BERLIN (AP) — Some people nobel prize winners This year, the news comes with knock on the door before dawn. For others, long awaited phone call Celebrating discoveries made decades ago.
One of the medicine award winnersMeanwhile, I was vacationing in Yellowstone National Park without cell phone service. It would take him several hours to find out.
Nobel Prize is considered in it the world’s most prestigious honor For achievements in medicine, physics, chemistry, and literature economy and peace. The laureate joins a pantheon of Nobel laureates, from Albert Einstein to Mother Teresa.
Sometimes awards are anticipated. Potential winners plan tentative press conferences or wait for news all night in the western United States.
While some prizes may feature common names such as the 2009 Peace Prize winners us president barack obama or 2016 Literary Praise and Singer-Songwriter bob dylan – The category of natural sciences is usually sent to people whose names are unknown to the general public, for research decades ago.
Five of this year’s nine science winners were in the United States when the news broke. Some were fast asleep.
The two winners in Japan, seven hours away from Stockholm, were awake and working when a call from a number in Sweden came. I thought it was a telemarketer.
wednesday chemistry awards This year was the first time that the Nobel Committee reached all three winners ahead of their official announcement.
Here’s how some of this year’s winners found out.
knock on the door
When Associated Press photographer Lindsey Wasson knocked on the door of Mary E. Brunkow’s Seattle home early Monday, the first thing that woke up was the scientist’s dog. Zelda’s bark woke Blancu’s husband, Ross Colqun.
“I don’t think he really knew what I was there for,” Wasson said. “And I said, ‘You know, I think your wife just won the Nobel Prize.'”
Wasson Photos They capture Colcoon, who awakens Blancu and tells her life-changing news. She was among three winners sharing the 2025 medical prize.
“Don’t be silly,” she told her husband.
But it was true. In research dating back 20 years, the trio uncovered an important pathway the body uses to suppress the immune system, called peripheral immune tolerance. Experts called the findings important for understanding autoimmune diseases such as type 1 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis and lupus.
The next day, AP photographers Mark J. Terlill and Damian Dovarganes headed to Santa Barbara, California, to find physicist John Martinis before the sun rose. His wife, Jean, answered the door and told him to come back later: Martinis needed to sleep.
“For many years I will continue to wake up the night the physics prize is announced,” she told photographers. “At one point we just decided it was nuts. We’ll figure it out if it’s happening, but let’s just go to sleep.”
She added with a laugh: “I was trying to think of a way I could introduce this.
She finally woke her husband up just before 6 a.m. local time (1300 GMT) and told him only that the AP wanted an interview.
“I knew the Nobel Prize announcement was this week, so I put two and two together,” Martinis said later. “I opened my computer and looked under the Nobel Prize in 2025 and saw a picture of me with Michelle Devorette and John Clark. So I was shocked.”
The trio won the physics prize For their research into the strange world of subatomic quantum tunneling It facilitates the power of everyday digital communication and computing.
Martinis takes a trip to Sweden. The award ceremony on December 10th will be held in Stockholm.
hike interrupted
Everyone except Fred Ramsdell seemed to know that he had just won the Nobel Prize in Medicine.
Ramsdell left on a backpacking trip Monday, driving through Yellowstone National Park with his wife and two dogs, Larkin and Megan. He kept his phone on airplane mode, as he often does on family vacations.
When they drove through a small town a few hours later, his wife started screaming because her phone had been killed. She said he had just won the Nobel Prize in Medicine along with Blancu and Simon Sakaguchi.
“I said, ‘No, I didn’t,'” Ramsdell told The Associated Press in an interview from his car the next day. “She said, ‘Yes, you did. I have 200 text messages saying you won the Nobel Prize.’
Later Monday, Ramsdell went to a hotel in Montana, connected to Wi-Fi and called friends and colleagues. He spoke to the Nobel Committee and received congratulations until midnight.
He said he was stunned and in awe to receive the recognition. But he has no plans to change his phone habits. He says it’s important for work-life balance.
call from sweden
The Nobel Committee will call the winner just before the official announcement is made. Some people ignore the Swedish numbers. This is like Blanku assuming that pre-dawn calls are spam.
When his phone rang Wednesday, Kitagawa, a chemistry winner, was skeptical. He responded, “Rather dull, thinking it must be one of those telemarketing calls I’ve been getting a lot lately.”
Nobel’s announcement continues the literary prize on Thursday. Will that winner pick up the phone?
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Ramakrishnan reported from New York. Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo contributed.
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AP coverage of the Nobel Prize: https://apnews.com/hub/nobel-prizes
