Alfred Bernhard Nobel, b.1833. Swedish chemist and engineer. Did you know he invented dynamite? And his brother Emil died in a nitroglycerine explosion. From Nobel’s will:

“The whole of my remaining realizable estate shall be dealt with in the following way: the capital, invested in safe securities by my executors, shall constitute a fund, the interest on which shall be annually distributed in the form of prizes to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind. The said interest shall be divided into five equal parts, which shall be apportioned as follows: one part to the person who shall have made the most important discovery or invention within the field of physics; one part to the person who shall have made the most important chemical discovery or improvement; one part to the person who shall have made the most important discovery within the domain of physiology or medicine; one part to the person who shall have produced in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction; and one part to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.

2005 Nobel Prize winners

Physics: Roy J. Glauber, John L. Hall, Theodor W. Hansch for something to do with optical something?
Chemistry: Yves Chauvin, Robert H. Grubbs, Richard R. Schrock for the development of the metathesis method in organic synthesis?
Medicine: Barry J. Marshall, J. Robin Warren for the discovery of the pylori bacterium and its role in gastric ulcer disease.
Peace: International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei for efforts to prevent military use of atomic energy.
Literature: Harold Pinter, playwright. I’ve read one Pinter play, A Slight Ache, never seen one. I just read a little of his anti-war poetry, and I am not impressed (WARNING: poetry consists of profanity, rabid anti-Americanism, attacks on orthodox Christianity). But who am I? And what is truth?

“There are no hard distinctions between what is real and what is unreal, nor between what is true and what is false. A thing is not necessarily either true or false; it can be both true and false.”

I believe that these assertions still make sense and do still apply to the exploration of reality through art. So as a writer I stand by them but as a citizen I cannot. As a citizen I must ask: What is true? What is false?— Harold Pinter

What kind of gobbledygook is that? “I believe truth and goodness to be relative when I want to write whatever I want to write and deny you any basis upon which to criticize it. But when I don’t like the American/British invasion of Iraq, I choose to say that truth and goodness are what I say they are. And you can’t disagree with me. Because I’m an artist.”

Also born on October 21st: Samuel Taylor Coleridge, b. 1772, Ursula K. LeGuin, b. 1929, Ann Cameron, b. 1943, Janet Ahlberg, b. 1944.