Welcome to BrainStuff, from how Stuff Works.com, where smart happens.

I am Marshall Brain with today's question. How does the Nobel Prize work? I mean we hear

about these prizes on the news constantly and they've been around forever. Where did they actually come from?

Six Nobel Prizes are awarded each year

in the areas of peace, chemistry, physics, medicine,

literature, and economics. The prizes are named after Alfred Noble, the inventor of dynamite who created the prizes in his will.

He donated a good portion of his estate to fund the prizes, decided who would judge the winners of each award, and also named the five prize categories. Economics was added during the 1960s. The Nobel Prizes are administered by the Nobel Foundation and are awarded in the fall after a rigorous selection process.

The list of winners in the different categories, especially physics and chemistry, is like a Hall of Fame.

For example, in physics, the winners include Albert Einstein, Niles-Bore, Robert Milliken, Louis Victor de Brogley, Werner Heisenberg, and so on,

it's a pretty prestigious list.

Today each prize is valued at over a million dollars.

The reason it's such a big deal is because of the size of the award and the fact that the award has been given since

1901, long enough that everyone has heard about it.

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