While an invention creates something totally new, a scientific discovery can change our lives by recognising for the first time something that already exists but nobody has noticed before. Some discoveries have transformed the world so radically they’ve won a Nobel prize – the prestigious annual international awards for exceptional work in different fields.
Polish scientist Marie Curie was the first person to win two Nobel prizes – the physics prize in 1903 for discovering radioactivity, and the chemistry accolade in 1911 for discovering the elements radium and polonium.
Albert Einstein, who created the world’s most famous equation, E = mc2, won the Nobel prize in physics in 1921 for discovering what caused the photoelectric effect – emission of electrons when atoms are bombarded with light.
The 1945 Nobel prize in physiology or medicine went to Sir Alexander Fleming and two colleagues – Sir Howard Florey and Ernst Chain – for their discovery of penicillin.
In 1946, American Hermann Muller won the Nobel prize in physiology or medicine for discovering that radiation causes mutations.