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Mini Poll: About the Nobel Prize
The announcement that the Nobel Committee had awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize to Barack Obama caught the attention of the president's supporters and opponents, and sparked new interest in the prizes themselves.
The Nobel Prize is an international award administered by the Nobel Foundation in Stockholm, Sweden. Since 1901, more than 500 prizes (which actually consist of a medal, a diploma, and money) have been awarded to 806 individuals and 23 organizations. In several of the intervening years, particularly during wars, no Nobel Prizes have been awarded. Laureates are nominated by their supporters, and selected after an investigation by the Foundation. Information about the nominations, investigations, and opinions concerning the award is kept secret for fifty years.
A Nobel Prize has been awarded to 40 women and 762 men – in physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, peace, and economics. The youngest recipient was 25, the oldest was 90. Two Laureates have voluntarily declined the prize; several Laureates were forbidden by circumstances or by their governments from accepting the prizes at the time they were awarded. Washington University in St. Louis claims an affiliation (either as student or faculty) with 23 Nobel Prize winners, though that number includes T.S. Eliot, who received degrees from Harvard, but (because we notice such things!) attended high school here.
This week's Mini-Poll asks you to submit (yes, generally light-hearted) nominations for Nobel Prizes from among the citizens of St. Louis. And, yes, we are asking you if you think President Obama deserves his prize. (For your information, St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay believes that the Nobel Committee has made a very important statement in honoring the American president – but you may disagree.)
Vote here.
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