Nobel diploma translation

Nobel Diplomas

  To the best of our extensive knowledge of Nobel object-related matters, Chadwick's Nobel diploma is the only Physics diploma ever to have sold (at least in the English-speaking world); Niels Bohr's medal sold in 1940, and is in a museum. This is crucial, since, as Dr. Burton Feldman has pointed out in his major work The Nobel Prize (2000), physics was the defining science of the 20th Century, and physics' prestige and that of the Nobel Prize fed off of each other.
   Nobel diplomas have always been made by firms headquartered in the Stockholm area; nowadays they are made by Fälth & Hässler in a (post-1960's) style which displays, on the cover, only the Laureate's name and a simple rectangle, (see Nobel Diplomas page of Nobel Foundation web site) as opposed to the cypher of the Laureate's initials and the other elaborate features employed by F. Beck & Son (pre-1970's). As can be seen by G. von Békésy's 1961 example in the picture on our Front Exterior page, some Beck & Son diploma covers were less elaborate than Chadwick's. On these bases, Chadwick's Nobel set, esp. his diploma, is irreplaceable.
   (To be precise, Beck & Son made all Swedish Nobel diplomas until the mid-1960's, and still made the Physics, Chemistry, and Economics diplomas until the early 1970's.   The Peace diploma has always been awarded, and produced, in Norway, as a scroll until recent decades.)

(from Swedish)
_______________________________________

. ROYAL SWEDISH
ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

---- HERE GATHERED ON 14 NOVEMBER
1935 IN ACCORDANCE WITH
-- THE INSTRUCTIONS OF

- ALFRED NOBEL

AS ESTABLISHED BY TESTAMENT
27 NOVEMBER 1895, ARE RESOLVED
TO AWARD THE PRIZE FOR THE
YEAR 1935, PRESENTED FOR
AUTHORING THE IMPORTANT
DISCOVERY IN THE DISCIPLINE
OF PHYSICS TO

          
            
              
                
                  
                    Axel Gavelin
                  
                   
                
              

              
            
            
          
            President of Royal Academy

Henning Pleijel
Secretary of Royal Academy

FOR DISCOVERING OF NEUTRONS

- STOCKHOLM on 10 DECEMBER 1935

Awards of Outstanding International Importance to Statesmen and Heroines

Translation and Historical Comments

___________________________________(on seal) FOR DESCENDANTS

(on seal)
ROYAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

Nobel Prize diploma

Telephone 773-539-5751
FAX 773-304-0131
Postal address
P.O. Box 300791, Chicago, IL 60630, USA
Electronic mail
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The Sir James Chadwick Nobel Prize Archive

Together with Chadwick's Nobel Prize medal, the Nobel Foundation presentation book and the Chadwick portrait photo; the accompanying archive of related books and research dossiers; and the accompanying group of other Nobel Prize objects made by the Royal Swedish Mint, etc.; the Chadwick Nobel Prize Archive constitutes a ready-made museum exhibit.

Henning Bernhard Mathias Pleijel, born July 5 1873 in Vimmerby, died January 20th 1962, was a Swedish physicist, president of the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm 1922 - 1927 .

Pleijel began university studies in 1891, became a Licentiate of Philosophy at Uppsala University 1904, Ph.D. 1906, and associate professor of mechanics and mathematical physics in Uppsala in the same year. Pleijel took employment in the Telegraph Administration in 1892, served as a lecturer at the Department educational institution in 1896 - 1909, and as director of its testing station 1900 - 1913, and was appointed professor at the Royal Telegraph Board in 1913. During his time at the Telegraph he was a plant submarine expert.

In 1914 Pleijel became professor of theoretical electrical engineering at RIT. He was KTH's Deputy President in 1921 and president in 1922 - 1927. He stayed as a professor at the Royal Institute of Technology in 1934.

Pleijel was a member of railway electrification committees of 1908, 1914 and 1920, became chairman of the high voltage-low-current Committee in 1921, and conducted the Telegraph Board's expert negotiations and studies on a Swedish radio station, for the Americas traffic both in England and America, in 1921, partly in Germany in 1922.

Pleijel became in 1919 a member of the Engineering Sciences (IVA), 1923 IVA's Vice Chairman, and 1 June the same year, IVA's president. He was also a member of the Royal Academy of Sciences (KVA) in 1922, and Physiographic Society in Lund in the same year. In 1933 he became the KVA's secretary, after Henrik Gustaf Söderbaum death, and stopped at the entry to 1943, when Arne Westgren succeeded him. Pleijel published many papers on the mathematical, physical and electro-technical issues.

Pleijel Technology was awarded an honorary doctorate at KTH in 1944.

Henning Pleijel belonged to the Smaland branch of family Pleijel, and was cousin to the theologian Hilding Pleijel, the father of mathematician Ake Pleijel, and grandfather of the writer and cultural journalist Agneta Pleijel.

Biography of the Secretary of the Royal Academy, who signed Chadwick's diploma near the bottom:

Axel Olof Gavelin, born October 4 1875 in Vilhelmina, Va sterbotten County, died June 14 in 1947, was a Swedish geologist and officer , father of Sven Gavelin.
Gavelin became a PhD in Uppsala in 1905, was hired as acting geologist at the Geological Survey of Sweden (SGU) in 1902, became State Geologist in 1903, Acting Head in 1914 and Vice President 1916-41. His most substantial geological work he performed in the Swedish bedrock areas and mountains....
If his activities as head of the Geological Survey of Sweden may be mentioned, the First World War focused great interest in economically useful materials, and started investigations to locate new ore deposits, in which he himself took active part, both in the mountains of Jämtland and Västerbotten, and within the so-called Skellefte, where attention was directed partly to pyrite, and the sulphide ores of copper and zinc. He became a member of the Academy of Sciences in 1922, the Academy of Agriculture in the same year, the Physiographic Society in Lund in 1924 and of Engineering Sciences 1925. Gavelin 1931 became chairman of the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation.

This article is fully or partially based on material from Nordisk familjebok, Gavelin, Axel Olof , 1904-1926.

Biography of the President of the Royal Academy, who signed Chadwick's diploma near the middle:

An Interview about Sir James Chadwick's Nobel Prize group, with J. Schramek, was shown on Swedish Television, during (the intermission of) the nationwide telecast of the Nobel Prize ceremonies, on 10 December 2006. To see, click here.

J.A. Schramek
& Associates

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