The Week Nobel Prizes

PEACE

Rigoberta Menchu, 33, Guatemalan Indian-rights activist whose family was killed in her country's bloody civil war; from Mexico, where she fled in 1981, Menchu has fought against persecution by rightist forces of tens of thousands of Indians. She "stands out as a vivid symbol of peace and reconciliation across ethnic, cultural and social dividing lines," said the citation. (See related story on page 61.)

CHEMISTRY

Rudolph Marcus, 69, Canadian-born researcher at the California Institute of Technology; his theoretical work, done mostly in the 1950s and '60s, describes how and why chemical reactions differ in the speed at which they proceed, based on mathematical analysis of how electrons move and atoms change their positions. His work, according to the citation, "has greatly stimulated experimental developments in chemistry."

MEDICINE

Edmond Fischer, 72, and Edwin Krebs, 74, a scientific team for nearly 40 years, both emeritus professors at the University of Washington in Seattle; a colleague described them as "quintessential gentleman scholars." They were honored for their discovery in the 1950s of a mechanism cells use to regulate a range of metabolic processes. "We stumbled on it," said Fischer. The mechanism, reversible protein phosphorylation, a key to maintaining life in cells, has paved the way for research into cellular phenomena and diseases. Said the citation: "Their fundamental finding initiated a research area which today is one of the most active and wide ranging."

ECONOMIC SCIENCE

Gary Becker, 61, economics and sociology professor at the University of Chicago and Business Week columnist, pioneered the theory that people follow the same rational path whether making simple everyday decisions or complex business calculations. Honored for "extending the sphere of economic analysis to new areas of human behavior and relations," he has influenced demography and criminology with his research.

PHYSICS

Georges Charpak, 68, son of Polish immigrants, who served in the French Resistance in World War II and survived Dachau. A physicist at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, near Geneva since 1959, he was honored for his 1968 work in particle physics and invention of the "multiwire proportional chamber," a tool physicists use to probe the nature of matter. Charpak will use the award for research.