The highest scientific honour is a Nobel Prize, named after Alfred Nobel – the Swedish chemist who invented dynamite and made a fortune. He set aside most of it to establish prizes for the greatest service to humanity in the field of chemistry, physics, physiology or medicine, literature, and for promoting peace between nations. The Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel was added later.

You can read about Australian Nobel winners of scientific Nobels from this page, and aspire to make a contribution like these scientists have done. You might note that there are no women amongst them, so it's well overdue that an Australian woman climbed this mountain!

You can also read comments from some of our best-known and highly respected scientific personalities from this page, the much-loved Sir Gus Nossal, media science guru Dr Karl Kruselnicki and Dr Colin Taylor, who knows a thing or two about recognising genius in students who study science.

Select some of our 'Top dogs in science' from below:

• Nobel Australians
• The Braggs
• Lord Florey
• Sir Frank Macfarlane Burnet
• Sir John Eccles
• Aleksandr Prokhorov
• Sir Bernard Katz
• Sir John Cornforth
• Dr Peter Doherty
• Sir 'Gus' Nossal
• Dr Karl
• Dr Colin Taylor