Nobel Laureates in Chemistry (1901-2011)

In 1986 Alfred Nobel founded Nobel Prize with an objective to encourage and motivate scientists and educated people to play a greater role in the improvement of life of human being. The actual award of the prize which started in 1901, is now made every year to top level scientists in five scientific branches of physics, chemistry, medicine, literature and world peace and has played a major role in upgrade of human knowledge. In this paper we will review the area and subject of the research of Nobel laureates in chemistry starting from the first award up to the current time. The Nobel Prize winners of first five countries in chemistry are from United Sates, Germany, England, France and finally Japan. It is noted that during the first years of the award, no winner has been recorded from United States or England. Only after twenty years, the name of scientists from Britain and after 32 years, scientists from United States appear in the list of Nobel Laureates. The fact that Japan is listed among five first countries with Nobel winners, is indicative of the importance given to chemistry in Japan. Despite the minimal share of Japan of total Nobel ranking, Japanese chemists achieved fifth grade position in Nobel chemistry ranking, this may show the importance of the chemistry for Japanese. The share of women from Nobel Prize in Chemistry is four persons (2.5%) and share of Russian chemists is 2%. Another point of significance in Nobel Prize award is the fact that the award is given to those chemists who have moved to biological science and medicine. It can be stated that these scientists during the quarter of century have been able to allocate 40% of the total prizes in chemistry to themselves and have also been able to win numerous Nobel Prize in the field of medicine.