Which, which, which. I definitely need a bit more variety on how I start these questions. But I’ve written a lot, and I’m not prepared to re-write them all. Especially as I’ve such a long way to go…
Questions
Which Frenchman shared the 1997 Physics Nobel with Steven Chu for his research on methods of laser cooling and trapping atoms? He was born in Algeria, becoming the first Physics laureate born in an Arab country.
CLAUDE COHEN-TANNOUDJI
Which American shared the 1997 Physics Nobel with Steven Chu and Claude Cohen-Tannoudji for his research on methods of laser cooling and trapping atoms?
WILLIAM PHILLIPS
Which American shared the 1998 Physics Nobel with German Horst Störmer and the Chinese Daniel Tsui for his work on the fractional quantum Hall effect? He has a wavefunction named for him which is an ansatz, an educated guess or additional assumption which may be later proved.
ROBERT LAUGHLIN
Which Dutchman nicknamed ‘Tini’ shared the 1999 Physics Nobel with Gerard ‘t Hooft for ‘elucidating the quantum structure of electroweak interactions’? He was ‘t Hooft’s thesis advisor.
MARTINUS VELTMAN
Which Russian shared the 2000 Physics Nobel with a German and an American for ‘developing semiconductor heterostructures used in high-speed and optoelectronics’? He has served in the State Duma and his discovery plays a key role in modern mobile phone and satellite communications.
ZHORES ALFEROV
Which German shared the 2000 Physics Nobel with Russian Zhores Alferov and an American for ‘developing semiconductor heterostructures used in high-speed and optoelectronics’? His research into transistors was a stepping stone to mobile phone technology.
HERBERT KROEMER
Which American shared the 2000 Physics Nobel for his ‘part in the invention of the integrated circuit’? He was a co-inventor of the handheld calculator and thermal printer.
JACK KILBY
Which American shared the 1981 Nobel in Physiology for his split-brain research into the roles of the cerebral hemispheres of the brain?
ROGER SPERRY
Which American-Canadian shared the 1981 Nobel in Physiology for his work on the visual cortex along with a Swede and Roger Sperry for his split-brain research?
DAVID HUBEL
Which Swede shared the 1981 Nobel in Physiology for his work on the visual cortex along with American-Canadian David Hubel and Roger Sperry for his split-brain research?
TORSTEN WIESEL
Which Swede won the 1982 Nobel in Physiology along with fellow countryman Bengt I. Samuelsson and Brit John Vane for his work on prostaglandins, a sub-class of the signalling molecule eicosanoids?
SUNE BERGSTRÖM
In 1984, which German shared the Nobel in Physiology with Argentinian Cesar Milstein and Dane Niels Kaj Jerne for developing the hybridoma technique for producing monoclonal antibodies?
GEORGES KÖHLER
The first person to prove that radioactivity could cause the transmutation of one chemical element into another, which Brit won the 1948 Nobel in Physics for his work on cloud chambers?
PATRICK BLACKETT
Which Swiss microbiologist won the 1978 Nobel in Physiology for the ‘discovery of restriction enzymes and their application to problems of molecular genetics’ along with first bacterial genome sequencer for Hamoephilus influenzae, Hamilton Smith and Daniel Nathans, who has an Institute for Genetic Medicine named for him at Johns Hopkins with Victor McKusick?
WERNER ARBER
Secretary of War, then Secretary of State and then US senator for New York at the start of World War I, who was the second American to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 1912?
ELIHU ROOT
Which French statesman who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1920 has frequently been called the ‘spiritual father’ of the League of Nations?
LÉON BOURGEOIS
Appropriately named and also a proponent of esperanto, which Austrian shared the 1911 Nobel Peace Prize with Dutch lawyer Tobias Asser for establishing the German Peace Society?
ALFRED FRIED
Which German shared the 1954 Physics Nobel with Max Born for ‘the coincidence method and his discoveries made therewith’?
WALTHER BOTHE
Sharing the prize with IMF critic Joseph Stiglitz, which 2001 Nobel Economics winner is the husband of Janet Yellen?
