Arieh Warshel in December 2013. File photo by Bengt Nyman, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
2013Nobel Prizes
Kibbutz-born Arieh Warshel and Michael Levitt share the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
The prize announced on 9 October 2013 honours multiscale models for complex chemical systems, shared with Martin Karplus.
The story in numbers.
3
laureates share the prize
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37years
from the 1976 model to the prize
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8million kronor
prize amount, shared equally
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Here is how it happened.
1962
A kibbutz-born student starts chemistry at the Technion.
Arieh Warshel is born in 1940 at Kibbutz Sde Nahum in the Beit She'an Valley. He says he chose chemistry rather randomly.
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The Golem computer at the Weizmann Institute. File photo by יובל מדר, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
1966
He talks his way into a group at the Weizmann Institute.
Professor Shneior Lifson says he will accept no students, and Warshel convinces him with his grades. He works on molecular models using the institute's Golem computer.
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1970
Warshel brings his classical program to Martin Karplus at Harvard.
Karplus's group simulates chemistry with quantum physics. The Academy says their joint work was the first chemically relevant collaboration between classical and quantum physics.
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1972
Warshel reunites with Michael Levitt to study enzymes.
The two had built a program together at the Weizmann Institute. They aim for a program that can model enzymes, the proteins that control the chemistry of the living body.
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1976
They publish the first computerized model of an enzymatic reaction.
Their program works for any kind of molecule, so size is no longer an issue. Levitt has moved back to Cambridge, and Warshel has joined him there.
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Michael Levitt at the Nobel press conference in Stockholm. File photo by Bengt Nyman from Vaxholm, Sweden, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
9 October 2013
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announces the prize.
It goes to Karplus, Levitt and Warshel for the development of multiscale models for complex chemical systems. Warshel holds US and Israeli citizenship, and Levitt holds US, British and Israeli citizenship.
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More pictures from this story.
Arieh Warshel at the Nobel events in Stockholm. File photo by Bengt Nyman from Vaxholm, Sweden, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Arieh Warshel at the Nobel events in Stockholm
Here is why it matters.
The three laureates made Newton's classical physics work alongside quantum physics, which chemists previously had to choose between. The Academy says the computer is now as important a tool for chemists as the test tube.
Three more milestones to read next.
Ada Yonath. File photo by Miki Koren, Weizmann Institute of Science, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
2009
Weizmann Institute's Ada Yonath wins the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Read the story
Dan Shechtman. File photo by Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
2011
Technion's Dan Shechtman wins the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Read the story
Aaron Ciechanover. File photo by Bengt Oberger, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
2004
Technion's Aaron Ciechanover and Avram Hershko win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Read the story
Where each fact was read.
Sources read on 1 November 2026.