Three scientists share Nobel Prize in Chemistry

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Three scientists share Nobel Prize in Chemistry

(Xinhua) 17:59, October 09, 2013

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The 2013 Nobel Prize in Chemistry had gone to three scientists for the development of multi-scale models for complex chemical systems, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said Wednesday.

The prize was awarded to Martin Karplus (U.S. and Austrian citizen), Michael Levitt (U.S., British and Israeli citizen) and Arieh Warshel (U.S. and Israeli citizen), said Staffan Normark, the Academy's permanent secretary.

"Chemists used to create models of molecules using plastic balls and sticks. Today, the modelling is carried out in computers. In the 1970s, Martin Karplus, Michael Levitt and Arieh Warshel laid the foundation for the powerful programs that are used to understand and predict chemical processes. Computer models mirroring real life have become crucial for most advances made in chemistry today," the academy said in a statement.

This was the third of this year's crop of Nobel Prizes, with each prize consisting of a medal, a personal diploma and a cash award of 8 million Swedish kronor (about 1.2 million U.S. dollars).

The annual awards are usually announced in October and handed out on Dec. 10, the memorial day of the death of Alfred Nobel, a Swedish industrialist and the inventor of dynamite.

All prizes, except the economics award, were established in the will of the Swedish millionaire. The economics award was established by Sweden's central bank in 1968.

（Editor：WangXin、Liang Jun）