[dustintrex]

Nobel's will specified that the prizes were supposed to be handed out for the greatest contributions done during the last 12 months. They've slowly moved away from that, since as your examples demonstrate, it's hard to judge the lasting impact of anything that fast.

[creshal]

Nobel put the same clause in for all the prizes, but in all other categories, this clause was ignored even for the very first Nobel prize in each category: They've been mostly consistent in awarding them as recognition of life works, at most for topics that have been recognized in their field for longer, but were of recent public interest and thus could fall within the 12 months clause based on reporting on such older works that stood the test of time.

The peace prize is the only one that regularly ignores this informal guideline and goes for what must be assumed to be cheap publicity grabs.