The Dirac Medal is the name of four

award An award, sometimes called a distinction, is something given to a recipient as a token of recognition of excellence in a certain field. When the token is a medal, ribbon or other item designed for wearing, it is known as a decoration. An awar ...

s in the field of

theoretical physics Theoretical physics is a branch of physics that employs mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects and systems to rationalize, explain and predict natural phenomena. This is in contrast to experimental physics, which uses experim ...

computational chemistry Computational chemistry is a branch of chemistry that uses computer simulation to assist in solving chemical problems. It uses methods of theoretical chemistry, incorporated into computer programs, to calculate the structures and properties of m ...

, and

mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

, awarded by different organizations, named in honour of Professor

Paul Dirac Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac (; 8 August 1902 – 20 October 1984) was an English theoretical physicist who is regarded as one of the most significant physicists of the 20th century. He was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the Univer ...

, one of the great theoretical physicists of the 20th century.

The Dirac Medal and Lecture (University of New South Wales)

The first-established prize is the Dirac Medal for the Advancement of Theoretical Physics, awarded by the

University of New South Wales The University of New South Wales (UNSW), also known as UNSW Sydney, is a public research university based in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is one of the founding members of Group of Eight, a coalition of Australian research-intensive ...

, Sydney, Australia, jointly with the

Australian Institute of Physics The Australian Institute of Physics was established in 1963, when it replaced the Australian Branch of the British Institute of Physics based in London.

on the occasion of the public Dirac Lecture. The Lecture and the Medal commemorate the visit to the university in 1975 of Professor Dirac, who gave five lectures there. These lectures were subsequently published as a book: ''Directions of Physics'' (Wiley, 1978 – H. Hora and J. Shepanski, eds.). Professor Dirac donated the royalties from this book to the University for the establishment of the Dirac Lecture series. The prize, first awarded in 1979, includes a silver medal and honorarium.

Recipients

* 1979:

Hannes Alfvén Hannes Olof Gösta Alfvén (; 30 May 1908 – 2 April 1995) was a Swedish electrical engineer, plasma physicist and winner of the 1970 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on magnetohydrodynamics (MHD). He described the class of MHD waves now ...

* 1981:

John Clive Ward John Clive Ward, (1 August 1924 – 6 May 2000) was a British-Australian physicist. He introduced the Ward–Takahashi identity, also known as "Ward Identity" (or "Ward's Identities"). Andrei Sakharov said Ward was one of the titans of q ...

* 1983:

Nicolaas Bloembergen Nicolaas Bloembergen (March 11, 1920 – September 5, 2017) was a Dutch-American physicist and Nobel laureate, recognized for his work in developing driving principles behind nonlinear optics for laser spectroscopy. During his career, he was a p ...

* 1985:

David Pines David Pines (June 8, 1924 May 3, 2018) was the founding director of the Institute for Complex Adaptive Matter (ICAM) and the International Institute for Complex Adaptive Matter (I2CAM) (respectively, United States-wide and international instit ...

* 1987:

Robert Hofstadter Robert Hofstadter (February 5, 1915 – November 17, 1990) was an American physicist. He was the joint winner of the 1961 Nobel Prize in Physics (together with Rudolf Mössbauer) "for his pioneering studies of electron scattering in atomic nucle ...

* 1988:

Klaus von Klitzing Klaus von Klitzing (, born 28 June 1943, Schroda) is a German physicist, known for discovery of the integer quantum Hall effect, for which he was awarded the 1985 Nobel Prize in Physics. Education In 1962, Klitzing passed the Abitur at the Ar ...

* 1989:

Carlo Rubbia Carlo Rubbia (born 31 March 1934) is an Italian particle physicist and inventor who shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1984 with Simon van der Meer for work leading to the discovery of the W and Z particles at CERN. Early life and education ...

Kenneth G. Wilson Kenneth Geddes "Ken" Wilson (June 8, 1936 – June 15, 2013) was an American theoretical physicist and a pioneer in leveraging computers for studying particle physics. He was awarded the 1982 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on phase ...

* 1990:

Norman F. Ramsey Norman Foster Ramsey Jr. (August 27, 1915 – November 4, 2011) was an American physicist who was awarded the 1989 Nobel Prize in Physics, for the invention of the separated oscillatory field method, which had important applications in the const ...

* 1991:

Herbert A. Hauptman Herbert Aaron Hauptman (February 14, 1917 – October 23, 2011) was an American mathematician and Nobel laureate. He pioneered and developed a mathematical method that has changed the whole field of chemistry and opened a new era in research in ...

* 1992:

Wolfgang Paul Wolfgang Paul (; 10 August 1913 – 7 December 1993) was a German physicist, who co-developed the non-magnetic quadrupole mass filter which laid the foundation for what is now called an ion trap. He shared one-half of the Nobel Prize in Ph ...