GEORGE AKERLOF
Which Canadian shared the 2001 Nobel in Economics with the more famous duo of George Akerlof and Joseph Stiglitz? All three won for their ‘analyses of markets with asymmetric information’.
MICHAEL SPENCE
Which Japanese chemist created the first viable lithium-ion battery, sharing the 2019 Chemistry Nobel with M. Stanley Whittingham and 97 year old John Goodenough?
AKIRA YOSHINO
Which 2020 Nobel Economics winner has been perhaps the leading pioneer of auction theory and whose work includes “Putting auction theory to work” and “Discovering prices”? He seems to have got his tentacles into game theory, with his surname being one letter out from a famous psychologist.
PAUL MILGROM
Who shared the 2020 Nobel in Economics with Paul Milgrom for their work on auction theory? Their research into non-linear pricing has influenced policies for large firms, particularly around electricity.
ROBERT WILSON
A German-born American, who shared the 1955 Physics Nobel with Willis Lamb for his accurate determination that the magnetic moment of the electron was greater than its theoretical value, thus leading to reconsideration of – and innovations in – quantum electrodynamics?
POLYKARP KUSCH
Born in Berlin, which American 2017 Physics Nobel winner is responsible for inventing the laser interferometric technique that is the basic operation for LIGO, which stands for Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory? He shared the prize with 2014 film “Interstellar” advisor Kip Thorne.
RAINER WEISS
Which alliterative leading expert on gravitational waves shared the 2017 Physics Nobel with Rainer Weiss and Kip Thorne?
BARRY BARISH
Who shared the 1957 Physics Nobel with the youngest post-war science laureate Tsung-Dao Lee for their work on parity violation, where Chien-Shiung Wu was not recognised?
CHEN-NING YANG
Which Australian shared the 1960 Medicine Nobel with Brazilian born ‘father of transplantation’ Peter Medawar for his work on immunology? He proved that myxamatosis doesn’t pass to humans.
MACFARLANE BURNET
Who was the Japanese-born American inventor of the blue LED, being rewarded with the 2014 Physics Nobel?
SHUJI NAKAMURA
Along with Shuji Nakamura, which Japanese was awarded the 2014 Physics Nobel for inventing GaN (Gallium Nitride) blue LEDs?
ISAMU AKASAKI
Along with Shuji Nakamura and Isamu Akasaki, which Japanese was awarded the 2014 Physics Nobel for developing GaN doping, thus enabling blue LEDs?
HIROSHI AMANO
Stanford Moore and William Stein won the 1972 Chemistry Nobel for determining the complete amino acid sequence for which enzyme?
RIBONUCLEASE
Which American biochemist shared the 1972 Chemistry Nobel with Stanford Moore and William Stein for his work on ribonuclease, especially concerning the connection between the amino acid sequence and the biologically active conformation, known as his dogma?
CHRISTIAN ANFINSEN
Which biochemist from a Chinese American family won the 2008 Nobel in Chemistry for his discovery and development of green fluorescent protein?
ROGER HSIEN
Which Japanese organic chemist shared the 2008 Nobel in Chemistry with Roger Hsien for the discovery and development of green fluorescent protein?
OSAMU SHIMOMURA
Which American neurobiologist shared the 2008 Nobel in Chemistry with Roger Hsien and Osamu Shimomura for the discovery and development of green fluorescent protein?
MARTIN CHALFIE
Green fluorescent protein is commonly used as what type of gene that confers characteristics on an organism which are easily identifiable and measured? This allows it to be fused with another gene to track the other gene’s effects.
REPORTER
The Bridgman-Stockbarger method involves two distinct, but similar techniques for growing what single-crystal ingots?
BOULES
Where can the magnesium silicate known as bridgmanite mainly be found?
(LOWER) MANTLE
Which Australian-British chemist shared the 1975 Nobel in Chemistry with Croatian-Swiss chemist Vladimir Prelog for his work on the stereochemistry of enzyme-catalyzed reactions? He is currently the only Nobel Laureate to be born in New South Wales.
