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]
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
Chemistry
Year | Laureate | Reference |
---|---|---|
1903 | Svante Arrhenius | [53] |
1997 | Paul D. Boyer | [54] |
1975 | John Cornforth | [55] |
1911 | Marie Curie | [2] |
1935 | Frédéric Joliot-Curie | [56] |
1935 | Irène Joliot-Curie | [57] |
1985 | Herbert A. Hauptman | [58] |
1981 | Roald Hoffmann | [59] |
1996 | Harold W. Kroto | [60] |
1987 | Jean-Marie Lehn | [61] |
1978 | Peter D. Mitchell | [62] |
1994 | George Andrew Olah | [63] |
1909 | Wilhelm Ostwald | [64] |
1954 | Linus Pauling | [65] |
1962 | Max Perutz | [66][67] |
1958 | Frederick Sanger | [68] |
2011 | Dan Shechtman | [69] |
2018 | George Smith | [70] |
1993 | Michael Smith | [71] |
1934 | Harold Urey | [72] |
Physiology or Medicine
Economics
Year | Laureate | Reference |
---|---|---|
1976 | Milton Friedman | [104] |
1994 | John Harsanyi | [105] |
1974 | Friedrich Hayek | [106] |
1994 | John Forbes Nash, Jr. | [107] |
1994 | Reinhard Selten | [108] |
1998 | Amartya Sen | |
1978 | Herbert A. Simon | [109] |
Peace
Year | Laureate | Reference |
---|---|---|
1933 | Norman Angell | [110] |
1908 | Klas Pontus Arnoldson | [111]: 151 |
1990 | Mikhail Gorbachev | [112] |
1962 | Linus Pauling | [65] |
1995 | Joseph Rotblat | [113] |
1975 | Andrei Sakharov | [114][115][116] |
1986 | Elie Wiesel | [117] |
1973 | Lê Đức Thọ | [118] |