* 1996:

Edwin Salpeter Edwin Ernest Salpeter (3 December 1924 – 26 November 2008,) was an Austrian–Australian–American astrophysicist. Life Born in Vienna to a Jewish family, Salpeter emigrated from Austria to Australia while in his teens to escape the Nazis. He ...

* 1998:

David Deutsch David Elieser Deutsch ( ; born 18 May 1953) is a British physicist at the University of Oxford. He is a Visiting Professor in the Department of Atomic and Laser Physics at the Centre for Quantum Computation (CQC) in the Clarendon Laboratory of ...

* 2002:

Heinrich Hora Heinrich Hora (born 1931 in Bodenbach, Czechoslovakia) is a German-Australian theoretical physicist who made contributions to solid state physics, optical properties of plasma with relativistic and quantum effects and nonlinear dynamics with a ...

* 2003: * 2004:

Iosif Khriplovich Iosif Benzionovich Khriplovich () (born 1937) is a Russian theoretical physicist Theoretical physics is a branch of physics that employs mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects and systems to rationalize, explain and predict ...

* 2006:

Sir Roger Penrose Sir Roger Penrose (born 8 August 1931) is an English mathematician, mathematical physicist, philosopher of science and Nobel Laureate in Physics. He is Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics in the University of Oxford, an emeritus fel ...

* 2007:

John Iliopoulos John (Jean) Iliopoulos (Greek: Ιωάννης Ηλιόπουλος; 1940, Kalamata, Greece) is a Greek physicist. He is the first person to present the Standard Model of particle physics in a single report. He is best known for his prediction of ...

* 2008:

Harald Fritzsch Harald Fritzsch (born 10 February 1943 in Zwickau, Germany, died 16 August 2022 in München) was a German theoretical physicist known for his contributions to the theory of quarks, the development of Quantum Chromodynamics and the great unifi ...

* 2010:

E. C. George Sudarshan Ennackal Chandy George Sudarshan (also known as E. C. G. Sudarshan; 16 September 1931 – 13 May 2018) was an Indian American theoretical physicist and a professor at the University of Texas. Sudarshan has been credited with numerous contrib ...

* 2011:

Lord May of Oxford Robert McCredie May, Baron May of Oxford, HonFAIB (8 January 1936 – 28 April 2020) was an Australian scientist who was Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Government, President of the Royal Society, and a professor at the University of Sydne ...

* 2012:

Brian Schmidt Brian Paul Schmidt (born 24 February 1967) is the Vice-Chancellor of the Australian National University (ANU). He was previously a Distinguished Professor, Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow and astrophysicist at the University's Mo ...

* 2013:

Sir Michael Pepper Sir Michael Pepper (born 10 August 1942) is a British physicist notable for his work in semiconductor nanostructures. Early life Pepper was born on 10 August 1942 to Morris and Ruby Pepper. He was educated at St Marylebone Grammar School, a g ...

* 2014:

Serge Haroche Serge Haroche (born 11 September 1944) is a French-Moroccan physicist who was awarded the 2012 Nobel Prize for Physics jointly with David J. Wineland for "ground-breaking experimental methods that enable measuring and manipulation of individual q ...

* 2015:

Subir Sachdev Subir Sachdev is Herchel Smith Professor of Physics at Harvard University specializing in condensed matter. He was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 2014, and received the Lars Onsager Prize from the American Physical Society ...

* 2016: Kenneth Freeman * 2017:

Boris Altshuler Boris Leonidovich Altshuler (russian: Бори́с Леонидович Альтшу́лер, born 27 January 1955, Saint Petersburg, Leningrad, Soviet Union, USSR) is a professor of theoretical physics at Columbia University. His specialty is the ...

* 2019:

Lene Hau Lene Vestergaard Hau (; born November 13, 1959) is a Danish physicist and educator. She is the Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics and of Applied Physics at Harvard University. In 1999, she led a Harvard University team who, by use of a Bose–E ...

* 2020: Susan Scott

Dirac Medal of the ICTP

The Dirac Medal of the ICTP is given each year by the

Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) is an international research institute for physical and mathematical sciences that operates under a tripartite agreement between the Italian Government, United Nations Education ...

(ICTP) in honour of

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate caus ...

. The award, announced each year on 8 August (Dirac's birthday), was first awarded in 1985. An international committee of distinguished scientists selects the winners from a list of nominated candidates. The Committee invites nominations from scientists working in the fields of theoretical physics or mathematics. The Dirac Medal of the ICTP is not awarded to

Nobel Laureates The Nobel Prizes ( sv, Nobelpriset, no, Nobelprisen) are awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Swedish Academy, the Karolinska Institutet, and the Norwegian Nobel Committee to individuals and organizations who make ou ...

