Stockholm, Oct 9 (IANS): The 2013 Nobel Prize for Chemistry has gone to three scientists for the development of multi-scale models for complex chemical systems, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said Wednesday.

The prize has been awarded to Martin Karplus (US and Austrian citizen), Michael Levitt (US, British and Israeli citizen), and Arieh Warshel (US and Israeli citizen), Xinhua quoted Staffan Normark, the academy's permanent secretary, as saying.

"Chemists used to create models of molecules using plastic balls and sticks. Today, the modelling is carried out in computers,” the academy said in a statement.

“In the 1970s, Martin Karplus, Michael Levitt and Arieh Warshel laid the foundation for the powerful programmes that are used to understand and predict chemical processes. Computer models mirroring real life have become crucial for most advances made in chemistry today," it added.

This was the third of this year's crop of Nobel Prizes, each prize consisting of a medal, a personal diploma and a cash award of 8 million Swedish kronors (about $1.2 million).

The annual awards are usually announced in October and handed out Dec 10, the death anniversary of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish industrialist and the inventor of dynamite after whom the prizes are named.

All prizes, except the economics award, were established in the will of the Swedish millionaire. The economics award was established by Sweden's central bank in 1968.