Who the 6 Nobel Prize winners of 2017 are, the list and the reasons

Culture & lifestyle · Elisabetta Scuri · 2017-10-09

Here is the list and photographs of the 2017 Nobel Prize winners, who distinguished themselves for having made a fundamental contribution to their respective fields.

The Nobel Prize in Medicine goes to the researchers behind the biological clock

Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael W. Young received the 2017 Nobel Prize in Medicine for discovering the mechanism by which all living beings are able to regulate their biological rhythms in sync with the environment — for example with the alternation of day and night.

Michael Young nel suo laboratorio — Michael Young in his laboratory. Young discovered the circadian rhythm together with researchers Rosbash and Hall © Spencer Platt/Getty Images

The Nobel Prize in Physics goes to Weiss, Barish and Thorne, the first to have detected gravitational waves

The three scientists founded LIGO, the American gravitational wave observatory that made it possible to study them for the first time and that will allow us to better understand how the universe works.

Barish e Thorne — Barry Barish and Kip Thorne speak at a press conference at the California Institute of Technology after receiving the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics © David McNew/Getty Images

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry goes to Dubochet, Frank and Henderson for developing cryo-electron microscopy

The microscopes developed by Jacques Dubochet, Joachim Frank and Richard Henderson make it possible to observe biomolecules after freezing them — a process that keeps their original structure intact — at extremely high resolution.

Il professor Frank — Professor Frank of Columbia University in New York, in the United States, developed cryo-electron microscopy together with Dubochet and Henderson © Kevin Hagen/Getty Images

The Nobel Prize in Literature goes to Kazuo Ishiguro

The author of Non lasciarmi was awarded by the Swedish Academy because "in his novels, with great emotional power, he has uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world."

The Nobel Peace Prize goes to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons

Ican (International campaign to abolish nuclear weapons) was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for its efforts in highlighting the destructive capacity of nuclear weapons and the need for an international treaty banning their use.

Alcuni manifestanti protestano contro le armi nucleari — Ican has been campaigning for years for the abolition of nuclear weapons © Omer Messinger/Getty Images

The Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences goes to Richard H. Thaler

The American scholar works in behavioural economics and has analysed the mechanisms underlying the economic and consumer choices of human beings, who do not behave rationally yet are at the same time "the most important economic agent."

L'economista Richard Thaler — Richard Thaler has studied the economic behaviour of human beings, showing that they act irrationally when faced with choices.