Nobel Prize Conversations

“I think there's a little bit of romanticism in science still. I find that the dreamers are usually the ones that make it.” Practical work, like conducting experiments and gathering data, might be central to a scientist’s job. But there is also room for dreams and imagination – which can help us find the gaps in our knowledge, and dare to ask unexpected questions.  Ardem Patapoutian received...

In this episode, meet football fan and chemist David MacMillan. Together with podcast host Adam Smith, he speaks about the importance of storytelling and his strong belief that “science is supposed to be about having fun, it is not supposed to be about intimidating people.”   MacMillan shares his journey from a family where no one had gone to university to becoming a Nobel Prize laureate. He...

"One minute I was a teenager and the next minute I was a woman.” – Leymah Gbowee shares her heartbreaking life story of a happy childhood cruelly interrupted by the Liberian civil war. Nobel Prize Outreach's Adam Smith is your host as Gbowee also talks about her constant and tireless struggle for women’s rights and peace in her home country. Her never-give-up attitude has been a constant in her li...

This special live episode features a conversation with Klaus Hasselmann, the 2021 physics laureate. Before that we will also present some highlights from this year’s announcement telephone interviews. Hear Klaus Hasselmann alongside his fellow 2021 laureates David Julius, Benjamin List, David MacMillan and Ardem Patapoutian – and relive some of the moments of disbelief, shock and excitement from t...

”Sometimes I make a mistake during the lecture, I'll make an argument that's not quite right and not even notice it, and a student will catch me. I just love it when students do that.” – Economic sciences laureate Paul Milgrom loves being a teacher. He also loves when his students correct him and ask him hard questions that he doesn't know the answer to. In this podcast episode the Nobel Priz...

“I won the Nobel Prize so I built a much bigger house than I ever planned.” — Wole Soyinka envisioned a small cottage on a large plot of land as a retreat for his writing, but a phone call from Stockholm made it possible to super-size his plans with rooms for many artists to dedicate themselves to their work. Literature laureate Wole Soyinka, who only very occasionally grants interviews, speaks to...

"When people think about other worlds, they think about other life." Nobel Prize Laureate Didier Queloz was a pioneering explorer of exoplanets – planets outside our own solar system – and now he finds himself at the centre of a new endeavour, the ETH Center for the Origin & Prevalence of Life. Here, scientists from a variety of disciplines will meet to challenge their limits and hopefully mak...

“I make discoveries just because of very unique juxtapositions that I have never seen before. So there is some kind of resonance there.” – The creative and poetic chemistry laureate Joachim Frank always aspires to solve problems by looking at places no one has looked before. In this episode he describes how creative endeavours like "Poetry boxing" and photography have been essential to his success...

Medicine laureate Elizabeth Blackburn has strong feelings about the value of science. In this conversation with Adam Smith, she speaks openly about how society must begin to understand just how important science is in our lives. She also discusses the climate crisis and shares her experiences from a recent visit to Antartica, where she found herself reminded of the severe consequences of climate c...

“The only sad thing is there aren’t more hours in the day!” – After a busy, tiring Sunday, mountain biking with the family, Guido Imbens’ Monday morning wake-up call came a little after 2am with the news from Stockholm. “I’m sure that the adrenaline will get me through,” he says in this conversation with Adam Smith recorded shortly afterwards, with the excitement building around him: “Things have...

“I saw that my phone was flooded with text messages,” says Joshua Angrist, having slept through the calls from Stockholm. In this brief interview he describes how he therefore called the MIT Press Department to check, and discovered it was true! The conversation turns to his work on the assumed benefits of elite schooling, his working relationship with his co-Laureates and what lies behind his pro...

“I was kinda hoping I might go to sleep!” – David Card had just got his pyjamas on and was heading for bed, after a very late night arrival from a trip, when the call from Stockholm came. This interview with Adam Smith was recorded just moments later and he talks about his work on immigration, the setting of the minimum wage, and the relationship between those studies and public policy. Meanwhile...

World exclusive: The call from Oslo. Hear Maria Ressa’s reaction when she hears the news from Olav Njølstad, Secretary of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, on being awarded the 2021 Nobel peace Prize just before the public announcement. "I'm speechless!" From October 4-11, don't miss our mini-season that will showcase the absolute freshest interviews with the new 2021 Nobel Prize laureates. Hosted on...

