The ABB-Nobel Media partnership aims to share knowledge broadly, inspire people to engage in science and shed light on our time’s greatest challenges. As a pioneering technology leader, ABB will bring deep scientific and innovation experience and commitment into the partnership.
New Zealand takes pride in claiming three Nobel Prizes over the century, with Ernest Rutherford, Maurice Wilkins and Alan MacDiarmid joining the prestigious roster of Nobel laureates in 1908, 1962 and 2000, respectively.
In January, ABB and Nobel Foundation brought together Nobel laureates, world leading scientists, policy makers and global thought leaders at The Nobel Prize Dialogue. Themed “The Future of Learning”, this year’s open, cross disciplinary meeting provided a unique opportunity to inspire discussions on issues affecting the world.
ABB New Zealand Managing Director Ewan Morris shares, “We are truly privileged to be working with the Nobel Foundation and provide opportunities for many groups and individuals to come together through events and engagements, and explore ideas to transform the world through knowledge and science”.
“As ABB takes part in this important meeting, we also take the opportunity to reflect on and honour the achievements of kiwi Nobel laureates who have worked hard and contributed to make the world a better place. May their work inspire us to continue to discover and work together towards achieving extraordinary advances in science and technology to build a better future for us and our children’s children,” Ewan added.
About our New Zealand Nobel laureates
Ernest Rutherford
Referred to by Albert Einstein as a ‘second Newton’ who had ‘tunnelled into the very material of God’, Ernest Rutherford discovered the nature of atoms that shaped modern science and paved the way for nuclear physics.
Born in 1871 in Brightwater near Nelson, Rutherford later claimed his inventiveness was honed on the challenges of helping on his parents’ farm: ‘We haven’t the money, so we’ve got to think’.
After gaining three degrees at Canterbury College, Rutherford began his international career when he won a scholarship to the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge, of which he was to become director many years later.
While at Cambridge, he became known for his ability to make imaginative leaps and design experiments to test them. His discovery that heavy atoms tend to decay into lighter atoms heralded modern techniques of carbon dating and led to his Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1908.
Ernest Rutherford’s three major discoveries shaped modern science, created nuclear physics and changed the way that we envisage the structure of the atom.
Public recognition continued after his death in 1937 with buildings and streets being named after him in several countries, and his image printed on commemorative stamps and on New Zealand’s $100 banknote since 1992. He is also the only New Zealander to have an element – rutherfordium – named in his honour.
Coming back to New Zealand for the last time in 1925 to see family and give lectures, he was known to say, “I have always been very proud of the fact that I am a New Zealander.”
On 19th October 1937, he died following complications from a minor operation at an early age of 66.
Maurice Hugh Frederick Wilkins
Maurice Wilkins gained a place of high honour in scientific history when, with Francis Crick and James Watson, he shared the 1962 Nobel prize for physiology and medicine “for their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material”.
Maurice Wilkins was born on 15th December 1916 to Irish parents at Pongaroa, a small country town in the south of North Island, New Zealand. His father was a doctor in the school medical service, interested in research and in epidemiology but with little time for either. When he was six, Watkins was brought to England with his family, later gaining a scholarship from King Edward VI school, Birmingham, to St John's College, Cambridge, where he studied physics and took his first degree in 1938.
At Birmingham University, he met Dr. J. T. Randall and worked for him as research assistant and studied the luminescence of solids. Wilkins gained his doctorate in two years and was immediately absorbed into the Ministry of Home Security and Aircraft Production to undertake work on the improvement of radar screens.
In 1945, when the war was over, Wilkins became a lecturer in physics at St. Andrews’ University, Scotland, where Professor J. T. Randall was organizing biophysical studies. He had spent seven years in physics research and now began in biophysics. The biophysics project moved in 1946 to King’s College, London, where he was a member of the staff of the newly formed Medical Research Council Biophysics Research Unit. Wilkins became Assistant Director of the Medical Research Council Unit in 1950 and Deputy Director in 1955. He became emeritus professor in 1981.
Wilkins's post-war transition into biology was accompanied by an increasing concern about matters of humanity and scholarship, about the problem of distortion of science by political and financial pressures, and with involvement in the activities of organisations concerned with justice and with peace.
Wilkins married Patricia Ann Chidgey in 1959. She survives him, as do their two sons and two daughters. Among his recreations, Wilkins enjoyed collecting sculptures and gardening. He died on October 5 2004.
Alan MacDiarmid
Alan MacDiarmid was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2000 for discovering a way to make plastics conduct electricity. His breakthrough, made in the late 1970s, has led to cheap plastic batteries, light-emitting diodes used for giant TV screens and cellphones, and "smart windows" that let you see out but stop the heat of the sun's rays getting in on a hot day.
Born in Masterton and raised in the Hutt Valley and Kerikeri, he developed an interest in chemistry aged 10 from one of his father's old textbooks, and he taught himself from this book and from library books. He later worked as an assistant in the Chemistry Department of Victoria University in Wellington.
He won a Fulbright Fellowship to the University of Wisconsin-Madison to study for a PhD, which he received in 1953. He received another PhD, from the University of Cambridge, in 1955.
In early February 2007 he was planning to travel back to New Zealand, when he fell down the stairs in his home in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania and died on 7 February 2007.
About ABB and Nobel Partnership
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