UPSC Issue at a Glance | Nobel Prize 2025 Overview: Winners, Themes and Key Takeaways

What is the issue?

The beginning of October 2025, like every year, meant Nobel Prize season. The announcement of six prizes to new faces from around the globe, consisting of the world’s most elite roster of scientists, writers, economists, and human rights leaders, does not just mean facts to remember. With the changing nature of UPSC Examinations, aspirants must prepare themselves for analytical questions and make the best use of news and editorials around Nobel Prizes, directly or indirectly, in essays, ethics, personality tests, and other GS Papers. In this context, let’s take an overview of the Nobel Prize 2025. 

This year’s Nobel Prizes have awarded discoveries and achievements that have benefitted humankind in a myriad of ways. (Image: @NobelPrize/X)

(Relevance: UPSC Syllabus Mains Examination – General Studies-II, III: Important International institutions, agencies, Science and Technology- developments and their applications and effects in everyday life, Awareness in the fields of IT, Space, Computers, robotics, nano-technology, bio-technology.)

Before diving into the list of winners of the Nobel Prize this year and their discovery, let’s take a brief look at what the Nobel Prize is and some important facts associated with it. 

Understanding the Nobel Prize: Essential Facts Before Looking at the 2025 Winners

Alfred Nobel, a Swedish chemist, engineer, industrialist, and the inventor of dynamite, in his last will and testament in 1895, gave the largest share of his fortune to a series of prizes in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology/Medicine, Literature, and Peace, to be called the “Nobel Prizes”.

In 1968, the sixth award, the Prize in Economic Sciences, was started by Sweden’s central bank, the Sveriges Riksbank.

The Nobel Prize consists of a Nobel Medal and Diploma, and a document confirming the prize amount. The monetary award for Nobel Prizes changes depending on the fund’s income. In 2025, each Nobel Prize carries a reward of  11 million Swedish kroner (SEK) (around $1.2 million). The Nobel Peace Prize is presented in Norway while the other awards are handed out in Sweden. That’s how Alfred Nobel wanted it. 

Though Nobel died in 1896, the first Nobel prizes were awarded in 1901. The inaugural winners included Wilhelm Röntgen (Physics) and Jacobus van ’t Hoff (Chemistry).

The Nobel Committees of the prize-awarding institutions are responsible for the selection of the candidates. The institutions are:

Notably, the names of nominees and other details of the selection process are kept confidential for 50 years, ensuring the integrity and privacy of the process.

Question 1: What breakthrough earned the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics for the three scientists, and how is it significant?

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics to three US-based scientists—John Clarke, Michel Devoret, and John Martinis “for the discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling and energy quantisation in an electric circuit.”

This is the second time in three years — after 2022 — that the Physics Nobel has been given for work in the field of quantum mechanics. Last year’s physics prize went to John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton for breakthroughs in machine learning that helped drive the artificial intelligence revolution.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics to John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret and John M. Martinis. (Image: @NobelPrize/X)

Amitabh Sinha of The Indian Express explains how winners revealed quantum physics in action: Very small particles, on the scale of an atom or smaller, behave in ways that are very different compared to objects we encounter in our everyday lives. The behaviour of small particles, extremely counter-intuitive at times, is described by the laws of quantum mechanics.

These individual particles seemingly exist at multiple places at the same time (superposition) or appear to pass magically through physical barriers like a wall (tunnelling). These properties are normally not exhibited by large objects, even though they comprise the same small particles.

This year’s Nobel Prize in physics has gone to three scientists who showed that it was possible even for large systems, made up of billions of these small particles, to exhibit quantum behaviour under carefully controlled conditions. John Clarke, Michel Devoret and John Martinis’s work, done in the mid-1980s, set the stage for the development of quantum computers, which is one of the most active areas of scientific research right now.

Quantum Tunnelling and Energy Quanta

Shravan Hanasoge Explains: To understand what they achieved, imagine throwing a ball at a wall. Classically, it either bounces back or stops. But in the quantum world, a particle can sometimes “tunnel” straight through. That’s tunnelling — one of quantum mechanics’ strangest predictions.

Another hallmark of the quantum realm is quantisation: energy isn’t continuous but comes in fixed amounts. Atoms, for instance, can only absorb or emit certain “chunks” of energy.

