The Max Planck medal is the highest award of the German Physical Society , the world's largest organization of physicists, for extraordinary achievements in

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 ...

. The prize has been awarded annually since 1929, with few exceptions, and usually to a single person. The winner is awarded with a gold medal and hand-written parchment. In 1943 it was not possible to manufacture the gold medal because the

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

foundry was hit by a bomb. The board of directors of the German Physical Society decided to manufacture the medals in a substitute metal and to deliver the gold medals later. The highest award of the German Physical Society for outstanding results in experimental physics is the Stern–Gerlach Medal.

List of recipients

*2023 Rashid A. Sunyaev *2022 Annette Zippelius *2021

Alexander Markovich Polyakov Alexander is a male given name. The most prominent bearer of the name is Alexander the Great, the king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia who created one of the largest empires in ancient history. Variants listed here are Aleksandar, Al ...

*2020 Andrzej Buras *2019 Detlef Lohse *2018 Juan Ignacio Cirac *2017

Herbert Spohn Herbert Spohn (born 1 November 1946) is a German mathematician and mathematical physicist working in kinetic equations; dynamics of stochastic particle systems, hydrodynamic limit; kinetic of growths processes; disordered systems; open quantum sy ...

*2016 Herbert Wagner *2015

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 ...

*2014

David Ruelle David Pierre Ruelle (; born 20 August 1935) is a Belgian mathematical physicist, naturalized French. He has worked on statistical physics and dynamical systems. With Floris Takens, Ruelle coined the term '' strange attractor'', and developed a ...

*2013 Werner Nahm *2012 Martin Zirnbauer *2011

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 de ...

*2010 Dieter Vollhardt *2009 Robert Graham *2008 Detlev Buchholz *2007

Joel Lebowitz Joel Louis Lebowitz (born May 10, 1930) is a mathematical physicist widely acknowledged for his outstanding contributions to statistical physics, statistical mechanics and many other fields of Mathematics and Physics. Lebowitz has published m ...

*2006

Wolfgang Götze Wolfgang Götze (born 11 July 1937 – 20 October 2021) was a German theoretical physicist. He began his physics education at Humboldt University of Berlin and the Free University of Berlin, after which he obtained his doctorate at the Technical ...

*2005 Peter Zoller *2004 Klaus Hepp *2003 Martin Gutzwiller *2002

Jürgen Ehlers Jürgen Ehlers (; 29 December 1929 – 20 May 2008) was a German physicist who contributed to the understanding of Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity. From graduate and postgraduate work in Pascual Jordan's relativity research group ...

*2001 Jürg Fröhlich *2000 Martin Lüscher *1999 Pierre Hohenberg *1998

Raymond Stora Raymond Félix Stora (18 September 1930 – 20 July 2015) was a French theoretical physicist. He was a research director at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), as well as a member of CERN's theory group. His work focused ...

*1997 Gerald E. Brown *1996

Ludvig 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 ...

*1995 Siegfried Grossmann *1994 Hans-Jürgen Borchers *1993

Kurt Binder Kurt Binder (10 February 1944 – 27 September 2022) was an Austrian theoretical physicist. He received his Ph.D. in 1969 at the Technical University of Vienna, and his habilitation degree 1973 at the Technical University of Munich. He decided t ...

*1992 Elliott H. Lieb *1991 Wolfhart Zimmermann *1990 Hermann Haken *1989

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 p ...

*1988

Valentine Bargmann Valentine "Valya" Bargmann (April 6, 1908 – July 20, 1989) was a German-American mathematician and theoretical physicist. Biography Born in Berlin, Germany, to a German Jewish family, Bargmann studied there from 1925 to 1933. After the National ...

*1987 Julius Wess *1986

Franz Wegner Franz Joachim Wegner (born 15 June 1940) is emeritus professor for theoretical physics at the University of Heidelberg. Education Franz Wegner attained a doctorate in 1968 with thesis advisor Wilhelm Brenig at the Technical University Munich with ...

*1985

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 ...

*1984

Res Jost Res Jost (10 January 1918 – 3 October 1990) was a Swiss theoretical physicist, who worked mainly in constructive quantum field theory. Biography Res Jost was born on January 10, 1918, in Bern. He is the son of the physics teacher Wilhelm ...

*1983

Nicholas Kemmer Nicholas Kemmer (7 December 1911 – 21 October 1998) was a Russian-born nuclear physicist working in Britain, who played an integral and leading edge role in United Kingdom's nuclear programme, and was known as a mentor of Abdus Salam – a N ...