JOHN CORNFORTH
Introduced by Christopher Ingold, what two-word term does the Sn stand for in the reactions Sn1 and Sn2?
NUCLEOPHILIC SUBSTITUTION
Introduced by Christopher Ingold, what two-word term does the E1 stand for in a chemical reaction?
UNIMOLECULAR REACTION
Who along with Christopher Ingold and Vladimir Prelog gives their name to the CIP priority rules, which are a standard process for naming a stereoisomer of a molecule?
ROBERT CAHN
Who worked with Joseph Taylor at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, sharing the 1993 Physics Nobel for the discovery of binary pulsars?
RUSSELL HULSE
Which double-barreled German developmental biologist is the only woman from Germany to win a Nobel Prize in the sciences, because apparently Maria Goeppert-Mayer is classed as American? She worked in genetics, with her work on Drosophila larvae of particular importance. Names for the genes on the mutant larvae include ‘hedgehogs’, ‘gherkins’ and ‘cripples’.
CHRISTIANE NÜSSLEIN-VOLHARD
Which American who shared the 1995 Nobel in Physiology worked with German Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard on Drosophila fruit fly larvae, with mass testing of mutants becoming known as the Heidelberg screen, named for the University from which they worked?
ERIC WIESCHAUS
Sharing the 1995 Nobel in Physiology with Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard and Eric Wieschaus, which American who helped found the field of evolutionary developmental biology also invented the complementation test, something to do with similar mutations and how the genes relate to them?
EDWARD LEWIS
Which French biochemist is associated with François Jacob, with their work on the operon getting them the 1965 Nobel in Physiology?
JACQUES MONOD
Which French microbiologist of Russian-Polish origin shared the 1965 Nobel in Physiology with François Jacob and Jacques Monod, not for operons, but for the provirus? This is a mechanism used by some viruses to infect bacteria.
ANDRÉ LWOFF
Which Australian shared the 2005 Nobel in Physiology with helicobacter pylori ingester Barry Marshall?
ROBIN WARREN
Hungarian-born German physicist Philipp Lenard won the 1905 Nobel in Physics for his work on what, including the discovery of many of their properties? He later labelled Einstein’s contributions to science as ‘Jewish physics’ and was an important role model for ‘Deutsche Physik’.
CATHODE RAYS
One of the original members of the International Atomic Weights Committee, Henri Moissan won the 1906 Nobel in Chemistry for his work on the investigation and isolation of what element?
FLUORINE
A master of quantum field theory and one of the leading physicists of his time, which American shared the 1979 Nobel for Physics with Sheldon Glashow for his work on electroweak interactions, also authoring light reading works like “To explain the world” and “Dreams of a final theory”?
STEVEN WEINBERG
Which Pakistani theoretical physicist was the first person from his country to win a Nobel Prize and the second from an Islamic country after Anwar Sadat? He shared the 1979 Nobel for Physics with Sheldon Glashow and Steven Weinberg.
ABDUS SALAM
Who does the S stand for along with Leon Cooper and John Bardeen in the BCS theory of superconductivity, this person also taking home the 1972 Nobel for Physics? This was the first microscopic theory of superconductivity since its 1911 discovery by Heike Kammerlingh Onnes.
JOHN SCHRIEFFER
German biochemist Albrecht Kossel won the 1910 Nobel Prize in Physiology for his work in discovering the chemical composition of what?
NUCLEIC ACIDS
Albrecht Kossel is known for his isolation of which amino acid, which contains an imidazole side chain, an organic compound which when fused with a pyrimidine ring forms a purine?
HISTIDINE
Being awarded the Physics Nobel in 1959, Italian physicist Emilio Segré was involved in the discovery of which two elements? Working at Berkeley radiation lab and later the Los Alamos project, he was rendered an indefinite émigré after Mussolini passed laws barring Jews from university positions.
TECHNETIUM & ASTATINE
First experimentally confirmed in 1955 at the Bevatron particle accelerator, for the discovery of what was Emilio Segré awarded the 1959 Physics Nobel?