(Illustration: Johan Jarnestad/The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences)

In the mid-1980s, Clarke, Devoret, and Martinis used superconducting circuits cooled to near absolute zero, where electric current flows with zero resistance. At the heart of their setup was a Josephson junction — two superconductors separated by a thin insulating layer. Under these conditions, pairs of electrons (called Cooper pairs) can tunnel across the barrier, behaving as a single quantum system.

When they passed a current through such a circuit, the entire system acted like a macroscopic particle. It could “escape” from one quantum state to another — tunnelling through an energy barrier and producing a tiny measurable voltage. They also found that the system absorbed and released energy only in discrete steps, confirming energy quantisation in a man-made circuit.

(Illustration: Johan Jarnestad/The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences)

Bridging the quantum and the everyday

For decades, physicists wondered how big a system could be and still show quantum effects. Normally, when many particles are involved, quantum behaviour fades. The laureates demonstrated that, with the right materials and extreme precision, even a chip visible to the naked eye can display unmistakable quantum signatures.

Notably, macroscopic quantum circuits are more than scientific curiosities. They form the backbone of technologies like quantum computing, quantum cryptography, and ultra-precise sensors. John Clarke, Michel Devoret and John Martinis’s experiments helped scientists learn how to preserve quantum coherence — the fragile property that allows quantum systems to remain in superpositions without collapsing into classical states.

That same technology is now being developed into practical applications. In Martinis’s lab at UC Santa Barbara, for instance, similar circuits evolved into the Sycamore processor, which Google used to demonstrate “quantum advantage” in 2019. Quantum computers are something the scientific world is very excited about. India, too, in 2023 set up a Rs 6,000 crore National Mission on Quantum Technologies and Applications.

Question 2: What are the major contributions of the three 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry winners, and what are the real-world applications of their work? 

Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson, and Omar M. Yaghi have been awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for pioneering the development of metal–organic frameworks (MOFs). 

In most materials, atoms and molecules are packed tightly together, leaving little or no empty space between them. These scientists have been awarded for creating novel materials in which atoms and molecules are linked in a way that leaves large, neatly arranged open spaces inside the molecular structure.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson, and Omar M. Yaghi. (Image: @NobelPrize/X)

These spaces are extremely useful for storing or trapping other substances, making these materials—called Metal-Organic Frameworks—highly valuable in many situations. The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2025 recognises the work of three scientists creating these special molecular constructions, made by linking metal atoms with carbon-containing molecules.

Metal-Organic Frameworks

MOFs are a class of materials composed of metal ions connected by organic molecules, forming a three-dimensional network with large, porous cavities. This design allows gases and liquids to flow through, making MOFs highly adaptable for various applications.

Metal–organic frameworks contain large cavities in which molecules can flow in and out. (Illustration: Johan Jarnestad/The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences)

Metals can form bonds in multiple directions, and thus metal ions are the anchors here, like joints in a scaffolding. Organic molecules link them together. Organic molecules are flexible, can form rings and chains, and can be designed to have chemical groups with specific properties.

To understand all this better, let’s quickly recap chemistry lessons from school —bonds are formed because atoms want to be stable, which often means having eight electrons in their outer shells. Those that have less than four electrons generally lose them, those with more than four try to gain the missing electrons (the number of electrons available for bonding is called valency of an atom). Organic compounds contain carbon atoms, and carbon’s unique bonding ability allows it to form chains and rings.

Real-world applications of MOFs

Different kinds of MOFs can be used for applications like harvesting water from desert air, capturing carbon dioxide, or storing toxic gases. The great utility of MOFs lies in their ability to temporarily hold other substances in the empty spaces they contain, like a foam or sponge is able to hold air or water, and release it when needed.

Question 3: What have the 2025 Nobel Prize in Medicine winners achieved, and why does their work matter?

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded to Japanese scientist Shimon Sakaguchi and American scientists Mary E. Brunkow and Frederick Ramsdell for their discoveries on peripheral immune tolerance, which have been essential for understanding how the immune system functions and key to developing therapies for cancers and autoimmune diseases.

Mary E Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell and Shimon Sakaguchi are awarded this year’s Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology. (Image: @NobelPrize/X)

Last year’s medicine prize was awarded to U.S. scientists Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun for their discovery of microRNA and its key role in how multicellular organisms grow and live, helping explain how cells specialise into different types.

The discovery

The human body has a powerful and complex immune system, which not just fights off various bacteria and viruses but also knows what cells should not be attacked.

