2016 Nobel prizes handed out to recipients

By Atilla Altuntas

STOCKHOLM

The 2016 Nobel prizes were awarded here Saturday and one big name winner was a no-show.

The Stockholm Concert House played host to the ceremony that was attended by the Swedish Royal family and other distinguished guests.

The prize in physics was shared between David J. Thouless and F. Duncan M. Haldane and J. Michael Kosterlitz "for theoretical discoveries of topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter", according to the official website.

The chemistry prize went to Jean-Pierre Sauvage, Sir J. Fraser Stoddart and Bernard L. Feringa for their work on the “design and synthesis of molecular machines". And Yoshinori Ohsumi received the award in physiology or medicine "for his discoveries of mechanisms for autophagy”.

American music legend Bob Dylan won the prize in literature for creating “new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition”, the award committee said, however, the eclectic musician did not attend to the ceremony.

The 2016 Nobel Peace Price went to Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos for his efforts to end the country's more than 50-year-old civil war that has killed more than 220,000 citizens and displaced nearly 6 million others.

The Nobel Prize Award is handed out Dec. 10 on the anniversary of the death of Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel, who established the award in 1895.

The award is accompanied by cash prize worth 8 million Swedish krona, or $871,000.