ANTIPROTON
Which American physicist, whose doctoral advisor was Enrico Fermi, was awarded the 1959 Nobel in Physics with Emilio Segré for the discovery of the antiproton?
OWEN CHAMBERLAIN
What disease did Paul Ehrlich find a cure for in 1909?
SYPHILIS
The first ‘magic bullet’ and also known as Salvarsan or compound 606, which drug was introduced at the beginning of the 1910s as the first effective treatment for syphilis, relapsing fever and trypanosomiasis?
ARSPHENAMINE
What type of reaction which involves a refluxing of carboxylic acid and an alcohol in the presence of an acid catalyst is named for 1902 Nobel Chemistry winner Emil Fischer, or Emil Fischer and the less prominent Arthur Speier? Also developed by Emil Fischer was the Fischer Projection, a symbolic way of drawing asymmetric carbon atoms, most commonly used for monosaccharides.
ESTERIFICATION
Which Belfast-born woman shared the 1976 Nobel Peace Prize with Betty Williams for their work in promoting a peaceful resolution to the Troubles?
MAIREAD CORRIGAN
By what four-word name did the organisation founded as Women for Peace by Betty Williams, Mairead Corrigan and Nobel-less Ciaran McKeown later become?
COMMUNITY FOR PEACE PEOPLE
University of Manchester alma mater Robert Robinson won the 1947 Nobel Prize in Chemistry partly for his work on what organic compounds, with morphine being the first of these to be isolated in 1804? His synthesis of tropinone was a big step in this area of chemistry.
ALKALOIDS
Born in Berlin and a member of the Phage Group, which German-American shared the 1969 Nobel in Physiology with Alfred Hershey, perhaps surprisingly also having a form of Scattering named for him in a process described by quantum electrodynamics?
MAX DELBRÜCK
Which Italian microbiologist who later became a naturalised American citizen shared the 1969 Nobel Prize in Physiology with Alfred Hershey and Max Delbrück for their work on the genetic structure of viruses?
SALVADOR LURIA
Frenchman and Vichy eugenicist Alexis Carrel won the 1912 Nobel Prize in Physiology for his pioneering work on what techniques?
(VASCULAR) SUTURING
Alexis Carrel and Charles Lindbergh invented the first of what kind of pump, opening the way to organ transplantation?
PERFUSION PUMP
Along with Austrian, what joint-citizenship did Erwin Schrödinger have from 1948?
IRISH
Shown on his gravestone and giving the evolution over time of a wave function, the Schrödinger equation is the equivalent of which other equation in classical mechanics?
NEWTON’S SECOND LAW (F=ma)
Which Erwin Schrödinger book with a three-word title carries the sub-title “The Physical Aspect of the Living Cell”, having an influence on the study of genetics?
WHAT IS LIFE?
A relativistic wave equation, what does the Dirac equation predict the existence of?
ANTIPARTICLES
Israeli crystallographer Ada Yonath won the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for her work on the structure of what?
RIBOSOMES
Which Milwaukee-born American biochemist who died in 2018 shared the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Ada Yonath and Indian-born structural biologist Venki Ramakrishnan for their work on the structure of ribosomes?
THOMAS STEITZ
Which Canadian-born labour economist shared the 2021 Nobel Prize in Economics? His work is used in arguments to increase immigration, with him saying immigrants do not pose a threat to the labour market.
DAVID CARD
Which Dutch-born econometrist shared the 2021 Nobel Prize in Economics with Canadian-born David Card, being credited for catalyzing a ‘credibility revolution’ in empirical microeconomics with him?
GUIDO IMBENS
Which Israeli-American economist who is noted for their empirical work in labor economics and the economics of education, shared the 2021 Nobel Prize in Economics with Canadian-born David Card and Dutch-born Guido Imbens?
JOSHUA ANGRIST
Which German oceanographer and climate modeller won the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physics, being known for a namesake model of climate variability that explains why white-noise signals seen in the climate transform into red-noise ones?
