Presentation Speech by Professor Kerstin Hall of the Translation from the Swedish text Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Ladies and Gentlemen, We have all been small infants who have grown tall. It is growth hormone, released from the pituitary gland, which regulates growth after birth. Lack of this hormone during infancy results in growth…

I was born in Brooklyn in 1922. Both my mother and father were Russian Jewish emigrants who came to America in the early 1900’s. My father was a tailor and my mother, a housewife. Though of limited education themselves, they instilled in me the values of intellectual achievement and the use of whatever talents I…

more

My twin sister Paola and I were born in Turin on April 22, 1909, the youngest of four children. Our parents were Adamo Levi, an electrical engineer and gifted mathematician, and Adele Montalcini, a talented painter and an exquisite human being. Our older brother Gino, who died twelve years ago of a heart attack, was…

more

15 October 1986 has decided to award the 1986 Nobel Prize in chemistry jointly to Professor Dudley R. Herschbach, Harvard University, Cambridge, USA, Professor Yuan T. Lee, University of California, Berkeley, USA and Professor John C. Polanyi, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada for their contributions concerning the dynamics of chemical elementary processes. The dynamics of…

more

On being a scientist: A personal view by John C. Polanyi1986 Nobel Prize laureate in chemistry This article was published on 12 March 2001. Doing science Science never gives up searching for truth, since it never claims to have achieved it. It is civilizing because it puts truth ahead of all else, including personal interests.…

Presentation Speech by Professor Sture Forsén of the Translation from the Swedish text Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Ladies and Gentlemen, A burning flame – a little everyday miracle that has astonished and fascinated most of us. A chemical reaction that produces heat and light and that during historical times has modified the conditions of…

John Charles Polanyi was born in 1929 in Berlin, Germany, of Hungarian parents, Michael and Magda Elizabeth Polanyi. The family moved to England in 1933 where he received his education. His University training was at Manchester University, where he obtained his B.Sc. in 1949, and his Ph.D. in 1952. From 1952-1954, he was a Postdoctoral…