Student blogs

The long waited days arrived in Stockholm (Sweden) and Oslo (Norway) between 6-12 December. This week was full of celebrating science, and as a science geek, this was a dream come true. As you might know, the Nobel Prizes are given in Stockholm and Oslo, as stated in Alfred Nobel’s will, and it is awarded to people who conferred the greatest benefit to humankind. I encourage my fellow science geeks to visit the Nobel Prize museum to learn more about this prize and Nobel Week.

I tried my best to enjoy this week, and in this blog, I want to tell my experiences and how we celebrate science in Stockholm. Nobel lectures are free to attend and open to the public. After I learned this information, I knew I had to attend all the lectures to get an insight into different fields and new discoveries from the people who know the topic best, the Nobel Laureates! Without further ado, let’s start with Physiology and Medicine Award, which is given by a Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet!

Physiology and Medicine

In 2022, Svante Pääbo was the Nobel Laurette for his discoveries concerning the genomes of extinct hominins and human evolution. He gave a lecture in Aula Medica in Karolinska Institutet Solna Campus, and as a KI student, I had one mission: attending this lecture. I am not going to sugarcoat it because my friends and I waited almost an hour in freezing weather to attend this lecture since there are a limited amount of seats in Aula Medica. After an hour, we took our seats and listened to the amazing history of these discoveries, and I left the lecture hall admiring all the scientists who worked hard for this achievement.

Chemistry & Physics

The Chemistry and Physics lectures were the day after Physiology and Medicine, this time, they were given in Aula Magna at Stockholm University. The lectures started at 9 am, so I had to get up early to get in line since I thought there would be a huge line like the day before. Surprisingly, there was almost no line, so if you ever go to these lectures late, there is a higher chance that you will find a seat. The lectures started with Physics, and we listened to 3 lectures from this year’s Nobel Laureates, Alain Aspect, John Clauser and Anton Zeilinger. I had no idea about entangled photons, violation of Bell inequalities and quantum information science; however, the lectures were very enjoyable and simplified for the audience, so I managed to get an idea about their findings after all.

After Physics lectures and a brief break, we started to listen to Chemistry Nobel Laureates Carolyn Bertozzi, Barry Sharpless and Morten Meldal. After three amazing lectures, I can say that I have a good grasp on click chemistry now, which has so many applications in research nowadays. Seeing Carolyn Bertozzi on the stage and listening to her work over the years and her findings were additionally empowering for all women in STEM 🧑‍🔬 (short for science, technology, engineering and mathematics).

Nobel Week Lights

Another highlight of Nobel Week was, of course, the Nobel Week Lights which was a combination of digital art and science. Since we started experiencing very dark nights here in Stockholm, this was surely the best way to light up the city. There were a lot of installations throughout Stockholm, and you can see from the pictures how beautiful they were. I would recomenned everyone in Stockholm to at least visit one or two of them for the next year as they are magical to watch.

This week definitely will be very memorable for me as it was my first time seeing how people appriciate and celebrate science all together.

See you in the next blog!