Fields Medal The Fields Medal is a prize awarded to two, three, or four mathematicians under 40 years of age at the International Congress of the International Mathematical Union (IMU), a meeting that takes place every four years. The name of the award ho ...

ists, or

Wolf Prize The Wolf Prize is an international award granted in Israel, that has been presented most years since 1978 to living scientists and artists for ''"achievements in the interest of mankind and friendly relations among people ... irrespective of natio ...

winners. However, several Dirac Medallists have subsequently won one of these awards. The medallists receive a prize of US$5,000.

Recipients

* 1985:

Edward Witten Edward Witten (born August 26, 1951) is an American mathematical and theoretical physicist. He is a Professor Emeritus in the School of Natural Sciences at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. Witten is a researcher in string theory, q ...

, Yakov Zel'dovich * 1986: Alexander Polyakov,

Yoichiro Nambu was a Japanese-American physicist and professor at the University of Chicago. Known for his contributions to the field of theoretical physics, he was awarded half of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2008 for the discovery in 1960 of the mechanism ...

* 1987:

Bruno Zumino Bruno Zumino (28 April 1923 − 21 June 2014) was an Italian theoretical physicist and faculty member at the University of California, Berkeley. He obtained his DSc degree from the University of Rome in 1945. He was renowned for his rigorous pro ...

Bryce DeWitt Bryce Seligman DeWitt (January 8, 1923 – September 23, 2004), was an American theoretical physicist noted for his work in gravitation and quantum field theory. Life He was born Carl Bryce Seligman, but he and his three brothers, including ...

* 1988:

David J. Gross David Jonathan Gross (; born February 19, 1941) is an American theoretical physicist and string theorist. Along with Frank Wilczek and David Politzer, he was awarded the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physics for their discovery of asymptotic freedom. Gr ...

, Efim S. Fradkin * 1989:

John H. Schwarz John Henry Schwarz (; born November 22, 1941) is an American theoretical physicist. Along with Yoichiro Nambu, Holger Bech Nielsen, Joël Scherk, Gabriele Veneziano, Michael Green, and Leonard Susskind, he is regarded as one of the founders of s ...

, Michael Green * 1990:

Ludwig Faddeev Ludvig Dmitrievich Faddeev (also ''Ludwig Dmitriyevich''; russian: Лю́двиг Дми́триевич Фадде́ев; 23 March 1934 – 26 February 2017) was a Soviet and Russian mathematical physicist. He is known for the discovery of the ...

Sidney R. Coleman Sidney Richard Coleman (7 March 1937 – 18 November 2007) was an American theoretical physicist noted for his research in high-energy theoretical physics. Life and work Sidney Coleman grew up on the Far North Side of Chicago (''C ...

* 1991:

Jeffrey Goldstone Jeffrey Goldstone (born 3 September 1933) is a British theoretical physicist and an ''emeritus'' physics faculty member at the MIT Center for Theoretical Physics. He worked at the University of Cambridge until 1977. He is famous for the discove ...

Stanley Mandelstam Stanley Mandelstam (; 12 December 1928 – 23 June 2016) was a South African theoretical physicist. He introduced the relativistically invariant Mandelstam variables into particle physics in 1958 as a convenient coordinate system for formulating ...

* 1992:

Nikolai Bogoliubov Nikolay Nikolayevich Bogolyubov (russian: Никола́й Никола́евич Боголю́бов; 21 August 1909 – 13 February 1992), also transliterated as Bogoliubov and Bogolubov, was a Soviet and Russian mathematician and theoretica ...

Yakov G. Sinai Yakov Grigorevich Sinai (russian: link=no, Я́ков Григо́рьевич Сина́й; born September 21, 1935) is a Russian-American mathematician known for his work on dynamical systems. He contributed to the modern metric theory of dy ...

* 1993:

Daniel Z. Freedman Daniel Zissel Freedman (born 1939 in Hartford, Connecticut) is an American theoretical physicist. He is an Emeritus Professor of Physics and Applied Mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and is currently a visiting profe ...

Peter van Nieuwenhuizen Peter van Nieuwenhuizen (; born October 26, 1938) is a Dutch physicist. He is now a distinguished Professor at Stony Brook University in the United States. Van Nieuwenhuizen is best known for his discovery of supergravity with Sergio Ferrara ...

Sergio Ferrara Sergio Ferrara (born May 2, 1945) is an Italian physicist working on theoretical physics of elementary particles and mathematical physics. He is renowned for the discovery of theories introducing supersymmetry as a symmetry of elementary particles ...

* 1994:

Frank Wilczek Frank Anthony Wilczek (; born May 15, 1951) is an American theoretical physicist, mathematician and Nobel laureate. He is currently the Herman Feshbach Professor of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Founding Direct ...

* 1995: Michael Berry * 1996:

Martinus J.G. Veltman Martinus Justinus Godefriedus "Tini" Veltman (; 27 June 1931 – 4 January 2021) was a Dutch theoretical physicist. He shared the 1999 Nobel Prize in physics with his former PhD student Gerardus 't Hooft for their work on particle theory. Biogr ...

