List of nonreligious Nobel laureates

This list of nonreligious Nobel laureates comprises laureates of the Nobel Prize who have self-identified as atheist, agnostic, freethinker, or otherwise nonreligious at some point in their lives.[2]

Distribution of atheists, agnostics, and freethinkers in Nobel Prizes between 1901-2000.[1]

Many of these laureates earlier identified with a religion. In an estimate by Baruch Shalev, between 1901 and 2000, about 10.5% of all laureates, and 35% of those in literature, fall in this category.[1] According to the same estimate, between 1901 and 2000, atheists, agnostics, and freethinkers won 8.9% of the prizes in medicine, 7.1% in chemistry, 5.2% in economics, 4.7% in physics, and 3.6% in peace.[1] Alfred Nobel himself was an atheist later in life.[3]

Shalev's book lists many Jewish atheists, agnostics, and freethinkers as religiously Jewish. For example, Milton Friedman, Roald Hoffmann, Richard Feynman, Niels Bohr, Élie Metchnikoff, and Rita Levi-Montalcini are listed as religiously Jewish; however, while they were ethnically and perhaps culturally Jewish, they did not believe in a God and self-identified as atheists.[1]

Physics

Bardeen
Bohr
Einstein
YearLaureateReference
2000Zhores Alferov[4]
1977Philip Warren Anderson[2][5]
1956, 1972John Bardeen[2]
1967Hans Bethe[2][6]
1948Patrick Blackett[7]
1981Nicolaas Bloembergen[8]
1922Niels Bohr[2][9][10][11]
1946Percy Williams Bridgman[12][13]
1929Louis de Broglie[2]
1935James Chadwick[14]
1903Marie Curie[2]
1903Pierre Curie[2]
1933Paul Dirac[2]
1921Albert Einstein[2][15] [note 1]
1938Enrico Fermi[2]
1965Richard Feynman[2][19]
1980Val Logsdon Fitch[citation needed]
1925James Franck[20]
1969Murray Gell-Mann[21]
2002Riccardo Giacconi[22]
1973Ivar Giaver[23][24]
2003Vitaly Ginzburg[25]
1979Sheldon Glashow[26]
2005Roy J. Glauber[27]
2004David J. Gross[28]
2012Serge Haroche[29]
2013Peter Higgs[30]
2002Masatoshi Koshiba[31]
2016J. Michael Kosterlitz[32]
2000Herbert Kroemer[33]
1962Lev Landau[2][34]
1988Leon M. Lederman[35][36]
2019Michel Mayor[37]
1907Albert A. Michelson[38]
2010Konstantin Novoselov[39]
2019Jim Peebles[40]
1926Jean Baptiste Perrin[41]
2019Didier Queloz[42]
1944Isidor Isaac Rabi[2]
2011Brian Schmidt[43]
1933Erwin Schrödinger[2][44][45]
1956William Shockley[2]
1988Jack Steinberger[46]
1958Igor Tamm[47][48]
2017Kip Thorne[49]
1910Johannes Diderik van der Waals[2]
1999Martinus J. G. Veltman[50]
1979Steven Weinberg[2][51]
1963Eugene Wigner[2]
2020Roger Penrose[52]

Chemistry

Kroto
Ostwald
YearLaureateReference
1903Svante Arrhenius[53]
1997Paul D. Boyer[54]
1975John Cornforth[55]
1911Marie Curie[2]
1935Frédéric Joliot-Curie[56]
1935Irène Joliot-Curie[57]
1985Herbert A. Hauptman[58]
1981Roald Hoffmann[59]
1996Harold W. Kroto[60]
1987Jean-Marie Lehn[61]
1978Peter D. Mitchell[62]
1994George Andrew Olah[63]
1909Wilhelm Ostwald[64]
1954Linus Pauling[65]
1962Max Perutz[66][67]
1958Frederick Sanger[68]
2011Dan Shechtman[69]
2018George Smith[70]
1993Michael Smith[71]
1934Harold Urey[72]

Physiology or Medicine

Crick
YearLaureateReference
1970Julius Axelrod[73]
1914Robert Bárány[74]
1958George Beadle[75]
1989J. Michael Bishop[citation needed]
2002Sydney Brenner[76]
1962Francis Crick[77][78][79][80][81]
1974Christian de Duve[82]
1945Howard Florey[83]
1906Camillo Golgi[84]
1929Frederick Gowland Hopkins[citation needed]
1963Andrew Huxley[85]
1965François Jacob[86]
2003Paul Lauterbur[87]
1907Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran[88]
1986Rita Levi-Montalcini[89]
1960Sir Peter Medawar[90]
1908Élie Metchnikoff[91]
1965Jacques Monod[92]
1946Hermann Joseph Muller[93]
2001Paul Nurse[94]
1904Ivan Pavlov[95]
1993Richard J. Roberts[96]
2017Michael Rosbash[97]
2002John Sulston[98][99]
1937Albert Szent-Györgyi[100]
1973Nikolaas Tinbergen[101]
1967George Wald[102]
1962James Watson[103]

Economics

Sen
YearLaureateReference
1976Milton Friedman[104]
1994John Harsanyi[105]
1974Friedrich Hayek[106]
1994John Forbes Nash, Jr.[107]
1994Reinhard Selten[108]
1998Amartya Sen
1978Herbert A. Simon[109]

Peace

Pauling
YearLaureateReference
1933Norman Angell[110]
1908Klas Pontus Arnoldson[111]: 151 
1990Mikhail Gorbachev[112]
1962Linus Pauling[65]
1995Joseph Rotblat[113]
1975Andrei Sakharov[114][115][116]
1986Elie Wiesel[117]
1973Lê Đức Thọ[118]

Literature

Sartre
YearLaureateReference
1969Samuel Beckett[119]
1903Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson[120]
1957Albert Camus[121]
1997Dario Fo[122]
1932John Galsworthy[123]
1991Nadine Gordimer[124]
1971Pablo Neruda[125]
1936Eugene O'Neill[111]: 125 [126]
2005Harold Pinter[127]
1950Bertrand Russell[128]
1998José Saramago[129]
1964Jean-Paul Sartre[130]
1925George Bernard Shaw[111]: 125 
1986Wole Soyinka[131][132]
1962John Steinbeck[133][134]
1996Wisława Szymborska[135]
2018Olga Tokarczuk[136]
2000Gao Xingjian[137]

See also

Notes

References