The Noble One.

Nobel week is here and three awards have already been announced. Medicine, Physics and Chemistry. And amazingly, the accomplishments of medicine and chemistry laureates are quite easily understandable to anyone with a high-school science background! Can't say so for physics though. But then, if ever there's a Physics Nobel given for something that the lay-man can understand, it will probably have to be for some astounding breakthrough in our understanding of nature. Not for a breakthrough in about 20 people's understanding of nature as it seems nowadays. :P (just kidding!! :D)

Peace Award will be announced in a few hours. So, I was just browsing the Nobel Foundation Website and ran into an article about that old mystery - Why was Gandhi never awarded the Peace Nobel? Its an interesting read in its entirety. There are many things that I did not know. For example, Gandhi very likely didn't make it in 1947 because of a speech he made a few weeks before the Nobel committee's decision. Also, in 1948, he would very likely have got it had he not been assasinated before Nobel committee's meeting. I didn't know that no one was awarded the Peace Nobel in 1948 because there was "no suitable living candidate". For all I know, all of this might be common knowledge but I didn't know much of what is written in the article. Read it here. It'll be well worth the time spent.