🏅 For the Greatest Benefit to Humankind! Test Your Nobel Prize Knowledge: Top 50 Trivia Questions!

How well do you know the Nobel Prizes and their laureates? Challenge yourself with our comprehensive list of 50 Nobel Prize trivia questions spanning all categories!

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Easy Level

  1. Who was the founder of the Nobel Prize?
    Answer: Alfred Nobel
  2. In what year were the first Nobel Prizes awarded?
    Answer: 1901
  3. What are the five original Nobel Prize categories?
    Answer: Physics, Chemistry, Medicine, Literature, and Peace
  4. Which famous scientist won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his theory of relativity?
    Answer: Albert Einstein (1921)
  5. Who was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize?
    Answer: Marie Curie (Physics, 1903)
  6. Which South African leader won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993?
    Answer: Nelson Mandela
  7. Which author won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954?
    Answer: Ernest Hemingway
  8. What is the name of the sixth Nobel Prize category added in 1968?
    Answer: The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel (commonly called the Nobel Prize in Economics)
  9. Which organization has won the Nobel Peace Prize most frequently?
    Answer: The International Committee of the Red Cross (3 times)
  10. Who was the youngest person to ever receive a Nobel Prize?
    Answer: Malala Yousafzai (Peace, 2014 at age 17)
  11. Which famous civil rights leader won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964?
    Answer: Martin Luther King Jr.
  12. Which country awards the Nobel Peace Prize?
    Answer: Norway (all others are awarded in Sweden)
  13. Who was the first Asian Nobel laureate?
    Answer: Rabindranath Tagore (Literature, 1913)
  14. Which scientist won Nobel Prizes in two different scientific fields?
    Answer: Marie Curie (Physics 1903 and Chemistry 1911)
  15. Which US president won the Nobel Peace Prize while in office?
    Answer: Barack Obama (2009)

Medium Level

  1. Which Nobel Prize category was Alfred Nobel's own field of expertise?
    Answer: Chemistry (he was a chemist and inventor)
  2. Who has declined the Nobel Prize after being awarded it?
    Answer: Jean-Paul Sartre (Literature, 1964) and Le Duc Tho (Peace, 1973)
  3. Which Nobel laureate discovered penicillin?
    Answer: Alexander Fleming (Medicine, 1945)
  4. Which family has the most Nobel Prizes among its members?
    Answer: The Curie family (5 prizes among 4 members)
  5. Which Nobel Peace Prize winner was also a US Secretary of State?
    Answer: Henry Kissinger (1973)
  6. Who was the first person to win multiple Nobel Prizes?
    Answer: Marie Curie
  7. Which Nobel Prize is not awarded in Stockholm?
    Answer: The Peace Prize (awarded in Oslo, Norway)
  8. Which scientist won the Nobel Prize for the discovery of the structure of DNA?
    Answer: James Watson, Francis Crick, and Maurice Wilkins (Medicine, 1962)
  9. Who was the first African to win the Nobel Peace Prize?
    Answer: Albert Luthuli (1960)
  10. Which Nobel laureate developed the theory of quantum mechanics?
    Answer: Niels Bohr (Physics, 1922)
  11. Which writer refused the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1958?
    Answer: Boris Pasternak (forced by Soviet authorities)
  12. Who was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Economics?
    Answer: Elinor Ostrom (2009)
  13. Which Nobel Peace Prize winner founded the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War?
    Answer: Bernard Lown (shared the 1985 prize)
  14. Which Nobel laureate in Literature wrote 'One Hundred Years of Solitude'?
    Answer: Gabriel García Márquez (1982)
  15. Who was the first person to win Nobel Prizes in two different fields?
    Answer: Marie Curie
  16. Which Nobel Prize winner discovered the neutron?
    Answer: James Chadwick (Physics, 1935)
  17. Who was the first American woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize?
    Answer: Jane Addams (1931)
  18. Which Nobel laureate developed the polio vaccine?
    Answer: John Enders, Thomas Weller, and Frederick Robbins (Medicine, 1954)
  19. Which Nobel Prize winner in Literature wrote 'The Old Man and the Sea'?
    Answer: Ernest Hemingway (1954)
  20. Who was the first organization to win the Nobel Peace Prize?
    Answer: International Committee of the Red Cross (1917)

Hard Level

  1. Which Nobel laureate was forced by the Nazi regime to decline the prize?
    Answer: Richard Kuhn (Chemistry, 1938) and Adolf Butenandt (Chemistry, 1939)
  2. Who is the only person to have won Nobel Prizes in two different sciences?
    Answer: Marie Curie (Physics and Chemistry)
  3. Which Nobel Prize winner was also a US Vice President?
    Answer: Charles G. Dawes (Peace, 1925)
  4. Who was the first posthumous Nobel Prize winner (before the rules changed in 1974)?
    Answer: Dag Hammarskjöld (Peace, 1961)
  5. Which Nobel laureate in Physics was known for his work on the photoelectric effect?
    Answer: Albert Einstein (1921)
  6. Who was the first Nobel laureate born in the 20th century?
    Answer: Werner Heisenberg (Physics, 1932, born 1901)
  7. Which Nobel Prize winner discovered the electron?
    Answer: J.J. Thomson (Physics, 1906)
  8. Who was the first Nobel laureate from China?
    Answer: Chen Ning Yang and Tsung-Dao Lee (Physics, 1957)
  9. Which Nobel Peace Prize winner founded the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs?
    Answer: Joseph Rotblat (shared 1995 prize)
  10. Who was the first Muslim woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize?
    Answer: Shirin Ebadi (2003)
  11. Which Nobel laureate in Chemistry discovered fullerenes?
    Answer: Robert Curl, Harold Kroto, and Richard Smalley (1996)
  12. Who was the first person to win the Nobel Prize in Economics?
    Answer: Ragnar Frisch and Jan Tinbergen (1969)
  13. Which Nobel laureate developed the PCR (polymerase chain reaction) technique?
    Answer: Kary Mullis (Chemistry, 1993)
  14. Who was the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize?
    Answer: Wangari Maathai (2004)
  15. Which Nobel Prize winner in Literature wrote in Russian but was a US citizen at the time of the award?
    Answer: Joseph Brodsky (1987)