*1982 Hans-Arwed Weidenmüller *1981 Kurt Symanzik *1980 ''not awarded'' *1979

Markus Fierz Markus Eduard Fierz (20 June 1912 – 20 June 2006) was a Swiss physicist, particularly remembered for his formulation of spin–statistics theorem, and for his contributions to the development of quantum theory, particle physics, and statistic ...

*1978

Paul Peter Ewald Paul Peter Ewald, FRS (January 23, 1888 in Berlin, Germany – August 22, 1985 in Ithaca, New York) was a German crystallographer and physicist, a pioneer of X-ray diffraction methods. Education Ewald received his early education in the clas ...

*1977

Walter Thirring Walter Thirring (29 April 1927 – 19 August 2014) was an Austrian physicist after whom the Thirring model in quantum field theory is named. He was the son of the physicist Hans Thirring.Thirring, H. Über die Wirkung rotierender ferner Massen ...

*1976

Ernst Stueckelberg Ernst Carl Gerlach Stueckelberg (baptised as Johann Melchior Ernst Karl Gerlach Stückelberg, full name after 1911: Baron Ernst Carl Gerlach Stueckelberg von Breidenbach zu Breidenstein und Melsbach; 1 February 1905 – 4 September 1984) was a S ...

*1975

Gregor Wentzel Gregor Wentzel (17 February 1898 – 12 August 1978) was a German physicist known for development of quantum mechanics. Wentzel, Hendrik Kramers, and Léon Brillouin developed the Wentzel–Kramers–Brillouin approximation in 1926. In his early ...

*1974 Léon Van Hove *1973

Nikolay Bogolyubov 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 theoretic ...

*1972

Herbert Fröhlich Herbert Fröhlich (9 December 1905 – 23 January 1991) FRS was a German-born British physicist. Career In 1927, Fröhlich entered Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich to study physics, and received his doctorate under Arnold Sommerfeld ...

*1971 ''not awarded'' *1970

Rudolf Haag Rudolf Haag (17 August 1922 – 5 January 2016) was a German theoretical physicist, who mainly dealt with fundamental questions of quantum field theory. He was one of the founders of the modern formulation of quantum field theory and he identifi ...

*1969

Freeman Dyson Freeman John Dyson (15 December 1923 – 28 February 2020) was an English-American theoretical physicist and mathematician known for his works in quantum field theory, astrophysics, random matrices, mathematical formulation of quantum m ...

*1968 Walter Heitler *1967

Harry Lehmann Harry Lehmann (21 March 1924 in Güstrow22 November 1998 in Hamburg) was a German physicist. Biography Lehmann studied physics at Rostock and the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. In 1952 he worked at the Max-Planck-Institut in Göttingen, and ...

*1966 Gerhart Lüders *1965 ''not awarded'' *1964

Samuel Goudsmit Samuel Abraham Goudsmit (July 11, 1902 – December 4, 1978) was a Dutch-American physicist famous for jointly proposing the concept of electron spin with George Eugene Uhlenbeck in 1925. Life and career Goudsmit was born in The Hague, Nethe ...

and

George Uhlenbeck George Eugene Uhlenbeck (December 6, 1900 – October 31, 1988) was a Dutch-American theoretical physicist. Background and education George Uhlenbeck was the son of Eugenius and Anne Beeger Uhlenbeck. He attended the Hogere Burgerschool (High S ...

*1963

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 Allie ...

*1962

Ralph Kronig Ralph Kronig (10 March 1904 – 16 November 1995) was a German physicist. He is noted for the discovery of particle spin and for his theory of X-ray absorption spectroscopy. His theories include the Kronig–Penney model, the Coster–Kronig tran ...

*1961

Eugene Wigner Eugene Paul "E. P." Wigner ( hu, Wigner Jenő Pál, ; November 17, 1902 – January 1, 1995) was a Hungarian-American theoretical physicist who also contributed to mathematical physics. He received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1963 "for his co ...

*1960

Lev Landau Lev Davidovich Landau (russian: Лев Дави́дович Ланда́у; 22 January 1908 – 1 April 1968) was a Soviet-Azerbaijani physicist of Jewish descent who made fundamental contributions to many areas of theoretical physics. His ac ...

*1959 Oskar Klein *1958

Wolfgang Pauli Wolfgang Ernst Pauli (; ; 25 April 1900 – 15 December 1958) was an Austrian theoretical physicist and one of the pioneers of quantum physics. In 1945, after having been nominated by Albert Einstein, Pauli received the Nobel Prize in Physics ...

