- Wilson: It's not just a trip to Stockholm you know. There's a cash prize.
- House: Wow. No wonder so many people are going after that peace thing.
- ―on the Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are a set of awards established under the last will and testament of Alfred Nobel, an explosives and munitions manufacturer who invented dynamite and died in 1896. They were initially established in five fields: Literature, Chemistry, Physics, Medicine & Physiology, and Peace. Later, a sixth prize for Economics was added.
The prize money is funded by Nobel's estate. The original prize was about $15,000, but has since grown to $1.5 million, which is split among the winners in each category. It's believed Nobel established the prizes after a premature obituary referred to him as a "merchant of death" due to his invention and manufacture of explosives used in munitions.
The first Medicine & Physiology winner was Emil Adolf von Behring, who developed a form of serum effective against diphtheria. The 2013 winners were three American scientists who gained new insights into how materials are transported through cells.