Tullio Regge Tullio Eugenio Regge (; July 11, 1931 – October 23, 2014) was an Italian theoretical physicist. Biography Regge obtained the ''laurea'' in physics from the University of Turin in 1952 under the direction of Mario Verde and Gleb Wataghin, and ...

* 1997:

David Olive David Ian Olive ( ; 16 April 1937 – 7 November 2012) was a British theoretical physicist. Olive made fundamental contributions to string theory and duality theory, he is particularly known for his work on the GSO projection and Montonen–Ol ...

, Peter Goddard * 1998:

Roman Jackiw Roman Wladimir Jackiw (; born 8 November 1939) is a theoretical physicist and Dirac Medallist. Born in Lubliniec, Poland in 1939 to a Ukrainian family, the family later moved to Austria and Germany before settling in New York City when Jackiw w ...

, Stephen L. Adler * 1999:

Giorgio Parisi Giorgio Parisi (born 4 August 1948) is an Italian theoretical physicist, whose research has focused on quantum field theory, statistical mechanics and complex systems. His best known contributions are the QCD evolution equations for parton densit ...

* 2000:

Helen Quinn Helen Rhoda Arnold Quinn (born 19 May 1943) is an Australian-born particle physicist and educator who has made major contributions to both fields. Her contributions to theoretical physics include the Peccei–Quinn theory which implies a corres ...

Howard Georgi Howard Mason Georgi III (born January 6, 1947) is an American theoretical physicist and the Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics and Harvard College Professor at Harvard University. He is also Director of Undergraduate Studies in Physics. He was Co-M ...

Jogesh Pati Jogesh C. Pati (born 1937) is an Indian American theoretical physicist at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. Biography Jogesh Pati started his schooling at Guru Training School, Baripada and then admitted to M.K.C High School where he ...

* 2001:

John Hopfield John Joseph Hopfield (born July 15, 1933) is an American scientist most widely known for his invention of an associative neural network in 1982. It is now more commonly known as the Hopfield network. Biography Hopfield was born in 1933 to Pol ...

* 2002:

Alan Guth Alan Harvey Guth (; born February 27, 1947) is an American theoretical physicist and cosmologist. Guth has researched elementary particle theory (and how particle theory is applicable to the early universe). He is Victor Weisskopf Professor of ...

Andrei Linde Andrei Dmitriyevich Linde (russian: Андре́й Дми́триевич Ли́нде; born March 2, 1948) is a Russian-American theoretical physicist and the Harald Trap Friis Professor of Physics at Stanford University. Linde is one of the ...

Paul Steinhardt Paul Joseph Steinhardt (born December 25, 1952) is an American theoretical physicist whose principal research is in cosmology and condensed matter physics. He is currently the Albert Einstein Professor in Science at Princeton University, where he ...

* 2003:

Robert Kraichnan Robert Harry Kraichnan (; January 15, 1928 – February 26, 2008), a resident of Santa Fe, New Mexico, was an American theoretical physicist best known for his work on the theory of fluid turbulence. Life Kraichnan received his B.S. and Ph.D ...

Vladimir E. Zakharov Vladimir Evgen'evich Zakharov (russian: Влади́мир Евге́ньевич Заха́ров; born August 1, 1939) is a USSR, Soviet and Russians, Russian mathematician and physicist. He is currently Regents' Professor of mathematics at The ...

* 2004:

Curtis Callan Curtis Gove Callan Jr. (born October 11, 1942) is an American theoretical physicist and the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor of Physics at Princeton University. He has conducted research in gauge theory, string theory, inst ...

James Bjorken James Daniel "BJ" Bjorken (born 1934) is an American theoretical physicist. He was a Putnam Fellow in 1954, received a BS in physics from MIT in 1956, and obtained his PhD from Stanford University in 1959. He was a visiting scholar at the Insti ...

* 2005:

Patrick A. Lee Patrick A. Lee (born 8 September 1946, British Hong Kong) is a professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). After spending ten years with the Theoretical Physics Department at Bell Laboratories, Lee joined MIT in 19 ...

, Sir Samuel Frederick Edwards * 2006:

Peter Zoller Peter may refer to: People * List of people named Peter, a list of people and fictional characters with the given name * Peter (given name) ** Saint Peter (died 60s), apostle of Jesus, leader of the early Christian Church * Peter (surname), a su ...

* 2007:

Jean Iliopoulos John (Jean) Iliopoulos (Greek: Ιωάννης Ηλιόπουλος; 1940, Kalamata, Greece) is a Greek physicist. He is the first person to present the Standard Model of particle physics in a single report. He is best known for his prediction of ...

