproton" |
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Willard F. Libby |
Chemistry |
1960 |
"For his method to use carbon-14 for age determination in archaeology, geology, geophysics, and other branches of science" |
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Donald A. Glaser |
Physics |
1960 |
"For the invention of the bubble chamber" |
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Melvin Calvin |
Chemistry |
1961 |
"For his research on the carbon dioxide assimilation in plants" |
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Robert Hofstadter |
Physics |
1961 |
"For his pioneering studies of electron scattering in atomic nuclei and for his thereby achieved discoveries concerning the stucture of the nucleons" |
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Literature |
1962 |
"For his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humour and keen social perception" |
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James Watson (Francis Crick) (Maurice Wilkins) |
Medicine |
1962 |
"For their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material" |
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Linus Pauling |
Peace |
1962 |
Worked with Russian, American, and British leaders to negotiate the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963 |
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Maria Goeppert-Mayer (J. Hans D. Jensen) |
Physics |
1963 |
"For their discoveries concerning nuclear shell structure" |
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Eugene Wigner |
Physics |
1963 |
"For his contributions to the theory of the atomic nucleus and the elementary particles, particularly through the discovery and application of fundamental symmetry principles" |
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Peace |
1964 |
Leader of "Southern Christian Leadership Conference" |
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Charles H. Townes (Nicolay Gennadiyevich Basov) (Aleksandr Prokhorov) |
Physics |
1964 |
"For fundamental work in the field of quantum electronics, which has led to the construction of oscillators and amplifiers based on the maser-laser principle" |
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Robert B. Woodward |
Chemistry |
1965 |
"For his outstanding achievements in the art of organic synthesis" |
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Richard P. Feynman Julian Schwinger (Sin-Itiro Tomonaga) |
Physics |
1965 |
"For their fundamental work in quantum electrodynamics, with deep-ploughing consequences for the physics of elementary particles" |
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Robert S. Mulliken |
Chemistry |
1966 |
"For his fundamental work concerning chemical bonds and the electronic structure of molecules by the molecular orbital method" |
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Charles B. Huggins |
Medicine |
1966 |
"For his discoveries concerning hormonal treatment of prostatic cancer" |
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Peyton Rous |
Medicine |
1966 |
"For his discovery of tumour-inducing viruses" |
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Haldan K. Hartline (Ragnar Granit) George Wald |
Medicine |
1967 |
"For their discoveries concerning the primary physiological and chemical visual processes in the eye" |
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Hans Bethe |
Physics |
1967 |
"For his contributions to the theory of nuclear reactions, especially his discoveries concerning the energy production in stars" |
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Lars Onsager |
Chemistry |
1968 |
"For the discovery of the reciprocal relations bearing his name, which are fundamental for the thermodynamics of irreversible processes" |
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Robert W. Holley H. Gobind Khorana Marshall W. Nirenberg |
Medicine |
1968 |
"For their interpretation of the genetic code and its function in protein synthesis" |
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Luis Alvarez |
Physics |
1968 |
"For his decisive contributions to elementary particle physics, in particular the discovery of a large number of resonance states, made possible through his development of the technique of using hydrogen bubble chamber and data analysis" |
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Max Delbruck Alfred D. Hershey Murray Gell-Mann |
Medicine |
1969 |
"For their discoveries concerning the replication mechanism and the genetic structure of viruses" |
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Murray Gell-Mann |
Physics |
1969 |
"For his contributions and discoveries concerning the classification of elementary particles and their interactions" |
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Paul A. Samuelson |
Economics |
1970 |
"For the scientific work through which he has developed static and dynamic economic theory and actively contributed to raising the level of analysis in economic science" |
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Julius Axelrod (Sir Bernard Katz) (Ulf von Euler) |
Medicine |
1970 |
"For their discoveries concerning the humoral transmittors in the nerve terminals and the mechanism for their storage, release and inactivation" |
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Simon Kuznets |
Economics |
1971 |
"For his empirically founded interpretation of economic growth, which has led to new and deepened insight into the economic and social structure and process of development" |
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Earl W. Sutherland, Jr. |
Medicine |
1971 |
"For his discoveries concerning the mechanisms of the action of hormones" |
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Christian Anfinsen |
Chemistry |
1972 |
"For his work on ribonuclease, especially concerning the connection between the amino acid sequence and the biologically active conformation" |
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Stanford Moore William Stein |
Chemistry |
1972 |
"For their contribution to the understanding of the connection between chemical structure and catalytic activity of the active centre of the ribonuclease molecule" |
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Kenneth J. Arrow (John R. Hicks) |
Economics |
1972 |
"For their pioneering contributions to general economic equilibrium theory and welfare theory" |
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Gerald M. Edelman (Rodney R. Porter) |
Medicine |
1972 |
"For their discoveries concerning the chemical structure of antibodies" |