According to the Nobel Prize’s official press release, “Mary Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell and Shimon Sakaguchi are awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2025 for their fundamental discoveries relating to peripheral immune tolerance. The laureates identified the immune system’s security guards, regulatory T cells, which prevent immune cells from attacking our own body.”

Notably, the immune system’s work is done by T cells. While helper T cells patrol the body and raise an alert when they detect an attack, the killer T cells attack the invader (virus or any other pathogen).

The Nobel Prize laureates identified the immune system’s security guards, regulatory T cells, thus laying the foundation for a new field of research. (Illustration: The Nobel Committee for Physiology or Medicine. III. Mattias Karlén)

For a long time, it was believed that the thymus, an organ just behind our sternum, played a central role in how the immune system worked. The thymus is especially active in babies and children. The T cells travel to the thymus. If they are found attacking our own cells — basically can’t tell apart invaders from the body’s constituents — the thymus does not release them into the bloodstream. Thus, it was understood that passing through the thymus was a kind of exam T cells had to clear to enter the bloodstream and do the job of protecting.

The three Nobel laureates proved that the picture is more complicated than that, and there is a third category of T cells.

Sakaguchi identified a special group of T-cells, called regulatory T-cells, or Tregs, that suppresses the activity of other T-cells if they have a propensity to attack the body’s own tissues. Brunkow and Ramsdell later discovered the FOXP3 gene that enables some T-cells to function as Tregs. Together, they complete the picture of the immune system.

Impact of the discoveries on medical treatment

The discoveries of regulatory T cells and the FOXP3 gene have launched a new field of immune-regulation research, with significant implications for human health.

In cancer, tumours are often surrounded by many regulatory T cells, which protect them from immune attack. Researchers are investigating how to dismantle this “protective wall” so that the immune system can better reach and destroy cancerous cells.

Conversely, in autoimmune diseases, strategies aim to boost regulatory T cells so that they can stop the attacking cells from destroying the body. Better understanding of the immune system can also help in making sure the body does not reject transplanted organs.

Question 4: Who won the 2025 Nobel Prizes in Literature and Peace, and what were the main reasons for their recognition?

Hungarian novelist and screenwriter László Krasznahorkai has won this year’s Nobel Prize in Literature. The award is “for his compelling and visionary oeuvre that, in the midst of apocalyptic terror, reaffirms the power of art.” He is the first Hungarian to win the Nobel Prize in Literature since Imre Kertész in 2002, joining an illustrious lineage that includes Ernest Hemingway, Toni Morrison and Kazuo Ishiguro.

László Krasznahorkai is the first Hungarian to win the Nobel Prize in Literature since Imre Kertész in 2002, joining an illustrious lineage that includes Ernest Hemingway, Toni Morrison and Kazuo Ishiguro. (Image: @NobelPrize/X)

South Korean writer Han Kang won the prize last year “for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life”.

Theme of Krasznahorkai’s work 

Often called the “writer of the apocalypse”, Krasznahorkai’s work captures humanity on the brink — of collapse, transcendence, and revelation. From Satantango to The Melancholy of Resistance and Baron Wenckheim’s Homecoming, his fiction unfolds in long, hypnotic sentences that mimic chaos itself, spiralling through despair, faith, and absurdity. 

Paromita Chakrabarti writes, “Krasznahorkai interrogates moral collapse, institutional rot, spiritual drift, how individuals confront history, how society dissolves, how memory falters, how hope flickers. His vision is not sentimental. It is unsparing, rigorous, exacting. But that intensity also stands witness to and guard over human dignity.”

Important Facts Related to the Nobel Prize in Literature 

French poet Sully Prudhomme was the first laureate in 1901, while Sweden’s Selma Lagerlöf became the first woman to win in 1909. The Prize was not given in 1914, 1918 and between 1940 and 1943 because of the two World Wars. In 1935, the Prize wasn’t given out because no suitable candidate was said to be found.

Notably, France leads with the most laureates (16), while only 18 women have received the award in its 124-year history. Some greats — Leo Tolstoy, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce — were never honoured, while others, like Jean-Paul Sartre and Boris Pasternak, refused or were forced to decline.

Nobel Peace Prize 2025

The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Maria Corina Machado, a Venezuelan politician who has for decades fought for democracy and civil liberties in the Latin American country.

“As the leader of the democracy movement in Venezuela, Maria Corina Machado is one of the most extraordinary examples of civilian courage in Latin America in recent times,” the Norwegian Nobel Committee’s announcement stated.

(Image: @NobelPrize/X)

Last year, Japanese organisation Nihon Hidankyo received the award for its “efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again”.

