Nobel Prize Conversations

 “My wife is very kind to me, so she didn’t wake me up for a couple of hours.” John Martinis was sleeping when news of his Nobel Prize in Physics broke, but his wife Jean was up reading late into the night and received the calls, letting him sleep on. In this conversation with the Nobel Prize’s Adam Smith, he talks about the excitement of learning how to investigate problems with his co-laure...

“I was out walking the dogs and she started yelling, and I thought there was a grizzly bear nearby.” Actually, what Fred Ramsdell’s wife was telling him, while on a hiking trip together, was that he had been awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. In this conversation with the Nobel Prize’s Adam Smith, recorded early the following day, Ramsdell recall how the realisation dawned on...

“I could not imagine accepting the prize without the two of them,” says John Clarke of his fellow Nobel Prize laureates in physics, John Martinis and Michel Devoret. In this short conversation with the Nobel Prize’s Adam Smith, recorded just after the public announcement of the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics, Clarke recalls the electric atmosphere in the lab, 40 years ago, during their experimen...

“My phone rang, and I saw a number from Sweden and thought, well that’s just spam of some sort, so I disabled the phone and went back to sleep.” Mary Brunkow clearly wasn’t expecting the call from Stockholm. This brief conversation with the Nobel Prize’s Adam Smith catches the new medicine laureate at her dining table at 4:30am, an hour and a half after she had heard the news. She talks about the...

"I believe this will encourage immunologists and physicians to apply the T regulatory cells to treat various immunological diseases.” Shimon Sakaguchi, 2025 Nobel Prize laureate in physiology or medicine, has always been driven by the desire to find new ways to combat disease. In this conversation with the Nobel Prize’s Adam Smith, recorded just after the prize announcement, Sakaguchi speaks brief...

In this special bonus episode of Nobel Prize Conversations , we shine a light on the many ways achievements in science are celebrated — from quiet late-night breakthroughs in the lab to the glittering applause of the Nobel Prize award ceremony. Host Karin Svensson speaks with Adam Smith, Chief Scientific Officer at Nobel Prize Outreach, about why recognition matters, how laureates share their joy...

“I’ve never been part of the gang. I was a one-man band playing little tunes.” – Meet physics laureate John Hopfield in a podcast recorded at his cottage in Selborne, England. Together with host Adam Smith, he reflects on the value of interdisciplinary work and how chemists and physicists might collaborate more closely. They also discuss the future of AI and Hopfield’s greatest fears about it. Rea...

"With the great power to invent technology comes a great responsibility." – In this lively and energetic podcast conversation, economic sciences laureate Simon Johnson talks about how the past, future and present are interconnected, as well as how science fiction and history are intertwined. He comes to the conclusion that “science fiction is history in reverse or history is science fiction in rev...

“When we're doing genetics, we are tapping into that mythic power of change.” — In this conversation with molecular biologist Gary Ruvkun, we discover his scientific journey and find out that the world of genetics still has many fields left to explore. A natural storyteller, Ruvkun also shares some of his favourite tales with us – from his gap year in Latin America to how his grandparents emigrate...

”I really love the notion of contributing something to physics.” — Chemistry laureate John Jumper has always been passionate about science and understanding the world. With the AI tool AlphaFold, he and his co-laureate Demis Hassabis have provided a possibility to predict protein structures. In this podcast conversation, Jumper speaks about the excitement of seeing how AI can help us more in the f...

“The reason why I was doing science all these years is because I just love doing it.”– Medicine laureate Victor Ambros grew up on a farm with seven siblings. Throughout his career, he has seen collaboration as a crucial part of science. In this podcast conversation with Adam Smith, Ambros talks about his scientific journey and how much his father has influenced him. He also shares his experiences...

"Asking is hard. Once you realise there's an interesting question to develop answers to, it is even harder." – Growing up in Istanbul, Turkey, shaped Daron Acemoglu’s life and career in many ways. It sparked his interest in politics and social sciences and led to a research career investigating the differences in prosperity between nations. Today Acemoglu is exploring the future of AI and how we c...

