Nobel Centennial this Month

California Nobel Laureates will be celebrated and honored with events statewide during the month of October, which Gov. Gray Davis has proclaimed "California Nobel Laureate Month." This year's announcements from Stockholm of the Nobel Prizes 2001, the centennial of the prizes, will begin on Oct. 8.

Most of the state's scheduled events, which have been organized by the Consulates General of Sweden in Los Angeles and San Francisco, will be held Oct. 24-27. They include daylong academic symposia at UCLA on science in the 21st century in which UCSB Nobel Laureate Alan Heeger (physics-2000) will participate.

Heeger is also one of several California laureates who have agreed to appear on television's "Jeopardy" quiz program as a questioner, not a contestant. That show is scheduled to air on Nov. 2

During its history, almost 100 Nobel Prizes have been awarded to California scientists and scholars, more than any single country in the world except for the United States. The University of California and other research universities in the state account for nearly 25 percent of all Nobel Laureates. UCSB has three Nobelists on its faculty (a fourth Nobelist, Robert Schreiffer, physics, retired and moved out of state).