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60 free Nobel Prize trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Alfred Nobel's will astonished his family by leaving 94 percent of his fortune to reward those who confer 'the greatest benefit on mankind', and the prizes first handed out in 1901 have become the most famous awards on Earth. This quiz is about the prizes and the people who won them: how the six awards are chosen and by whom, why the Peace Prize is given in Oslo, what the medal weighs and what the Latin on it says, and how the economics prize came to be added in 1968. It also covers the laureates: the first winners in each field, the youngest and oldest ever, the two people who won in different disciplines, the only man with two unshared prizes, the family with five, the writers who refused or were forced to refuse, the two posthumous awards, Gandhi's absence, Bob Dylan, Malala and more. Questions run from easy (which prize is awarded in Norway) to expert (which Virgil line is on the medal). Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the Nobel Prize, its categories, its medal and banquet and individual laureates, and each question shows the sentence that supports it. Try our Alfred Nobel, famous scientists and world literature quizzes next.
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Q 01The Nobel Prizes were first awarded in which year, the fifth anniversary of Alfred Nobel's death?
1901
Nobel died on 10 December 1896 at his villa in San Remo, Italy, and the prizes are still presented on that date.
Q 02Which of these was NOT one of the five prize fields named in Alfred Nobel's will?
Mathematics
Economics was added in 1968 by Sweden's central bank; the Nobel Foundation has said no further prizes will be created.
Q 03Which institution established the economics prize in memory of Alfred Nobel in 1968?
Sveriges Riksbank
Sweden's central bank was celebrating its 300th anniversary; the first economics award went to Jan Tinbergen and Ragnar Frisch in 1969.
Q 04Which Nobel Prize is presented in Oslo rather than Stockholm?
Peace
Nobel's will gave the job to a Norwegian committee; the ceremony has been held at Oslo City Hall since 1990.
Q 05What is the maximum number of individuals who may share a single Nobel Prize?
Three
The Peace Prize can also go to organisations of any size, which is how the Red Cross and the EU have won.
Q 06Which body chooses the laureates for physics, chemistry and economics?
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
The Karolinska Institute's Nobel Assembly picks medicine, and the Swedish Academy picks literature.
Q 07What percentage of his total assets did Alfred Nobel leave to fund the prizes?
94%
That was 31 million kronor; his relatives were so unhappy that Norway's parliament did not approve the will until April 1897.
Q 08On what date each year are the Nobel Prizes presented?
10 December
It is the anniversary of Nobel's death; the winners are announced in the first two weeks of October.
Q 09After the Stockholm ceremony, roughly 1,300 guests sit down to the Nobel banquet in which room?
The Blue Hall
It is in Stockholm City Hall; the flowers on the table of honour come from Sanremo, where Nobel died, and dancing follows in the Golden Hall.
Q 10Roughly how many guests attend the Peace Prize banquet at Oslo's Grand Hotel?
250
Guests include the president of the Storting and, since 2006, the King and Queen of Norway.
Q 11Since 1980 Nobel medals have been struck in 18-carat green gold plated with 24-carat gold. Roughly how much does one weigh?
175 grams
Earlier medals were solid 23-carat gold, which is why two German laureates' medals were dissolved in acid to hide them from the Nazis.
Q 12The Latin inscription on the Nobel physics, chemistry, medicine and literature medals is adapted from whom?
Virgil
'Inventas vitam iuvat excoluisse per artes' comes from book 6 of the Aeneid.
Q 13The Peace Prize medal was designed in 1901 by which Norwegian sculptor?
Gustav Vigeland
He was not an engraver, so the dies were cut by Erik Lindberg, who designed the Swedish medals.
Q 21Who, at 97, became the oldest Nobel laureate with the 2019 chemistry prize for batteries?
John B. Goodenough
He shared it with Stanley Whittingham and Akira Yoshino.
Q 22Who is the youngest science laureate, sharing the 1915 physics prize with his father at 25?
Lawrence Bragg
He and William Henry Bragg were honoured for analysing crystal structure with X-rays.
Q 23The youngest Nobel laureate in Literature was 41 when he won in 1907. Who?
Rudyard Kipling
The oldest was Doris Lessing at 88.
Q 14How much money came with each Nobel Prize awarded in 2025?
11 million Swedish kronor
That is roughly one million US dollars, presented as a document confirming the amount.
Q 15Who received the first Nobel Prize in Physics, in 1901?
Wilhelm Röntgen
He was honoured for discovering the rays that many languages still name after him.
Q 16Emil von Behring won the first Nobel Prize in Medicine for serum therapy against which disease?
Diphtheria
His work also underpinned the tetanus vaccine.
Q 17Which Dutch chemist won the first Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1901?
Jacobus van 't Hoff
He was cited for the laws of chemical dynamics and osmotic pressure in solutions.
Q 18Which author did 42 Swedish writers expect to win the first literature Nobel, which went to Sully Prudhomme?
Leo Tolstoy
Tolstoy never won; neither did Chekhov, Joyce or Proust.
Q 19Which Red Cross founder shared the first Nobel Peace Prize in 1901 with Frédéric Passy?
Henry Dunant
Dunant was also honoured for initiating the Geneva Convention.
Q 20Who is the youngest person ever to receive a Nobel Prize?
Malala Yousafzai
She shared the 2014 Peace Prize with Kailash Satyarthi at age 17.
Q 24Who is the only person to have won Nobel Prizes in two different sciences?
Marie Curie
Physics in 1903 for radioactivity, chemistry in 1911 for isolating radium; she was also the first woman laureate.
Q 25Who is the only laureate to have won two unshared Nobel Prizes?
Linus Pauling
Chemistry in 1954 for the chemical bond, and the 1962 Peace Prize for campaigning against nuclear weapons.
Q 26John Bardeen won the physics prize twice, in 1956 and 1972. His first was for inventing what?
The transistor
The second was for the theory of superconductivity.
Q 27Frederick Sanger's second chemistry Nobel, in 1980, was for a method of doing what?
Sequencing DNA
Karl Barry Sharpless later matched him with chemistry prizes in 2001 and 2022.
Q 28Which organisation is the only laureate to have won three Nobel Prizes?
International Committee of the Red Cross
It won the Peace Prize in 1917, 1944 and 1963; UNHCR has won twice.
Q 29Which family has received the most Nobel Prizes, four awards to five people?
The Curies
Marie won two, Pierre one, and their daughter Irène shared one with her husband Frédéric Joliot-Curie in 1935.
Q 30Who received the second posthumous Nobel Prize under the old rules, in 1961?
Dag Hammarskjöld
The UN Secretary-General had died in a plane crash during the Congo Crisis; since 1974 laureates must be alive at the October announcement.