Three European 2007 Nobel prize-winners also recipients of Israeli Wolf Prize

Three European 2007 Nobel prize-winners have also been awarded – and accepted, in other words did not boycott - the prestigious Israeli Wolf Prize. To date, a total of 241 scientists and artists from 21 countries have been awarded the Wolf Prize (created "to promote science for the benefit of mankind"). Laureates receive their awards from the President of the State of Israel at a ceremony at the Knesset (Parliament) in Jerusalem. Gerhard Ertl of Germany was awarded the Wolf Prize in chemistry (shared with Gabor A. Somorjai) in 1989 "for their outstanding contributions to the field of the surface science in general and for their elucidation of fundamental mechanisms of heterogeneous catalytic reactions at single crystal surface in particular." Albert Fert of France and Peter Grünberg of Germany share the Nobel Prize in physics, and were also jointly awarded the Wolf Prize in physics in 2006 "for their independent discovery of the giant magnetoresistance phenomenon (GMR), thereby launching a new field of research and applications known as spintronics, which utilizes the spin of the electron to store and transport information." The Wolf Prizes in physics and chemistry are often considered the most prestigious awards in those fields after the Nobel Prize. In medicine, the prize is probably the third most prestigious, after the Nobel Prize and the Lasker Award. In mathematics, for which there is no Nobel prize, the Wolf Prize is particularly prestigious, second to only the Fields medal.