“As if there isn’t enough to go around” – “A kind of miserliness,” is how Abdulrazak Gurnah describes the attitude of some in Europe to refugees. After all, he says, “Europeans streaming out into the world is nothing new” and he suggests those seeking succour also be seen as “talented, energetic people, who have something to give.” In this brief conversation with Adam Smith, recorded just after he...

“We thought it had a very low probability of success” – The best ideas in science are often the ones with the least chance of succeeding, says David MacMillan: “It’s the stuff that should never work which is where all the good stuff is!” As he tells Adam Smith in this conversation recorded on the morning of the announcement, the thrill of discovery is also open to any undergraduate embarking in or...

“Making molecules is like creating something beautiful” – Benjamin List was sitting in a café with his wife, Dr Sabine List, when the call from Stockholm came. “We looked at each other in disbelief,” he says, and jokingly asked, “Is this the call?” To his amazement, it was! In this interview with Adam Smith, recorded outside that café, he reflects on the beauty of building molecules, the importanc...

“Fundamental science is crucial.” – In this short conversation, recorded shortly after his Nobel Prize in Physics was announced, Giorgio Parisi reflects on the value of asking basic questions. But what sort of questions does he address? “My mentor, Nicola Cabibbo,” he says, “was usually saying that we should work on a problem only if work on that problem is fun!” He then talks with Adam Smith abou...

“Why is this happening?” – Establishing a firm scientific basis for predicting what will happen to the climate, and in the shorter term to weather, has been the challenge that has occupied Syukuro Manabe’s entire working life. In the interview with Adam Smith, recorded amidst the happy chaos resulting from the early morning announcement of his Nobel Prize in Physics, Manabe reflects on the importa...

“We’ve been warning against climate change for about 50 years or so” – Caught entirely unawares by the call from Stockholm, Klaus Hasselmann’s surprise is evident in this brief interview with Adam Smith, recorded just minutes after the news of his Nobel Prize in Physics had been announced. “I’ll wake up tomorrow morning and find out,” he says! Pleased that the prize focuses attention on the proble...

“The reason that we were able to do it is because we started looking at the natural world.” – Turning to some natural product pharmacology was one key to David Julius’ success in unlocking the mysteries of how we sense temperature. As he describes in this brief interview with Adam Smith, news that Stockholm was calling reached him in a rather roundabout route in the middle of the night, via a call...

“In science many times it’s the things that we take for granted that are of high interest.” – As Ardem Patapoutian says, sometimes the familiar can yield the best surprises. When it comes to figuring out how our senses work, the sense of touch “was kind of the big elephant in the room.” Patapoutian had his phone on Do Not Disturb when Stockholm tried to call him but got the news, via his Dad, just...

Each year in October, Adam Smith takes on the challenge of reaching the brand new Nobel Prize laureates for a telephone interview. In this bonus episode of Nobel Prize Conversations, Adam takes us behind the scenes of these calls and has collected some of his favourite moments. The host for this episode is Karin Svensson, the producer of Nobel Prize Conversations. From October 4-11, don't miss our...

“I guess I was halfway content with the idea that somehow I’d become an economist.” – 2020 Laureate in Economic Sciences Robert Wilson didn’t really see himself as an economist until he reached the age of 50. Hear Wilson speak about his journey to becoming an economist. In this ‘Nobel Prize Conversations’ episode, Wilson also speaks about how he received the news about his Prize in Economic S...

In the newest episode of ‘Nobel Prize Conversations’, physics laureate Frank Wilczek tells us about his hope to make a mark on the world. Wilzcek recently released a new book, ‘Fundamentals: Ten Keys to Reality’, where the readers get to follow Wilzcek on a “simple yet profound exploration of reality”. In this podcast episode, he discusses his new book. Another topic that is up for discussion is h...

2018 Nobel Physics Laureate Donna Strickland knew she wanted to get a PhD, even as a kid. She didn’t know what it was, but if it was the ultimate in education she was going to get it! In the newest episode of ‘Nobel Prize Conversations’ we meet Donna Strickland and talk about her childhood dream of a PhD, dealing with failure, being a woman in science and being awarded the Nobel Prize. Hosted...