*1957

Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker Carl Friedrich Freiherr von Weizsäcker (; 28 June 1912 – 28 April 2007) was a German physicist and philosopher. He was the longest-living member of the team which performed nuclear research in Germany during the Second World War, under ...

*1956

Victor Weisskopf Victor Frederick "Viki" Weisskopf (also spelled Viktor; September 19, 1908 – April 22, 2002) was an Austrian-born American theoretical physicist. He did postdoctoral work with Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrödinger, Wolfgang Pauli, and Niels Boh ...

*1955

Hans Bethe Hans Albrecht Bethe (; July 2, 1906 – March 6, 2005) was a German-American theoretical physicist who made major contributions to nuclear physics, astrophysics, quantum electrodynamics, and solid-state physics, and who won the 1967 Nobel ...

*1954 Enrico Fermi *1953

Walther Bothe Walther Wilhelm Georg Bothe (; 8 January 1891 – 8 February 1957) was a German nuclear physicist, who shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1954 with Max Born. In 1913, he joined the newly created Laboratory for Radioactivity at the Reich Physi ...

*1952

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 ...

*1951

James Franck James Franck (; 26 August 1882 – 21 May 1964) was a German physicist who won the 1925 Nobel Prize for Physics with Gustav Hertz "for their discovery of the laws governing the impact of an electron upon an atom". He completed his doctorate i ...

and

Gustav Hertz Gustav Ludwig Hertz (; 22 July 1887 – 30 October 1975) was a German experimental physicist and Nobel Prize winner for his work on inelastic electron collisions in gases, and a nephew of Heinrich Rudolf Hertz. Biography Hertz was born in Hamb ...

*1950

Peter Debye Peter Joseph William Debye (; ; March 24, 1884 – November 2, 1966) was a Dutch-American physicist and physical chemist, and Nobel laureate in Chemistry. Biography Early life Born Petrus Josephus Wilhelmus Debije in Maastricht, Netherlands, D ...

*1949 Lise Meitner and

Otto Hahn Otto Hahn (; 8 March 1879 – 28 July 1968) was a German chemist who was a pioneer in the fields of radioactivity and radiochemistry. He is referred to as the father of nuclear chemistry and father of nuclear fission. Hahn and Lise Meitner ...

*1948 Max Born *1945–1947 ''not awarded'' *1944

Walther Kossel Walther Ludwig Julius Kossel (4 January 1888 – 22 May 1956) was a German physicist known for his theory of the chemical bond (ionic bond/octet rule), Sommerfeld–Kossel displacement law of atomic spectra, the Kossel-Stranski model for crysta ...

*1943

Friedrich Hund Friedrich Hermann Hund (4 February 1896 – 31 March 1997) was a German physicist from Karlsruhe known for his work on atoms and molecules. Scientific career Hund worked at the Universities of Rostock, Leipzig, Jena, Frankfurt am Main, and Göt ...

*1942

Pascual Jordan Ernst Pascual Jordan (; 18 October 1902 – 31 July 1980) was a German theoretical and mathematical physicist who made significant contributions to quantum mechanics and quantum field theory. He contributed much to the mathematical form of matri ...

*1939–1941 ''not awarded'' *1938

Louis de Broglie Louis Victor Pierre Raymond, 7th Duc de Broglie (, also , or ; 15 August 1892 – 19 March 1987) was a French physicist and aristocrat who made groundbreaking contributions to Old quantum theory, quantum theory. In his 1924 PhD thesis, he pos ...

*1937

Erwin Schrödinger Erwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrödinger (, ; ; 12 August 1887 – 4 January 1961), sometimes written as or , was a Nobel Prize-winning Austrian physicist with Irish citizenship who developed a number of fundamental results in quantum theo ...

*1934–1936 ''not awarded'' *1933

Werner Heisenberg Werner Karl Heisenberg () (5 December 1901 – 1 February 1976) was a German theoretical physicist and one of the main pioneers of the theory of quantum mechanics. He published his work in 1925 in a breakthrough paper. In the subsequent serie ...

*1932 Max von Laue *1931 Arnold Sommerfeld *1930

Niels Bohr Niels Henrik David Bohr (; 7 October 1885 – 18 November 1962) was a Danish physicist who made foundational contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum theory, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922 ...

*1929

Max Planck Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck (, ; 23 April 1858 – 4 October 1947) was a German theoretical physicist whose discovery of energy quanta won him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918. Planck made many substantial contributions to theoretical p ...

and

Albert Einstein Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Planck Medal Awards of the German Physical Society Awards established in 1929 1929 establishments in Germany

List of recipients

See also

References

External links