Genius, passion, hard work, and a little bit of luck – that’s what we are told sets Nobel prize recipients apart from us mere mortals. But could there be any secret, hidden factors that come into play?

To find out, we’ve sifted through the vital statistics of all the winners since the very first Nobel prizes were awarded in 1901. Does your birth-date matter?

How about which university you ended up at? Or if you are a man (and let’s face facts, history tells us this is most likely to be the case), does having facial hair provide a little edge? Take a look at our infographic and find out.

And if you want to check out the data we used to construct this, you can find it here. (Most computers will open PDF documents automatically, but you may need Adobe Reader, download the reader here.)

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