Paul Ehrlich
Born March 14, 1854, in Strehlen, Germany, and died August 20, 1915, in Bad Homburg.
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Elie Mechnikov, née Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov
Born May 16, 1845, in Kharkov, Russia (now Ukraine), and died July 16, 1916, in Paris, France. In recognition of their work on immunity.
Nobel Prize in Literature
Rudolf Christoph Eucken
Born January 5, 1846, in Aurich, Germany, and died September 14, 1926, in Jena. In recognition of his earnest search for truth, his penetrating power of thought, his wide range of vision, and the warmth and strength in presentation with which in his numerous works he has vindicated and developed an idealistic philosophy of life.
Nobel Peace Prize
Klas Pontus Arnoldson
Born October 27, 1844, in Gothenberg, Sweden, and died February 20, 1916, in Stockholm. He has fought for peace for 35 years, especially through his writings, which were important for the founding of the Swedish Arbitration Society.
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Fredrik Bajer
Born April 21, 1837, in Vester Egede, Denmark, and died January 22, 1922, in Copenhagen. [For] political activities and writings in support of peace.
1909
Nobel Prize in Physics
Guglielmo Marconi
Born April 25, 1874, in Bologna, Italy, and died July 20, 1937, in Rome.
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Karl Ferdinand Braun
Born June 6, 1850, in Fulda, Germany, and died April 20, 1918, in Brooklyn, New York. In recognition of their contributions to the development of wireless telegraphy.
Nobel Prize in Chemistry
Wilhelm Ostwald
Born September 2, 1853, in Riga, Latvia, and died April 4, 1932, in Grossbothen, Germany. In recognition of his work on catalysis and for his investigations into the fundamental principles governing chemical equilibrium and rates of reaction.
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
Emil Theodor Kocher
Born August 25, 1841, in Bern, Switzerland, and died July 27, 1917, in Berne.For his work on the physiology, pathology and surgery of the thyroid gland.
Nobel Prize in Literature
Selma Ottilia Lovisa Lagerlöf
Born November 20, 1858, in Östra Emterwik, Sweden, and died March 16, 1940, in Marbacka. In appreciation of the lofty idealism, vivid imagination and spiritual perception that characterize her writing.
Nobel Peace Prize
Auguste Marie François Beernaert
Born July 26, 1829, in Ostend, Belgium, and died October 6, 1912, in Lucerne, Switzerland. [For] tireless efforts for peace in the last 30 years of his active life.
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Paul Henri Benjamin Balluet d’Estournelles de Constant, Baron de Constant de Rebecque
Born November 22, 1852, in La Flèche, France, and died May 15, 1924, in Paris. [For] services rendered to the international cause of peace and solidarity.
Wilhelm Wien (1864–1928)
1911 Physics
For his discoveries regarding the laws governing the radiation of heat.
Wilhelm Carl Werner Otto Fritz Franz Wien was the son of a rural landowner in Fischhausen, East Prussia, and seemed likely to follow in his father’s footsteps until an economic crisis forced the family to uproot their lives. They moved to Drachstein in 1866, where the young Wilhelm attended school for the first time. Not long afterward, he transferred to The City School at Heidelberg. As Wien’s fascination with science grew, so did his ambitions of studying at university.
In 1882 he entered the University of Göttingen and the University of Berlin to study mathematics and the natural sciences. Between 1883 and 1885 he worked in the laboratory of Hermann von Helmholtz, a noted German physicist, while continuing his studies. A year later, in 1886, Wien presented his thesis on experiments on the diffraction of light on sections of metal and the influence of materials on the color of refracted light and received his doctorate.
When his father became ill, however, Wien was obliged to return home to help run the household. Despite this professional setback, he did not break his ties with the scientific world and managed to spend some time experimenting with Helmholtz. After a number of years the family estate was sold, allowing Wien to return to Helmholtz’s laboratory.
Wien served as a professor of physics in Aix-la-Chapelle in 1896, and there he met Luise Mehler. The couple married in 1898 and had four children together.
Wien’s scientific work during his life did not offer solutions to all the questions that science asked at the time, but his contributions were undeniable. In 1893 he proved that the length of a radioactive wave emitted by a black body varies with temperature and demonstrated the rule that would become known as the law of displacement. It was for this research into thermal radiation that he was eventually awarded the 1911 Nobel Prize in Physics.
The prestige of this award soon allowed him to become a member of the science academies of Berlin, Göttingen, Vienna, Stockholm, Christiania and Washington and an honorary member of the Physical Society of Frankfurt. Wien also lectured in many cities, finally moving to Munich in 1920, where he stayed with his family until his death eight years later. Wien’s autobiography was posthumously published in 1930 and entitled Aus dem Leben und Wirken eines Physikers (The Life and Work of a Physicist), demonstrating how closely he identified himself with his occupation.
Marie Curie (1867–1934)
1903 Physics, 1911 Chemistry
In recognition of her services to the advancement of chemistry by the discovery of the elements radium and polonium, by the isolation of radium and the study of the nature and compounds of this remarkable element.
Marie Curie, the first woman to be awarded a Nobel Prize as well as the first person to win a second one, was born Maria Sklodowska in Warsaw, Poland. A healthy, intelligent
