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Curated category

British Nobel laureates

  • J. J. ThomsonJ. J. Thomson, born on the 18th of December 1856 in Cheetham Hill, Manchester, grew up in a household shaped by antiquarian books and a mother rooted in the…
  • James ChadwickIn February 1932, after only about two weeks at the laboratory bench, James Chadwick sent a letter to the journal Nature with a deliberately tentative title…
  • T. S. EliotT. S. Eliot wrote the opening of "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" when he was twenty-two years old. The lines compared an evening sky to "a patient…
  • George Bernard ShawGeorge Bernard Shaw refused his own first name. He insisted on being called Bernard Shaw, dropping the George after 1876.
  • Ernest RutherfordErnest Rutherford was born on the 30th of August 1871 in Brightwater, New Zealand, the fourth of twelve children, and he died with a burial spot beside Isaac…
  • Friedrich HayekFriedrich Hayek wrote on the 26th of October 1929, three days before the Wall Street crash, that there was no reason to expect a sudden collapse of the New…
  • Paul DiracPaul Adrien Maurice Dirac was born on the 8th of August 1902 in Bristol, England, and died on the 20th of October 1984 in Tallahassee, Florida.
  • Demis HassabisDemis Hassabis was born Dimitrios Hassapis on the 27th of July 1976, and his very surname carries a story. The original name, Hassapis, means “butcher” in…
  • John HicksJohn Richard Hicks was born on the 8th of April 1904 in Warwick, England, and by the time he died on the 20th of May 1989, he had reshaped the way economists…
  • Austen ChamberlainAusten Chamberlain won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1925, yet never became prime minister. He served in Parliament for 45 years, led his party, and shaped…
  • Ronald CoaseRonald Harry Coase was born on the 29th of December 1910 in Willesden, a suburb of London, and he would live to the age of 102 - long enough to see ideas he…
  • Bertrand RussellBertrand Russell was born on the 18th of May 1872 in a country house called Ravenscroft, in Trellech, Monmouthshire, into one of the most prominent liberal…