Five score and 18 years, the world has seen nearly a thousand people and organizations receive the coveted Nobel Prizes, established in 1895 and named after the Swedish inventor and philanthropist Alfred Nobel, with the first awarded in 1901.
Awards analysts worldwide say the prizes—recipients called laureates receive a diploma, a gold medal and a cash prize that to date generally exceeds $1 million—are of consequence and understandably so.
The prizes, described by some as not the run-of-the mill, sticky-backed and gold-star award, recognize advances in scientific and cultural fields: literature, peace, economics, chemistry, physics and medicine.
This month, the 118th year of the prizes, the identities of the Laureates have been announced starting on October 7, ending October 14, revealing the names of the scientists, writers and peace workers who—in keeping with the vision of Nobel—have conferred the greatest benefit to mankind.
In that span, we have seen, and been overwhelmed, by the credentials of the recipients, properly the thinking person’s thinkers, the men and women who have magnanimously, if unselfishly, dedicated their lives to making public the secrets of man’s existence and have, in the words of Nathan Chandler, helped “propel humankind’s collective intelligence higher.”
Beyond doubt the recipients are, individually and collectively, all transformative and groundbreaking people, the likes of Hermann Muller (awarded 1946) whose work made people realize the importance of tempering our knowledge with safety and caution.
There was also Martin Luther King Jr. (awarded 1964) who had a dream but did not dismiss that as a capricious midnight vision, pursued it in full daylight against scorn and cynicism and eventually paid for it with his life.
Then there was Mother Teresa (awarded 1979) who reached the world’s poorest through her incessant charitable work.
No ifs, ands or buts, these laureates —and the ones not named because of space restriction—give us, the present generation and the ones after us, good reason to be grateful they helped change the world to be a better place.