KLAUS HASSELMANN
Which Italian theoretical physicist known for his work on complex systems shared the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physics with German Klaus Hasselmann, ostensibly for discovering the interplay of fluctuations from an atomic to planetary level?
GIORGIO PARISI
Nicknamed ‘Suki’, which Ehime-born Japanese-American meteorologist and climatologist who pioneered the use of computers to simulate climate change, shared the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physics with German Klaus Hasselmann and Italian Giorgio Parisi?
(SYUKURO) MANABE
Which Mexican winner of the 1995 Nobel Prize for Chemistry played a pivotal role in the discovery of the Antarctic ozone hole, also discovering the threat to the ozone layer from CFCs?
MARIO MOLINA
Which Dutch meteorologist and atmospheric chemist shared the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Mexican Mario Molina specifically for his work on atmospheric ozone? He also popularised the term ‘anthropocene’ and was among those who introduced the idea of a ‘nuclear winter’.
PAUL CRUTZEN
Nicknamed ‘Sherry’, which American shared the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Mexican Mario Molina and Dutchman Paul Crutzen, being best known for his discovery that CFCs contribute to ozone depletion?
FRANK SHERWOOD ROWLAND
Which Finnish chemist was awarded the 1945 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developing a fodder preservation method that included adding dilute sulphuric acid to newly stored grain?
ARTTURI VIRTANEN
German Eduard Buchner won the 1907 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on what? A flask and funnel are not named for him but for an industrial chemist with the same surname instead.
FERMENTATION
Born in Milwaukee, which American biochemist shared the 2009 Nobel in Chemistry with Ada Yonath and Venki Ramakrishnan for their work on ribosomes?
THOMAS STEITZ (Just checking you were paying attention earlier. Unfortunately I wasn’t!)
Born in Catanzaro, which Italian-American virologist shared the 1975 Nobel Prize in Medicine with David Baltimore for his work on oncoviruses, viruses which cause cancer when they infect animal cells?
RENATO DULBECCO
Born in Philadelphia, which American geneticist and virologist shared the 1975 Nobel Prize in Medicine with David Baltimore and Renato Dulbecco for his discovery of reverse transcriptase?
HOWARD TEMIN
Also receiving prizes for his work on quarks and leptons, Leon Lederman won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1988 for his work on which sub-atomic particles, for which a beam method they used is named?
NEUTRINOS
What was the title of Leon Lederman’s 1993 book that established the popularity of the Higgs boson?
THE GOD PARTICLE
Born in New York City, who shared the 1988 Nobel Prize in Physics with Leon Lederman, mainly for his neutrino beam experiment which was inspired by the work of Nobel Prize winner Tsung-Dao Lee?
MELVIN SCHWARTZ
Born in the German spa town of Bad Kissingen, who shared the 1988 Nobel Prize in Physics with Leon Lederman and Melvin Schwartz for their neutrino beam experiment and subsequent discovery of the muon neutrino?
JACK STEINBERGER
Giving his name to a reaction, George Wittig won the 1979 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the synthesis of what from aldehydes and ketones using compounds called phosphonium ylides?
ALKENES
Which London-born American chemist shared the 1979 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with George Wittig for his work with organoboranes?
HERBERT BROWN
Also known for his discovery of ketenes and a namesake reaction, German organic chemist Hermann Staudinger won the 1953 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for demonstrating the existence of what, which he characterised as polymers?
MACROMOLECULES
Which American immunologist won the 2018 Nobel Prize in Medicine for the discovery of cancer therapy by inhibition of negative immune regulation, i.e. checkpoint inhibitors? His discoveries have led to new cancer treatments for the deadliest cancers.
JAMES ALLISON
Sharing the 2018 Nobel Prize in Medicine with James Allison for their discovery of checkpoint inhibitor therapy for cancer treatments, which Japanese immunologist is best known for the identification of programmed cell death protein 1, PD-1?
TASUKU HONJO
Jim Peebles won the 2019 Nobel in Physics for his theoretical discoveries in which two-word area, that is concerned with models that provide a description of the largest scale structures and dynamics of the universe and allows study of the fundamental questions?
