2011 Nobel Prize in Physics to be Announced Tuesday

Posted October 4th, 2011 at 4:05 am (UTC-5)
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The Nobel Foundation in Stockholm is scheduled to announce the 2011 Nobel Prize for Physics Tuesday.

On Monday, the Nobel Prize for Medicine was give to Canadian-born Ralph Steinman, Bruce Beutler of the United States and Jules Hoffmann of Luxembourg for their work increasing understanding of the immune system, which could lead to curing cancer and other diseases. It was later discovered that Steinman had died on Friday following a lengthy battle with pancreatic cancer.

The Nobel Foundation held an emergency meeting Monday, after which it decided that the prize will remain unchanged

The foundation's statutes say work produced by a person since deceased can not be awarded. However, the foundation interpreted the rule to mean the Nobel Prize could not deliberately be awarded posthumously. Since the decision to award the prize to Steinman was made in good faith under the assumption that he was alive, the laureates will remain unchanged.

Beutler and Hoffmann had been scheduled to split half the nearly $1.5 million prize money, while Steinman was to receive the other half.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences will name the winner in chemistry Wednesday. An award for economics, given in memory of Alfred Nobel, will be announced October 10. The 2011 Nobel Peace Prize recipient will be named Friday.

The Nobel Prizes were created by Alfred Nobel, a wealthy Swedish industrialist who invented dynamite. The first Nobel Prizes were awarded in 1901.