Luciano Maiani Luciano Maiani (born 16 July 1941, in Rome) is a Sammarinese physicist best known for his prediction of the charm quark with Sheldon Glashow and John Iliopoulos (the "GIM mechanism"). Academic history In 1964 Luciano Maiani received his degree in ...

* 2008: Joe Polchinski,

Juan Maldacena Juan Martín Maldacena (born September 10, 1968) is an Argentine theoretical physicist and the Carl P. Feinberg Professor in the School of Natural Sciences at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. He has made significant contributions to t ...

Cumrun Vafa Cumrun Vafa ( fa, کامران وفا ; born 1 August 1960) is an Iranian-American theoretical physicist and the Hollis Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy at Harvard University. Early life and education Cumrun Vafa was born in Tehran ...

* 2009:

Roberto Car Roberto Car (born 3 January 1947 in Trieste) is an Italian physicist and the Ralph W. Dornte *31 Professor in Chemistry at Princeton University, where he is also a faculty member in the Princeton Institute for the Science and Technology of Materia ...

Michele Parrinello Michele Parrinello (born 7 September 1945, Messina) is an Italian physicist particularly known for his work in molecular dynamics (the computer simulation of physical movements of atoms and molecules). Parrinello and Roberto Car were awarded the ...

* 2010:

Nicola Cabibbo Nicola Cabibbo (10 April 1935 – 16 August 2010) was an Italian physicist, best known for his work on the weak interaction. Life Cabibbo, son of a Sicilian lawyer, was born in Rome. He graduated in theoretical physics at the Università di Rom ...

George Sudarshan Ennackal Chandy George Sudarshan (also known as E. C. G. Sudarshan; 16 September 1931 – 13 May 2018) was an Indian American theoretical physicist and a professor at the University of Texas. Sudarshan has been credited with numerous contrib ...

* 2011:

Édouard Brézin Édouard Brézin (; born 1 December 1938 Paris) is a French theoretical physicist. He is professor at Université Paris 6, working at the laboratory for theoretical physics (LPT) of the École Normale Supérieure since 1986. Biography Brézin ...

John Cardy John Lawrence Cardy FRS (born 19 March 1947, England)Guggenheim Foundation: Annual Report 1985. is a British-American theoretical physicist at the University of California, Berkeley. He is best known for his work in theoretical condensed matter ...

Alexander Zamolodchikov Alexander Borisovich Zamolodchikov (russian: Алекса́ндр Бори́сович Замоло́дчиков; born September 18, 1952) is a Russian physicist, known for his contributions to condensed matter physics, two-dimensional conformal ...

* 2012:

Duncan Haldane Frederick Duncan Michael Haldane One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where: (born 14 September 1951), known as F. Duncan Haldane, is a British-born physicist who is currently the Sherman ...

, Charles Kane,

Shoucheng Zhang Shoucheng Zhang (; February 15, 1963 – December 1, 2018) was a Chinese-American physicist who was the JG Jackson and CJ Wood professor of physics at Stanford University. He was a condensed matter theorist known for his work on topological ins ...

* 2013:

Tom W. B. Kibble Sir Thomas Walter Bannerman Kibble (; 23 December 1932 – 2 June 2016) was a British Theoretical physics, theoretical physicist, senior research investigator at the Blackett Laboratory and Emeritus Professor of Theoretical Physics at Imperial ...

Jim Peebles Phillip James Edwin Peebles (born April 25, 1935) is a Canadian-American astrophysicist, astronomer, and theoretical cosmologist who is currently the Albert Einstein Professor in Science, Emeritus, at Princeton University. He is widely regard ...

, Martin John Rees * 2014:

Ashoke Sen Ashoke Sen FRS (; born 1956) is an Indian theoretical physicist and distinguished professor at the Harish-Chandra Research Institute, Allahabad. He is also an honorary fellow in National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER), Bhu ...

Andrew Strominger Andrew Eben Strominger (; born 1955) is an American theoretical physicist who is the director of Harvard's Center for the Fundamental Laws of Nature. He has made significant contributions to quantum gravity and string theory. These include his w ...

Gabriele Veneziano Gabriele Veneziano (; ; born 7 September 1942) is an Italian theoretical physicist widely considered the father of string theory. He has conducted most of his scientific activities at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland, and held the Chair of Elementa ...

* 2015:

Alexei Kitaev Alexei Yurievich Kitaev (russian: Алексей Юрьевич Китаев; born August 26, 1963) is a Russian–American professor of physics at the California Institute of Technology and permanent member of the Kavli Institute for Theoretical ...

, Greg Moore,

Nicholas Read Nicholas Read is an American physicist, noted for his work on strongly interacting quantum many-body systems. Biography Read was born in Britain in 1958 and did his undergraduate education at Cambridge University. He completed his PhD at the ...

* 2016:

Nathan Seiberg Nathan "Nati" Seiberg (; born September 22, 1956) is an Israeli American theoretical physicist who works on quantum field theory and string theory. He is currently a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, United ...

