Institute of Physics Awards 2007

The Institute of Physics is the UK's main organization of physicists (sort of like the American Physical Society), and yesterday, they announced their awards for 2007. The full list of winners is only available as a Word file, for some odd reason, but it's a distinguished group.

The prizes are headed by the brand-new Isaac Newton medal, which was awarded to Anton Zeilinger of the University of Vienna for his pioneering work on the uses of quantum entanglement:

His achievements include the first demonstration of quantum communication based on the entanglement of photons in 1995, the first "quantum teleportation" in 1997 and the first quantum cryptography performed with entangled photons in 2000. Earlier this year he led a team that managed to transmit an entangled photon 144 km in free-space, opening the door to satellite-based quantum communication.

Not too shabby. Congratulations to Prof. Zeilinger.

Other notable award winners (read: names that I recognize):

  • Professor Sir Michael Atiyah wins the President's Medal ("for meritorious services to physics in general and the Institute in particular") for his work in mathematical physics.
  • Dr Simon Singh wins the Kelvin Medal ("for outstanding contributions to the public understanding of physics") for his science popularisations (UK spelling as a tribute to him).
  • Professor Edward Hinds wins the Thomson Medal ("for distinguished research in atomic or molecular physics") for his work on quantum optics.
  • Professor Helen Fielding
  • wins the Moseley Medal ("for distinguished research in experimental physics") for her work on quantum control with ultrafast lasers.

That's a small selection of the total number of awards, but those are the ones I recognize, and all of them are well deserved. Congratulations to them, and to all the winners.

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