Dirac Medal
The Dirac Medal is the name of four awards in the field of theoretical physics, computational chemistry, and mathematics, awarded by different organizations, named in honour of Professor Paul Dirac, 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, Sydney, Australia, jointly with the Australian Institute of Physics 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. The lectures were subsequently published as a book Directions of Physics. Professor Dirac donated the royalties from this book to the University for the establishment of the Dirac Lecture series. The prize includes a silver medal and honorarium. It was first awarded in 1979.Recipients
- 1979 Hannes Alfven
- 1981 John Clive Ward
- 1983 Nicolaas Bloembergen
- 1985 David Pines
- 1987 Robert Hofstadter
- 1988 Klaus von Klitzing
- 1989 Carlo Rubbia & Kenneth G. Wilson
- 1990 Norman F. Ramsey
- 1991 Herbert A. Hauptman
- 1992 Wolfgang Paul
- 1996 Edwin Salpeter
- 1998 David Deutsch
- 2002 Heinrich Hora
- 2003
- 2004 Iosif Khriplovich
- 2006 Sir Roger Penrose
- 2008 Harald Fritzsch
- 2010 E. C. George Sudarshan
- 2011 Lord May of Oxford
- 2012 Brian Schmidt
- 2013 Sir Michael Pepper
- 2014 Serge Haroche
- 2015 Subir Sachdev
- 2016 Kenneth Freeman
- 2017 Boris Altshuler
- 2018
- 2019 Lene Hau
Dirac Medal of the ICTP
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, Fields Medalists, or Wolf Prize 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, Yakov Zel'dovich
- 1986 Alexander Polyakov, Yoichiro Nambu
- 1987 Bruno Zumino, Bryce DeWitt
- 1988 David J. Gross, Efim S. Fradkin
- 1989 John H. Schwarz, Michael Green
- 1990 Ludwig Faddeev, Sidney R. Coleman
- 1991 Jeffrey Goldstone, Stanley Mandelstam
- 1992 Nikolai Bogoliubov, Yakov G. Sinai
- 1993 Daniel Z. Freedman, Peter van Nieuwenhuizen, Sergio Ferrara
- 1994 Frank Wilczek
- 1995 Michael Berry
- 1996 Martinus J.G. Veltman, Tullio Regge
- 1997 David Olive, Peter Goddard
- 1998 Roman Jackiw, Stephen L. Adler
- 1999 Giorgio Parisi
- 2000 Helen Quinn, Howard Georgi, Jogesh Pati
- 2001 John Hopfield
- 2002 Alan Guth, Andrei Linde, Paul Steinhardt
- 2003 Robert Kraichnan, Vladimir E. Zakharov
- 2004 Curtis Callan, James Bjorken
- 2005 Patrick A. Lee, Sir Samuel Frederick Edwards
- 2006 Peter Zoller
- 2007 Jean Iliopoulos, Luciano Maiani
- 2008 Joe Polchinski, Juan Maldacena, Cumrun Vafa
- 2009 Roberto Car, Michele Parrinello
- 2010 Nicola Cabibbo, George Sudarshan
- 2011 Édouard Brézin, John Cardy, Alexander Zamolodchikov
- 2012 Duncan Haldane, Charles Kane, Shoucheng Zhang
- 2013 Tom W. B. Kibble, Jim Peebles, Martin John Rees
- 2014 Ashoke Sen, Andrew Strominger, Gabriele Veneziano
- 2015 Alexei Kitaev, Greg Moore, Nicholas Read
- 2016 Nathan Seiberg, Mikhail Shifman, Arkady Vainshtein
- 2017 Charles H. Bennett, David Deutsch, Peter W. Shor
- 2018 Subir Sachdev, Dam Thanh Son, Xiao-Gang Wen
- 2019 Viatcheslav Mukhanov, Alexei Starobinsky, Rashid Sunyaev
Dirac Medal of the IOP
Recipients
- 1987 Stephen Hawking
- 1988 John Stewart Bell
- 1989 Roger Penrose
- 1990 Michael Berry
- 1991 Rudolf Peierls
- 1992 Anthony Leggett
- 1993 David Thouless
- 1994 Volker Heine
- 1995 Daniel Walls
- 1996 John Pendry
- 1997 Peter Higgs
- 1998 David Deutsch
- 1999 Ian Percival
- 2000 John Cardy
- 2001 Brian Ridley
- 2002
- 2003 Christopher Hull
- 2004 Michael Green
- 2005 John Ellis
For his highly influential work on particle physics phenomenology; in particular on the properties of gluons, the Higgs boson and the top quark. - 2006
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
For his pioneering work in spin glasses. - 2008 Bryan Webber
For his pioneering work in understanding and applying quantum chromodynamics, the theory of the strong interaction which is one of the three fundamental forces of Nature. - 2009 Michael Cates
For pioneering work in the theoretical physics of soft materials, particularly in relation to their flow behaviour. - 2010 James Binney
For his contribution to our understanding of how galaxies are constituted, how they work and how they were formed. - 2011 Christopher Isham
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
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
For his wide ranging contributions throughout optics research, which both inspire and lead experimental endeavours. - 2014 Tim Palmer
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
For his fundamental and influential research into nonlocality and his contribution to the foundations of quantum physics. - 2017 Michael Duff
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 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 for "his seminal work in quantum chromodynamics where he performed many of the key calculations that led to the acceptance of QCD as the correct theory of the strong interaction."
Dirac Medal of the WATOC
Recipients
Source:- 1998 Timothy J. Lee
- 1999 Peter M. W. Gill
- 2000 Jiali Gao
- 2001 Martin Kaupp
- 2002 Jerzy Cioslowski
- 2003 Peter Schreiner
- 2004 Jan Martin
- 2005 Ursula Röthlisberger
- 2006 Lucas Visscher
- 2007 Anna Krylov
- 2008 Kenneth Ruud
- 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
- 2019 Satoshi Maeda