Mikhail Shifman Mikhail "Misha" Arkadyevich Shifman (russian: Михаи́л Арка́дьевич Ши́фман; born 4 April 1949) is a theoretical physicist (high energy physics), formerly at Institute for Theoretical and Experimental Physics, Moscow, Ida ...

Arkady Vainshtein Arkady Vainshtein (russian: Аркáдий Иóсифович Вайнштéйн; born 24 February 1942) is a Russian and American Professor Emeritus of Theoretical physics who was awarded Pomeranchuk Prize (2005) and Sakurai Prize (1999) for theor ...

* 2017: Charles H. Bennett,

, Peter W. Shor * 2018:

, Dam Thanh Son,

Xiao-Gang Wen Xiao-Gang Wen (; born November 26, 1961) is a Chinese-American physicist. He is a Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Distinguished Visiting Research Chair at the Perimeter Institute for Theor ...

* 2019:

Viatcheslav Mukhanov Viatcheslav Fyodorovich Mukhanov (russian: Вячесла́в Фёдорович Муха́нов; born October 2, 1956) is a Soviet/Russian born German theoretical physicist and cosmologist. He is best known for the theory of Quantum Origin of th ...

Alexei Starobinsky Alexei Alexandrovich Starobinsky (russian: Алексе́й Алекса́ндрович Староби́нский; born 19 April 1948) is a Soviet and Russian astrophysicist and cosmologist. He received the Kavli Prize in Astrophysics "for p ...

Rashid Sunyaev Rashid Alievich Sunyaev ( tt-Cyrl, Рәшит Гали улы Сөнәев, russian: Раши́д Али́евич Сюня́ев; born 1 March 1943 in Tashkent, USSR) is a Germany, German, Soviet Union, Soviet, and Russia, Russian astrophysicist ...

* 2020:

André Neveu André Neveu (; born 28 August 1946) is a French physicist working on string theory and quantum field theory who coinvented the Neveu–Schwarz algebra and the Gross–Neveu model. Biography Neveu studied in Paris at the École Normale Supér ...

Pierre Ramond Pierre Ramond (; born 31 January 1943) is distinguished professor of physics at University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida. He initiated the development of superstring theory. Academic career Ramond completed his BSEE from Newark College of E ...

, Miguel Virasoro * 2021:

Alessandra Buonanno Alessandra Buonanno is an Italian naturalized-American theoretical physicist and director at the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute) in Potsdam. She is the head of the "Astrophysical and Cosmological Rela ...

Thibault Damour Thibault Damour (; born 7 February 1951) is a French physicist. He was a permanent professor in theoretical physics at the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques (IHÉS) from 1989 to 2022. Since then, he is professor emeritus. An expert in g ...

, Frans Pretorius,

Saul Teukolsky Saul Arno Teukolsky (born August 2, 1947) is a theoretical astrophysicist and a professor of Physics and Astronomy at Caltech and Cornell University. His major research interests include general relativity, relativistic astrophysics, and computa ...

* 2022: Joel L. Lebowitz,

Elliott H. Lieb Elliott Hershel Lieb (born July 31, 1932) is an American mathematical physics#Mathematically rigorous physics, mathematical physicist and professor of mathematics and physics at Princeton University who specializes in statistical mechanics, Cond ...

, David P. Ruelle

Dirac Medal of the IOP

The Dirac Medal is a gold medal awarded annually by the

Institute of Physics The Institute of Physics (IOP) is a UK-based learned society and professional body that works to advance physics education, research and application. It was founded in 1874 and has a worldwide membership of over 20,000. The IOP is the Physica ...

(Britain's and Ireland's main professional body for physicists) for "outstanding contributions to theoretical (including mathematical and computational) physics". The award, which includes a £1000 prize, was decided upon by the Institute of Physics in 1985, and first granted in 1987.

Recipients

* 1987: Stephen Hawking * 1988:

John Stewart Bell John Stewart Bell FRS (28 July 1928 – 1 October 1990) was a physicist from Northern Ireland and the originator of Bell's theorem, an important theorem in quantum physics regarding hidden-variable theories. In 2022, the Nobel Prize in Phy ...

* 1989:

Roger Penrose Sir Roger Penrose (born 8 August 1931) is an English mathematician, mathematical physicist, philosopher of science and Nobel Laureate in Physics. He is Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics in the University of Oxford, an emeritus fello ...

* 1990: Michael Berry * 1991:

Rudolf Peierls Sir Rudolf Ernst Peierls, (; ; 5 June 1907 – 19 September 1995) was a German-born British physicist who played a major role in Tube Alloys, Britain's nuclear weapon programme, as well as the subsequent Manhattan Project, the combined Allied ...

* 1992:

Anthony Leggett Sir Anthony James Leggett (born 26 March 1938) is a British-American theoretical physicist and professor emeritus at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Leggett is widely recognised as a world leader in the theory of low-temperatur ...