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John Bardeen Leon N. Cooper Robert Schrieffer |
Physics |
1972 |
"For their jointly developed theory of superconductivity, usually called the BCS-theory" |
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(Le Duc Tho) |
Peace |
1973 |
Former Secretary of State, during the Vietnam War (Democratic Republic of Vietnam; declined the prize) |
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Ivar Giaever (Leo Esaki) |
Physics |
1973 |
"For their experimental discoveries regarding tunneling phenomena in semiconductors and superconductors, respectively" |
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Paul J. Flory |
Chemistry |
1974 |
"For his fundamental achievements, both theoretical and experimental, in the physical chemistry of the macromolecules" |
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George E. Palade (Albert Claude) (Christian de Duve) |
Medicine |
1974 |
"For their discoveries concerning the structural and functional organization of the cell" |
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Thalling C. Koopmans (Leonid Vitaliyevich Kantorovich) |
Economics |
1975 |
"For their contributions to the theory of optimum allocation of resources" |
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David Baltimore (Renato Dulbecco) Howard M. Temin |
Medicine |
1975 |
"For their discoveries concerning the interaction between tumour viruses and the genetic material of the cell" |
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Ben R. Mottelson (Aage Niels Bohr) James Rainwater |
Physics |
1975 |
"For the discovery of the connection between collective motion and particle motion in atomic nuclei and the development of the theory of the structure of the atomic nucleus based on this connection" |
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William Lipscomb |
Chemistry |
1976 |
"For his studies on the structure of boranes illuminating problems of chemical bonding" |
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Milton Friedman |
Economics |
1976 |
"For his achievements in the fields of consumption analysis, monetary history and theory and for his demonstration of the complexity of stabilization policy" |
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Baruch S. Blumberg D. Carleton Gajdusek |
Medicine |
1976 |
"For their discoveries concerning new mechanisms for the origin and dissemination of infectious diseases" |
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Burton Richter Samuel C.C. Ting |
Physics |
1976 |
"For their pioneering work in the discovery of a heavy elementary particle of a new kind" |
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Roger Guillemin Andrew V. Schally |
Medicine |
1977 |
"For their discoveries concerning the peptide hormone production of the brain" |
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Rosalyn Yalow |
Medicine |
1977 |
"For the development of radioimmunoassays of peptide hormones" |
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Philip W. Anderson (Sir Nevill Francis Mott) John H. van Vleck |
Physics |
1977 |
"For their fundamental theoretical investigations of the electronic structure of magnetic and disordered systems" |
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Herbert A. Simon |
Economics |
1978 |
"For his pioneering research into the decision-making process within economic organizations" |
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Daniel Nathans (Werner Arber) Hamilton O. Smith |
Medicine |
1978 |
"For the discovery of restriction enzymes and their application to problems of molecular genetics" |
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Arno Penzias Robert Woodrow Wilson |
Physics |
1978 |
"For their discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation" |
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Theodore W. Schultz (Sir Arthur Lewis) |
Economics |
1979 |
"For their pioneering research into economic development research with particular consideration of the problems of developing countries" |
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Alan M. Cormack Godfrey N. Hounsfield |
Medicine |
1979 |
"For the development of computer assisted tomography" |
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Sheldon Glashow (Abdus Salam) Steven Weinberg |
Physics |
1979 |
"For their contributions to the theory of the unified weak and electromagnetic interaction between elementary particles, including, inter alia, the prediction of the weak neutral current" |
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Paul Berg |
Chemistry |
1980 |
"For his fundamental studies of the biochemistry of nucleic acids, with particular regard to recombinant-DNA" |
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Walter Gilbert (Frederick Sanger) |
Chemistry |
1980 |
"For their contributions concerning the determination of base sequences in nucleic acids" |
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Lawrence R. Klein |
Economics |
1980 |
"For the creation of econometric models and the application to the analysis of economic fluctuations and economic policies" |
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Baruj Benacerraf (Jean Dausset) George D. Snell |
Medicine |
1980 |
"For their discoveries concerning genetically determined structures on the cell surface that regulate immunological reactions" |
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Val Fitch James Cronin |
Physics |
1980 |
"For the discovery of violations of fundamental symmetry principles in the decay of neutral K-mesons" |
Czesław Miłosz |
Literature |
1980 |
"who with uncompromising clear-sightedness voices man's exposed condition in a world of severe conflicts" |
Roger Sperry |
Medicine |
1981 |
"For his discoveries concerning the functional specialization of the cerebral hemispheres" |
David Hubel |
Medicine |
1981 |
"For their discoveries concerning information processing in the visual system" |
Nicolaas Bloembergen Arthur Schawlow |
Physics |
1981 |
"For their contribution to the development of laser spectroscopy" |
James Tobin |
Economics |
1981 |
"For his analysis of financial markets and their relations to expenditure decisions, employment, production and prices" |
Roald Hoffmann |
Chemistry |
1981 |
"For their theories, developed independently, concerning the course of chemical reactions" |
Kenneth Wilson |
Physics |
1982 |
"For his theory for critical phenomena in connection with phase transitions" |
George Stigler |
Economics |
1982 |
"For his seminal studies of industrial structures, functioning of markets and causes and effects of public regulation" |