"If you imagine each researcher as a kind of a neuron in the communal brain, then people call me a connection machine.” – David Baker is a true believer in collaboration. He sees mentoring as one of the most essential parts of his job. Baker spends most of his time at his laboratory and his colleagues explain his role as a connection machine as he connects “people who are working on things that ar...

"I just think a book can change your life." 2024 economic sciences laureate James Robinson loves books – he has about 10 000 at home. Growing up without a TV, he and his mother spent evenings discussing news from the newspaper and reading. It's no wonder his interest for social sciences, politics and economic sciences was sparked at a young age. As well as delving into his thoughts on literature a...

"When we remember, what we're doing is just making up a story that sounds plausible to us. That's what memories are." Join your host Adam Smith as he speaks to physicist Geoffrey Hinton, often called the godfather of AI. They discuss Hinton's childhood memories and how his family legacy of successful scientists put pressure on Hinton to follow in their footsteps. Throughout the conversation it is...

“Get up, you need to get up! You’ve won the Nobel Prize.” That’s how James Robinson discovered he was a 2024 economic sciences laureate, as his wife, Maria Angélica Bautista, woke him up. In this brief call with the Nobel Prize’s Adam Smith he talks about the root causes of poverty and how to build the types of political structures that enhance prosperity: “Inclusive institutions are not created b...

“There’s nothing natural about 30-, 40-, 50- fold differences in income per capita in a globalised, connected world.” Daron Acemoglu, economic sciences laureate 2024, speaks about the root causes of persistent poverty among the poorest nations and how to build the types of inclusive institution that can support prosperity. In this conversation with the Nobel Prize’s Adam Smith, recorded shortly af...

“True, genuine, inclusive democracy matters, very clearly.” Simon Johnson, economic sciences laureate 2024, learnt of the award from the congratulatory text messages piling-up on his phone. In this short conversation with the Nobel Prize’s Adam Smith, recorded just moments after he had heard the news, he highlights the importance of participatory decision-making in making the most of human potenti...

“The dream came true!” The prize came as a big surprise, says Masako Wada, a representative from the Japanese organisation Nihon Hidankyo, which works to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons. In this interview shortly after learning about the Nobel Peace Prize 2024, she shares her deep concerns on the world’s backlash on nuclear disarmament, not least after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukrai...

”I’m so surprised and honoured.” 2024 literature laureate Han Kang had just finished dinner with her son at her home in Seoul when she received the news. In this interview with the Nobel Prize, she reflects on being the first South Korean literature laureate and talks about how writers as a collective have influenced her. “All their efforts and strengths have been my inspiration.” Han Kang also ta...

“I got the phone call and my wife promptly started screaming.” News of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry gave David Baker’s household a very early wake up call. Here, just after the prize announcement, Baker speaks to the Nobel Prize’s Adam Smith about the exciting potential of building brand new proteins, the inspirational effect his fellow laureates have had on his field and whether it is necess...

“It’s absolutely extraordinary.” John Jumper had just heard the news of his 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry when he spoke to the Nobel Prize’s Adam Smith. “I thought I had a 10 % chance,” he reveals. To save his nerves, his plan had been to sleep in until after the announcement, which didn’t quite work out. In the interview, he talks about being the youngest chemistry laureate in over 70 years, and...

“The best scientists paired with these kinds of tools will be able to do incredible things.” Demis Hassabis, 2024 Nobel Prize laureate in Chemistry, reflects on building the right research environment and the interplay between AI and individual scientists. This short conversation with Nobel Prize’s Adam Smith was recorded just after he had received the call from Stockholm. © Nobel Prize Outreach....

“You have to build up from the bottom.” In this interview shortly after the announcement, 2024 physics laureate John Hopfield talks about how he found out about the prize when he was going through his e-mails. ”It didn't sink it until I got to the fourth e-mail!” Hopfield reflects on how to tackle big questions, such as how the mind works, in this conversation. He and his wife Mary Walth...

“How could I be sure it wasn’t a spoof call?” 2024 physics laureate Geoffrey Hinton received the phone call from Stockholm at around 2am in a hotel room in California, and multiple Swedish accents helped reassure him that his Nobel Prize in Physics was real. Greatly surprised, he talks to the Nobel Prize’s Adam Smith about the state of machine learning, the pressing need for safety research, and h...