* 1993:

David Thouless David James Thouless (; 21 September 1934 – 6 April 2019) was a British condensed-matter physicist. He was the winner of the 1990 Wolf Prize and a laureate of the 2016 Nobel Prize for physics along with F. Duncan M. Haldane and J. Michael Ko ...

* 1994:

Volker Heine Volker Heine FRS (born 19 September 1930 in Hamburg, Germany) is a New Zealand / British physicist. He is married to Daphne and they have three children. Volker Heine is considered a pioneer of theoretical and computational studies of the electr ...

* 1995: Daniel Walls * 1996:

John Pendry Sir John Brian Pendry, (born 4 July 1943) is an English theoretical physicist known for his research into refractive indices and creation of the first practical "Invisibility, Invisibility Cloak". He is a professor of theoretical solid state ph ...

* 1997:

Peter Higgs Peter Ware Higgs (born 29 May 1929) is a British theoretical physicist, Emeritus Professor in the University of Edinburgh,Griggs, Jessica (Summer 2008The Missing Piece ''Edit'' the University of Edinburgh Alumni Magazine, p. 17 and Nobel Prize ...

* 1998:

* 1999:

Ian Percival Sir Walter Ian Percival QC (11 May 1921 – 4 April 1998) was a British Conservative Party politician. Background Percival was educated at Latymer Upper School and St Catharine's College, Cambridge. He was commissioned from Sandhurst into The ...

* 2000:

* 2001:

Brian Ridley Brian Kidd Ridley (born 2 March 1931) is a British solid-state physics, solid-state physicist specialising in semiconductor theory. He is an emeritus professor at the University of Essex. Education Ridley was educated at the University of Dur ...

* 2002: * 2003: Christopher Hull * 2004: Michael Green * 2005: John Ellis (

CERN The European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN (; ; ), is an intergovernmental organization that operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. Established in 1954, it is based in a northwestern suburb of Gene ...

)
''For his highly influential work on particle physics phenomenology; in particular on the properties of gluons, the Higgs boson and the top quark.'' * 2006: (

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

)
''For his contributions to the development of atomic-scale computer simulations, which have greatly extended their power and effectiveness across an immense range of applications.'' * 2007: David Sherrington (

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

)
''For his pioneering work in spin glasses.'' * 2008:

Bryan Webber Bryan Ronald Webber, FRS, FInstP (born 25 July 1943) is a British physicist and academic. He was a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge from 1973 to 2010, and Professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of Cambridge from 1999 to 2010. H ...

(

University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

)
''For his pioneering work in understanding and applying quantum chromodynamics (QCD), the theory of the strong interaction which is one of the three fundamental forces of Nature.'' * 2009:

Michael Cates Michael Elmhirst Cates (born 5 May 1961) is a British physicist. He is the 19th Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge and has held this position since 1 July 2015. He was previously Professor of Natural Philosophy at ...

(

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 15 ...

)
''For pioneering work in the theoretical physics of soft materials, particularly in relation to their flow behaviour.'' * 2010:

James Binney James Jeffrey Binney, FRS, FInstP (born 12 April 1950) is a British astrophysicist. He is a professor of physics at the University of Oxford and former head of the Sub-Department of Theoretical Physics as well as an Emeritus Fellow of Merto ...

(

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

)
''For his contribution to our understanding of how galaxies are constituted, how they work and how they were formed.'' * 2011:

Christopher Isham Christopher Isham (; born 28 April 1944), usually cited as Chris J. Isham, is a theoretical physicist at Imperial College London. Research Isham's main research interests are quantum gravity and foundational studies in quantum theory. He was ...

(

Imperial College London Imperial College London (legally Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom. Its history began with Prince Albert, consort of Queen Victoria, who developed his vision for a cu ...

)
''For his major contributions to the search for a consistent quantum theory of gravity and to the foundations of quantum mechanics.'' * 2012: Graham Garland Ross (

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

)
''For his theoretical work in developing both the Standard Model of fundamental particles and forces and theories beyond the Standard Model that have led to many new insights into the origins and nature of the universe.'' * 2013: (

University of Strathclyde The University of Strathclyde ( gd, Oilthigh Shrath Chluaidh) is a public research university located in Glasgow, Scotland. Founded in 1796 as the Andersonian Institute, it is Glasgow's second-oldest university, having received its royal chart ...

)
''For his wide ranging contributions throughout optics research, which both inspire and lead experimental endeavours.'' * 2014:

Tim Palmer Timothy J. Palmer (born 4 October 1962, in North Shields) is an English record producer, audio engineer, guitarist and songwriter of rock music, rock and alternative rock, alternative music. He Audio mixing (recorded music), mixed Pearl Jam's d ...