PHYSICAL COSMOLOGY
Which two Swiss astrophysicists shared the 2019 Nobel in Physics with Jim Peebles for their co-discovery of 51 Pegasi b, the first extrasolar planet orbiting a sun like star?
MICHEL MAYOR AND DIDIER QUELOZ
Hannes Alfvén won the 1970 Nobel in Physics and has some waves named for him that are a feature of which field that he initiated?
MAGNETOHYDRODYNAMICS
Born in Lyon, which Frenchman shared the 1970 Nobel in Physics with Hannes Alfvén for his studies of the magnetic properties of solids, including predicting antiferromagnetism and ferrimagnetism? Useful applications of his work includes improved computer memory units.
LOUIS NÉEL
Sharing the 1965 Nobel in Physics with Richard Feynman, which American’s work on quantum electrodynamics included developing a relativistically invariant perturbation theory and renormalising QED to one loop order?
JULIAN SCHWINGER
Which Japanese physicist shared the 1965 Nobel in Physics with Richard Feynman and Julian Schwinger for his contributions to quantum electrodynamics?
SHINOCHIRO TOMONAGA
Winning the 1938 Nobel in Physics for his work on induced radioactivity by neutron bombardment and the discovery of transuranium elements, Enrico Fermi is also known for what approximation calculations, also known as ‘Fermi questions’?
BACK-OF-THE-ENVELOPE
American Andrew Fire won the 2006 Nobel in Medicine for the discovery of what?
RNAi / RNA INTERFERENCE
Which American shared the 2006 Nobel in Medicine with Andrew Fire for the discovery of RNAi or RNA interference, which suppresses gene expression?
CRAIG MELLO
Who was the male American winner of the 2004 Nobel in Medicine for his work on the olfactory system?
RICHARD AXEL
Who was the female American winner of the 2004 Nobel in Medicine for her work on the olfactory system?
LINDA BUCK
Lev Landau won the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physics for his development of a mathematical theory of what, which is often coincidental with Bose-Einstein condensation, though neither are directly related to the other?
SUPERFLUIDITY
In physics, what alliterative two-word term is used for a number that determines the strength of the force exerted in an interaction?
COUPLING CONSTANT
In theoretical physics, what two-word term refers to a formal apparatus that allows systematic investigation of the changes of a physical system as viewed at different scales?
RENORMALISATION GROUP
What two-word term is most often used for the momentum/energy scale at which the coupling constant of a quantum field theory becomes infinite?
LANDAU POLE
Working most of his life in Switzerland, in which present day country was 1939 Nobel Prize in Chemistry winner Leopold Ružička born?
CROATIA
1939 Nobel Prize in Chemistry winner Leopold Ružička is particularly known for what class of natural products produced predominantly by plants, particularly conifers?
TERPENES
Initially rejecting the 1939 Nobel Prize in Chemistry in line with government policy, which German biochemist later accepted it in 1949?
ADOLF BUTENANDT
Both Leopold Ružička and Adolf Butenandt were recognised for their work on male sex hormones when they won the 1939 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, with Butenandt later discovering what sex pheromone of the silkworm, the first pheromone to be characterised chemically?
BOMBYKOL
Heinrich Wieland won the 1927 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his research into what type of steroid acids found predominantly in mammals and other vertebrates?
BILE ACIDS
Awarded the 1937 Nobel Prize in Physics alongside George Paget Thomson, Clinton Davisson is particularly noted for an experiment conducted with Lester Germer that proved what central tenet of quantum mechanics?
PARTICLES OF MATTER HAVE A WAVE-LIKE NATURE
Whose 1924 hypothesis that particles of matter have a wave-like nature did the Davisson-Germer experiment prove, himself a Nobel Laureate?
LOUIS DE BROGLIE
Which Egyptian-American chemist is known as the ‘father of femtochemistry’, being awarded the 1999 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for showing that it is possible to see how atoms in a molecule move during a chemical reaction with flashes of laser light?
AHMED ZEWAIL
Whittipedia 