List of nonreligious Nobel laureates

This list of nonreligious Nobel laureates comprises laureates of the Nobel Prize who have self-identified as atheist, agnostic, freethinker, or otherwise nonreligious at some point in their lives.^[2]

Distribution of atheists, agnostics, and freethinkers in Nobel Prizes between 1901-2000.^[1]

Many of these laureates earlier identified with a religion. In an estimate by Baruch Shalev, between 1901 and 2000, about 10.5% of all laureates, and 35% of those in literature, fall in this category.^[1] According to the same estimate, between 1901 and 2000, atheists, agnostics, and freethinkers won 8.9% of the prizes in medicine, 7.1% in chemistry, 5.2% in economics, 4.7% in physics, and 3.6% in peace.^[1] Alfred Nobel himself was an atheist later in life.^[3]

Shalev's book lists many Jewish atheists, agnostics, and freethinkers as religiously Jewish. For example, Milton Friedman, Roald Hoffmann, Richard Feynman, Niels Bohr, Élie Metchnikoff, and Rita Levi-Montalcini are listed as religiously Jewish; however, while they were ethnically and perhaps culturally Jewish, they did not believe in a God and self-identified as atheists.^[1]

Physics

Bardeen

Bohr

Einstein

Year	Laureate	Reference
2000	Zhores Alferov	[4]
1977	Philip Warren Anderson	[2][5]
1956, 1972	John Bardeen	[2]
1967	Hans Bethe	[2][6]
1948	Patrick Blackett	[7]
1981	Nicolaas Bloembergen	[8]
1922	Niels Bohr	[2][9][10][11]
1946	Percy Williams Bridgman	[12][13]
1929	Louis de Broglie	[2]
1935	James Chadwick	[14]
1903	Marie Curie	[2]
1903	Pierre Curie	[2]
1933	Paul Dirac	[2]
1921	Albert Einstein	[2][15] [note 1]
1938	Enrico Fermi	[2]
1965	Richard Feynman	[2][19]
1980	Val Logsdon Fitch	[citation needed]
1925	James Franck	[20]
1969	Murray Gell-Mann	[21]
2002	Riccardo Giacconi	[22]
1973	Ivar Giaver	[23][24]
2003	Vitaly Ginzburg	[25]
1979	Sheldon Glashow	[26]
2005	Roy J. Glauber	[27]
2004	David J. Gross	[28]
2012	Serge Haroche	[29]
2013	Peter Higgs	[30]
2002	Masatoshi Koshiba	[31]
2016	J. Michael Kosterlitz	[32]
2000	Herbert Kroemer	[33]
1962	Lev Landau	[2][34]
1988	Leon M. Lederman	[35][36]
2019	Michel Mayor	[37]
1907	Albert A. Michelson	[38]
2010	Konstantin Novoselov	[39]
2019	Jim Peebles	[40]
1926	Jean Baptiste Perrin	[41]
2019	Didier Queloz	[42]
1944	Isidor Isaac Rabi	[2]
2011	Brian Schmidt	[43]
1933	Erwin Schrödinger	[2][44][45]
1956	William Shockley	[2]
1988	Jack Steinberger	[46]
1958	Igor Tamm	[47][48]
2017	Kip Thorne	[49]
1910	Johannes Diderik van der Waals	[2]
1999	Martinus J. G. Veltman	[50]
1979	Steven Weinberg	[2][51]
1963	Eugene Wigner	[2]
2020	Roger Penrose	[52]

Chemistry

Kroto

Ostwald

Year	Laureate	Reference
1903	Svante Arrhenius	[53]
1997	Paul D. Boyer	[54]
1975	John Cornforth	[55]
1911	Marie Curie	[2]
1935	Frédéric Joliot-Curie	[56]
1935	Irène Joliot-Curie	[57]
1985	Herbert A. Hauptman	[58]
1981	Roald Hoffmann	[59]
1996	Harold W. Kroto	[60]
1987	Jean-Marie Lehn	[61]
1978	Peter D. Mitchell	[62]
1994	George Andrew Olah	[63]
1909	Wilhelm Ostwald	[64]
1954	Linus Pauling	[65]
1962	Max Perutz	[66][67]
1958	Frederick Sanger	[68]
2011	Dan Shechtman	[69]
2018	George Smith	[70]
1993	Michael Smith	[71]
1934	Harold Urey	[72]

Physiology or Medicine

Crick

Year	Laureate	Reference
1970	Julius Axelrod	[73]
1914	Robert Bárány	[74]
1958	George Beadle	[75]
1989	J. Michael Bishop	[citation needed]
2002	Sydney Brenner	[76]
1962	Francis Crick	[77][78][79][80][81]
1974	Christian de Duve	[82]
1945	Howard Florey	[83]
1906	Camillo Golgi	[84]
1929	Frederick Gowland Hopkins	[citation needed]
1963	Andrew Huxley	[85]
1965	François Jacob	[86]
2003	Paul Lauterbur	[87]
1907	Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran	[88]
1986	Rita Levi-Montalcini	[89]
1960	Sir Peter Medawar	[90]
1908	Élie Metchnikoff	[91]
1965	Jacques Monod	[92]
1946	Hermann Joseph Muller	[93]
2001	Paul Nurse	[94]
1904	Ivan Pavlov	[95]
1993	Richard J. Roberts	[96]
2017	Michael Rosbash	[97]
2002	John Sulston	[98][99]
1937	Albert Szent-Györgyi	[100]
1973	Nikolaas Tinbergen	[101]
1967	George Wald	[102]
1962	James Watson	[103]

Economics

Sen

Year	Laureate	Reference
1976	Milton Friedman	[104]
1994	John Harsanyi	[105]
1974	Friedrich Hayek	[106]
1994	John Forbes Nash, Jr.	[107]
1994	Reinhard Selten	[108]
1998	Amartya Sen
1978	Herbert A. Simon	[109]

Peace

Pauling

Year	Laureate	Reference
1933	Norman Angell	[110]
1908	Klas Pontus Arnoldson	[111]: 151
1990	Mikhail Gorbachev	[112]
1962	Linus Pauling	[65]
1995	Joseph Rotblat	[113]
1975	Andrei Sakharov	[114][115][116]
1986	Elie Wiesel	[117]
1973	Lê Đức Thọ	[118]

Literature

Sartre

Year	Laureate	Reference
1969	Samuel Beckett	[119]
1903	Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson	[120]
1957	Albert Camus	[121]
1997	Dario Fo	[122]
1932	John Galsworthy	[123]
1991	Nadine Gordimer	[124]
1971	Pablo Neruda	[125]
1936	Eugene O'Neill	[111]: 125 [126]
2005	Harold Pinter	[127]
1950	Bertrand Russell	[128]
1998	José Saramago	[129]
1964	Jean-Paul Sartre	[130]
1925	George Bernard Shaw	[111]: 125
1986	Wole Soyinka	[131][132]
1962	John Steinbeck	[133][134]
1996	Wisława Szymborska	[135]
2018	Olga Tokarczuk	[136]
2000	Gao Xingjian	[137]

See also

• List of Christian Nobel laureates
• List of Jewish Nobel laureates
• List of Nobel laureates

Notes

1. Einstein used many labels to describe his religious views, including "agnostic",^[16]: 216 "religious nonbeliever",^[16]: 218 and a believer in "Spinoza's God."^[16]: 204 He was an active participant in various humanist and Ethical Culture groups, including the First Humanist Society of New York and the Rationalist Association (UK).^[17] He disliked labels like "atheist" and "pantheist".^[18] See also Religious and philosophical views of Albert Einstein.