The ceremony is tightly governed by protocol. Prof Alan MacDiarmid receives the Nobel prize for chemistry in 2000. Photograph: Henrik Montgomery/EPAThis week the newest members of the most select club in science travel to Stockholm. On Saturday, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel's death, the King of Sweden will hand over their Nobels.
The Nobel prize ceremonies are as much a part of popular culture in Sweden as the Academy Awards are in the US, with as much spectacle and bling. For science laureates more accustomed to dusty university corridors than red carpets, the next few days will provide a rare glimpse of the celebrity lifestyle.
So, for this year's laureates – not to mention any budding Nobel prizewinners out there – here's what to expect when you arrive in Stockholm, plus some tips on how to survive what is officially known as Nobel Week.
Get lots of sleep in beforehand, because you get much during Nobel Week, nor will you want to. After laureates arrive in Stockholm, they face a relentless schedule of interviews, press conferences, champagne receptions, lectures, a prize concert, university visits – and all this before the big day itself.
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The Nobel Foundation has been planning these events for decades, every detail has been thought of, every situation accounted for. You are provided not only with your own stretch limousine (a Volvo, naturally) and driver to take you to all your destinations, you also have the services of a personal attaché, a young diplomat from the Swedish foreign ministry, to make sure you stick to the schedule and to take care of all trifling details.
Try not to get too used to it, though, or you'll come down to earth with a bump on your return home. There's the well-known, and possibly apocryphal, tale of the physics laureate who had become so accustomed to his Nobel treatment that when he returned home from Stockholm he sat at the back of his own car for a while expecting someone to drive him home.
Photographers and autograph hunters line up outside the Grand Hotel eager to catch a glimpse of laureates as they are whisked in and out of their limos. The 2009 medicine laureate Elizabeth Blackburn recalls the autograph hunters jostling and even fighting outside the hotel for prized signatures. Fellow 2009 medicine laureate Carol Greider says her son was more concerned that she was signing too many autographs, in case it would affect their price on eBay.
Even laureates who consider themselves to be anonymous in their own institutions are recognised on the streets, thanks to the constant TV and press coverage of the scientists and their achievements. In his autobiography, Kary Mullis recalled being recognised on a boat leaving the coast of Sweden. A man bowed and declared loudly, "Dr Mullis, the Swedish people love you." The other passengers began applauding and Mullis started crying.
Before the Nobel prize ceremony, a grand white-tie affair that takes place in Stockholm's Concert Hall, all laureates must attend a rehearsal to practise how to receive their prize from the King.
In the heat of the moment even Nobel laureates can forget the series of steps involved: stand and walk when your name is called; stop at the Nobel Foundation insignia on the carpet; shake the King's hand while accepting the (surprisingly heavy) Nobel prize and diploma with the other hand; bow three times, first to His Majesty, then to previous laureates and prize committee members seated behind you on the stage, and then to the audience in the hall; and finally, after the trumpet fanfare cues the audience to applaud, return to your seat and sit down.
Not all laureates manage to stick to protocol. For instance, when bowing to the audience in 2001, medicine laureate and now head of the Royal Society, Sir Paul Nurse, raised his arms as if he had scored a World Cup-winning goal. The tale in Nobel circles is that for several years, footage of his celebrations was shown to future laureates to politely inform them how not to behave on stage. Coincidently, Nurse's sporting celebration appears to have been edited out of his prize presentation clip on the Nobel prize website.
The Nobel banquet in Stockholm's Town Hall. Photograph: Henrik Montgomery/AFP/Getty Images After the Nobel prize ceremony, it's straight to a banquet at the City Hall, which is undoubtedly the social event of the year in Sweden. Invitations for the 1,300 seats are like gold dust. Swedish families gather around their TVs to follow proceedings live.
Laureates and their family members are interviewed as they enter the building. TV style pundits rate ladies' fashions, as do the daily newspapers the following day. Food pundits rate the food being served, which has been created by 45 chefs, delivered by 260 servers, and washed down with 400 bottles of champagne and 400 bottles of red wine.
Again, every taste is catered for. As the teetotal Richard Feynman found out in 1965, his waitress carried two identical wine bottles, one with no alcohol to serve to him ? or number 88 as he was referred to in the banquet layout ? and the other to serve the King himself.
Once the traditional ice-cream dessert has been served, and the banquet speeches have been made by a laureate (usually the eldest) from each prize area, the diners make their way upstairs for a spot of dancing and the laureates are granted an audience with the royal family.
But that's far from being the end of the evening. There's a special after-show party called the Nobel Nightcap, hosted by a different university in Stockholm each year, where laureates, banquet guests and students mingle until the wee hours.
The formal events are not quite over, as the following evening laureates dine with the royal family at the Palace. But it's worth staying a few days longer, because on the morning of 13 December things become much more informal and surreal. Laureates are woken up in their hotel beds by girls dressed in white and carrying candles, celebrating the feast of St Lucia, the patron saint of light and vision who illuminates the midwinter darkness.
Later that day, if you haven't already had enough partying, laureates are invited to attend student Lucia parties, an informal and riotous evening of food, singing and drinking. Physics and chemistry laureates are inducted into what is known as the Order of the Ever-Smiling and Jumping Green Frog. To Feynman, who as a child had perfected the noise a frog makes, the event gave the physicist and bongo player the opportunity to display one of his lesser-known talents.
Other laureates say that the teasing and lampooning they receive from students reverses some of the adulation that has been bestowed upon them, and provides an effective antidote to the formality of Nobel Week.
Simon Frantz is a former senior editor of Nobelprize.org and blogs at Nobel Prize Watch
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