2024 Nobel Prizes

The 2024 Nobel Prizes were awarded by the Nobel Foundation, based in Sweden. Six categories were awarded: Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, Peace, and Economic Sciences. The winners in each category were announced from October 7 to October 14.

Nobel Week was scheduled to take place from December 6 to 12, including programming such as lectures, dialogues, and discussions. The award ceremony and banquet for the Peace Prize were scheduled in Oslo on December 10, while the award ceremony and banquet for all other categories were scheduled for the same day in Stockholm. ^[1]

Prizes

Physics

Awardee(s)
	John Hopfield (b. 1933)	American	"for foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks"	[2]
	Geoffrey Hinton (b. 1947)	British Canadian

Chemistry

Awardee(s)
	David Baker (b. 1962)	American	"for computational protein design"	[3]
	Demis Hassabis (b. 1976)	British	“for protein structure prediction”
	John M. Jumper (b. 1985)	American

Physiology or Medicine

Awardee(s)
	Victor Ambros (b. 1953)	United States	"for the discovery of microRNA and its role in post-transcriptional gene regulation"	[4]
	Gary Ruvkun (b. 1952)

Literature

Main article: 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature

Awardee(s)
	Han Kang (b. 1970)	South Korea	"for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life"	[5]

Peace

Main article: 2024 Nobel Peace Prize

Awardee(s)
	Nihon Hidankyo (founded 1956)	Japan	"for its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again"	[6]

Economic Sciences

Awardee(s)
	Daron Acemoglu (b. 1967)	Turkey   United States	"for studies of how institutions are formed and affect prosperity"	[7] [8]
	Simon Johnson (b. 1963)	United Kingdom   United States
	James A. Robinson (b. 1955)	United Kingdom   United States

Other events

Nobel Peace Prize torchlight procession in Oslo, Norway

From November 30 to December 8, the Nobel Prize Museum set up citywide illuminations across Stockholm. ^[9] On December 8, as well, opera singer Malin Byström and conductor Petr Popelka performed at the Nobel Prize Concert. ^[10] The menu for the Nobel Banquet, scheduled for December 10, was set by chef Jessie Sommarström and pastry chef Frida Bäcke. ^[11]

Economic Sciences, Chemistry, and Physics laureates at a press conference at Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

Controversies

Physics

Hinton's awarding of the Prize in Physics, for research on machine learning, provoked debates about the lack of recognition for computation and mathematics in the Nobel Foundation's categories. Some saw Hinton's work as crucial but not traditionally in line with physics. ^[12]

Economic Sciences

The Atlantic called the Prize in Economic Sciences in 2024 to be one of the most controversial in recent history. ^[13] Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson's work was criticized by historians and social scientists for inaccurately describing and analyzing history, neglecting the role of colonization in nation-building, and reflecting the insularity of economics as a discipline, among other critiques. ^[14]

References

1. Rydén, Jenny (2024-10-31). "Nobel Week 2024". NobelPrize.org. Retrieved 2024-12-09.
2. "The Nobel Prize in Physics 2024". Nobel Foundation. Archived from the original on 2024-10-09. Retrieved 2024-10-08.
3. "The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2024". NobelPrize.org. Archived from the original on October 9, 2024. Retrieved 2024-10-09.
4. "The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2024 was awarded jointly to Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun "for the discovery of microRNA and its role in post-transcriptional gene regulation."". The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2024. The Nobel Prize. October 7, 2024. Archived from the original on October 7, 2024. Retrieved October 7, 2024.
5. The Nobel Prize in Literature 2024 nobelprize.org
6. "The Nobel Peace Prize 2024". NobelPrize.org. Retrieved 2024-10-11.
7. "The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2024". Nobel Foundation. October 14, 2024. Retrieved October 14, 2024.
8. "The Prize in Economic Sciences 2024". www.kva.se. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. October 14, 2024. Retrieved October 15, 2024.
9. "Nobel Week Lights 2024". Routes North. Retrieved 2024-12-09.
10. Rydén, Jenny (2024-09-17). "Nobel Prize Concert 2024". NobelPrize.org. Retrieved 2024-12-09.
11. Rydén, Jenny (2024-12-05). "Nobel Prize banquet chef and pastry chef 2024". NobelPrize.org. Retrieved 2024-12-09.
12. Coulter, Martin (2024-10-10). "Google's Nobel prize winners stir debate over AI research". Reuters. Retrieved 2024-12-08.
13. Taylor, Mark Zachary (2024-11-05). "The Most Controversial Nobel Prize in Recent Memory". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2024-12-08.
14. French, Howard W. (2024-12-12). "Why This Year's Nobel in Economics Is So Controversial". Foreign Policy. Retrieved 2024-12-08.