Physics
Francis Halzen realized that ice at the South Pole could be used to track particles known as neutrinos. His vision and scientific leadership has been fundamental for the IceCube Neutrino Observatory — a cubic kilometer of ice that is equipped with light sensors. Using IceCube, researchers can capture neutrinos from extremely energy-rich processes in the distant universe.
Halzen first presented his vision for capturing neutrinos at the South Pole in 1988. When a neutrino collides with an atomic nucleus, it produces a flash of light that can be tracked by sensors in the clear glacial ice.
“Francis Halzen has led an international team of researchers and engineers who have provided us with a fantastic instrument. His tenacity and scientific vision has paved the way for a new kind of astronomy,” Mark Pearce, chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics, said.
Chemistry
Some molecules, such as amino acids, exist as two variants that are each other’s mirror image. However, living organisms only contain one of these mirror images. How chemical asymmetry such as this could have emerged was long a mystery to chemists.
Henri B. Kagan and Kenso Soai are awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for discovering a solution to this puzzle.
Life’s chemistry is what chemists call “homochiral,” after the Greek words for “same” and “hand.” Like hands, all amino acids exist as two mirrored variants, but only one of them is found in the proteins in your cells. The other is rarely found in nature.
“Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai have provided a solution to a chemical mystery that is over a century old: how homochirality can emerge spontaneously. The chemical reactions they have developed are spectacular,” Heiner Linke, chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, said.
Physiology or Medicine
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded for optogenetics — a method that makes it possible to show how nerve cells shape memories, feelings and behaviors in the living brain. Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel discovered a remarkable protein, channelrhodopsin, in a single-celled alga. Karl Deisseroth transformed the protein into a light-controlled switch for nerve cells. The laureates have laid the foundation of a new era in neuroscience.
How the brain governs feelings, behaviors and bodily functions has long been a mystery. In the 20th century, researchers began to investigate which areas of the brain affect which functions, but the methods used meant they could not prove causal relationships.
“Optogenetics provides opportunities for mapping the brain in a way that we could once only dream of,” Per Svenningsson, Chair of the Nobel Committee for Physiology or Medicine, said.
Literature
The Nobel Prize in Literature for 2026 is awarded to the Canadian author Anne Carson, “for her bold and inventive oeuvre that, in playful dialogue with the classical tradition, has created new forms for contemporary literature,” a release states.
Carson was born in 1950 in Toronto, Canada. In 1981,and almost all her literary production has centered upon the intersection between the philologist’s obsession with words and the poet’s desire for new meaning. She has herself identified the etymology of words as the starting point for all her work.
Throughout her entire authorship, Carson with a light touch explores the possibilities of writing, a process by which the literary sketch has become of particular value to her.
Her collaborations with visual artists and choreographers and with opera and theater directors demonstrate the freedom with which she relates to literary expectations and rule systems. It is this that lies behind the outstanding importance her work since the 1990s has had for the international art and literature scene.
Peace
The Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the 2026 prize to Navanethem “Navi” Pillay for her efforts to promote peace and international law.
Pillay’s commitment to universal legal principles and her firm moral compass are constants in a long career. Born into a family of Indian Tamil origin under apartheid in Durban, South Africa, Pillay became a lawyer and legal pioneer, confronting deep structural discrimination, segregation and exclusion. A common thread runs from her early work defending Nelson Mandela and others who stood up against apartheid to her service as a judge in some of the key international court cases of our time.
This year’s laureate has significantly enlarged the scope and impact of international law. She has served as a judge on the High Court in South Africa, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the International Criminal Court. She was the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and, until recently, she chaired the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Today Navi Pillay is a judge on the International Court of Justice in the case where Myanmar stands accused of genocide.
Economic Sciences
Robert E. Hall and Michael Woodford are awarded this year’s prize for demonstrating how economic models could be reconstructed to revitalize stabilization policy. Rather than basing the models on statistical links between macroeconomic variables, such as inflation, production and consumption, they chose to build them on a microeconomic foundation.
A central component in these models is that households and businesses are forward looking when making decisions about savings or product prices. When governments and central banks communicate their plans for economic policy, they can influence this view of the future and move the economy in the right direction.
“The laureates’ work has provided us with a stable theoretical foundation for the models that are now used by central banks and governments around the world. With them, we are better equipped to deal with shocks in the economy, such as energy crises or sudden changes in how much households consume,” John Hassler, chair of the Committee for the Prize in Economic Sciences, said.
Compiled from nobelprize.org