Interesting Facts Related to Nobel Peace Prize 

Mahatma Gandhi was nominated five times for the Nobel Peace Prize but was never awarded the prize. In 1937, 1938, and 1939, he was nominated by Ole Colbjørnsen, a Labour member of the Norwegian Storting (Parliament). In 1947, Gandhi was nominated by B G Kher, G V Mavalankar and G B Pant. In January 1948, there were six nominations on his behalf, including from the 1947 and 1946 Laureates, The Quakers and Emily Greene Balch.

India’s Kailash Satyarthi received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014 sharing it with Pakistan’s Malala Yousafzai, the youngest-ever Nobel laureate, for their work on promoting child rights in the troubled sub-continent.

5. How have the winners of the 2025 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel (popularly known as the Nobel Prize for economics) explained the concept of economic growth as the “new normal”?

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences to Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt for their pioneering research explaining how innovation fuels long-term economic growth. The Academy said one half of the prize goes to economic historian Joel Mokyr, while the other half is shared between Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt.

The Economic Sciences Prize, established in 1968 by Sweden’s central bank, is the last of the Nobel awards to be announced each year. (Image: @NobelPrize/X)

Their work, the Academy noted, has deepened understanding of how technological change, knowledge creation, and the constant cycle of innovation and obsolescence drive prosperity. Together, Mokyr, Aghion, and Howitt have provided a framework that links economic history with modern growth theory explaining not just why economies grow, but how they sustain that growth over centuries.

Mokyr found the causes behind sustained growth becoming the new normal. Citing historical sources, he emphasised how important it is for society to be open to new ideas and changes to sustain growth. He noted that the Industrial-Revolution-driven growth came to a halt owing to the lack of scientific explanations for why innovations work.

Aghion and Howitt, in a article in 1992 unfurled a mathematical model for “creative destruction,” the phenomenon where “new and better products” enter the market, leading to companies selling older products and losing out. The two illustrated how creative destruction creates conflicts that must be managed in a constructive manner, otherwise established companies and interest groups could comprise the process.

JUST FYI: The Nobel Prize and India

The following Indians or individuals of Indian origin/resident in India have been honoured with the Nobel Prize: Rabindranath Tagore (Literature, 1913); C. V. Raman (Physics, 1930); Hargobind Khorana (Physiology or Medicine, 1968); Mother Teresa (Peace, 1979); Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (Physics, 1983); the 14th Dalai Lama (Peace, 1989); Amartya Sen (Economic Sciences, 1998); Venkatraman Ramakrishnan (Chemistry, 2009); Kailash Satyarthi (Peace, 2014); and Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee (Economic Sciences, 2019).

Post Read Questions

(1) John Clarke, Michel Devoret and John Martinis have been awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics for:

(a) the discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling and energy quantisation in an electric circuit.

(b) the development of the theory of superconductivity at room temperature.

(c) the invention of the quantum dot laser and its applications in optical communication.

(d) the discovery of graphene and its unique two-dimensional properties.

(2) He writes sentences that stretch like eternity — long, looping, relentless — and stories that linger at the edge of ruin. His debut, Sátántangó, crawled across a dying farm; his cinema collaborator made it a seven-hour dirge. Critics call him the “Hungarian master of apocalypse.” This year, Stockholm agreed. Who won the 2025 Nobel Prize in Literature?

(a) Olga Tokarczuk

(b) László Krasznahorkai

(c) Orhan Pamuk

(d) Haruki Murakami

(3) 2025 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded for:

(a) discoveries of receptors for temperature and touch

(b) discoveries concerning peripheral immune tolerance

(c) discovery of cancer therapy by inhibition of negative immune regulation

(d) discovery of Hepatitis C virus

(4) The Nobel Peace Prize 2025 is awarded to the laureate for:

(a) for her fight against the oppression of women in Iran and her fight to promote human rights and freedom for all

(b) for over six decades contributed to the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe

(c) for her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace

(d) for her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy

(Sources: How winners revealed quantum physics in action, How the Physics Nobel-winning experiment shaped quantum computing,  Express View on Physics Nobel, Making ‘room’ for new uses of Chemistry, Nobel Prize 2025 Chemistry Winners, Nobel Prize in Medicine out: What exactly have the winners done, Nobel Prize in Literature 2025 Highlights,  What makes László Krasznahorkai’s writing stand out, Nobel Prize for Economics)

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