(

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

)
''For the development of probabilistic weather and climate prediction systems.'' * 2015: John Barrow (

)
''For his combination of mathematical and physical reasoning to increase our understanding of the evolution of the universe, and his use of cosmology to increase our understanding of fundamental physics.'' * 2016:

Sandu Popescu Sandu Popescu (born 1956 in Oradea, Romania) is a Romanian-British physicist working in the Quantum foundations, foundations of quantum mechanics and quantum information. Career and research Popescu has been Professor of Physics at the Univer ...

(

University of Bristol , mottoeng = earningpromotes one's innate power (from Horace, ''Ode 4.4'') , established = 1595 – Merchant Venturers School1876 – University College, Bristol1909 – received royal charter , type ...

)
''For his fundamental and influential research into nonlocality and his contribution to the foundations of quantum physics.'' * 2017: Michael Duff (

and

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

)
''For sustained groundbreaking contributions to theoretical physics including the discovery of Weyl anomalies, for having pioneered Kaluza-Klein supergravity, and for recognising that superstrings in 10 dimensions are merely a special case of membranes in an 11-dimensional M-theory.'' * 2018: ,

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

for "his pioneering, deep, and distinctive contributions to condensed-matter theory, particularly in the quantum Hall effect, and to geometrically frustrated magnets." * 2019: Richard Keith Ellis,

University of Durham Durham University (legally the University of Durham) is a collegiate university, collegiate public university, public research university in Durham, England, Durham, England, founded by an Act of Parliament in 1832 and incorporated by royal charte ...

for "his seminal work in quantum chromodynamics (QCD) where he performed many of the key calculations that led to the acceptance of QCD as the correct theory of the strong interaction." * 2020:

Carlos Frenk Carlos Silvestre Frenk (born 27 October 1951) is a Mexican-British cosmologist and the Ogden Professor of Fundamental Physics at Durham University.University of Durham Department of PhysicsResearch in the Department: Status and Outlook March ...

for "outstanding contributions to establishing the current standard model for the formation of all cosmic structure, and for leading computational cosmology within the UK for more than three decades." * 2021:

Steven Balbus Steven Andrew Balbus FRS (born 23 November 1953) is an American-born astrophysicist who is the Savilian Professor of Astronomy at the University of Oxford and a professorial fellow at New College, Oxford. In 2013, he shared the Shaw Prize fo ...

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

for "fundamental contributions to the theory of accretion-disc turbulence and the dynamical stability of astrophysical fluids, breaking new ground by establishing the critical role played by weak magnetic fields."

Dirac Medal of the WATOC

The Dirac Medal is awarded annually by The

World Association of Theoretical and Computational Chemists The World Association of Theoretical and Computational Chemists (WATOC) is a scholarly association founded in 1982 "in order to encourage the development and application of theoretical methods" in chemistry, particularly theoretical chemistry and c ...

"for the outstanding computational chemist in the world under the age of 40". The award was first granted in 1998.

Recipients

Source
WATOC
* 1998: Timothy J. Lee * 1999: Peter M. W. Gill * 2000: Jiali Gao * 2001: Martin Kaupp * 2002: Jerzy Cioslowski * 2003:

Peter Schreiner Peter Richard Schreiner (born 17 November 1965 in Nuremberg, Germany) is a German chemist who is a professor at Justus Liebig University Giessen. , his h-index is 73. Career Schreiner studied at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, where he rec ...

* 2004: Jan Martin * 2005: Ursula Röthlisberger * 2006: Lucas Visscher * 2007:

Anna Krylov Anna I. Krylov (Russian: Анна Игоревна Крылова) is a Professor of Chemistry at the University of Southern California (USC), working in the field of theoretical and computational quantum chemistry. She is the inventor of the s ...

* 2008:

Kenneth Ruud Kenneth Ruud (born 16 September 1969) is a Norwegian chemist. He is a professor of chemistry at the University of Tromsø. He is author or coauthor of more than 150 scientific articles and director of the Centre for Theoretical and Computationa ...

* 2009: Jeremy Harvey * 2010: Daniel Crawford * 2011: Leticia González * 2012: Paul Ayers * 2013: Filipp Furche * 2014: Denis Jacquemin * 2015: Edward Valeev * 2016: Johannes Neugebauer * 2017: Francesco Evangelista * 2018:

Erin Johnson Erin Johnson is a Canadian computational chemist. She holds the Herzberg–Becke Chair at Dalhousie University. She works on density functional theory and intermolecular interactions. Education and early career Johnson is from Ottawa, Canada ...

* 2019: Satoshi Maeda

References

{{reflist Physics awards Awards of the Institute of Physics Australian science and technology awards British science and technology awards Awards established in 1921

The Dirac Medal and Lecture (University of New South Wales)

Recipients

Dirac Medal of the ICTP

Recipients

Dirac Medal of the IOP

Recipients

Dirac Medal of the WATOC

Recipients

See also

References