In Brief

APS Members Win Dirac Medal

Three APS fellows have been named co-recipients of the Dirac Medal and Prize, established by the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) in Trieste, Italy, in 1985 to recognize contributions to the field of theoretical physics. Helen Quinn of Stanford University and Howard Georgi of Harvard University were honored, along with Jogesh Pati of the University of Maryland, for "pioneering contributions to the quest for a unified theory of quarks and leptons, and of the strong, weak, and electromagnetic interactions."

Georgi was recognized for his discovery of many of the most significant models of grand unification, as well as his role in developing the Georgi-Quinn-Weinberg computation demonstrating that the natural mass scale of unification is relatively close to the Planck scale, and that the proton lifetime can naturally be extremely long.

Quinn is recognized for her contributions to the same computation, as well as her fundamental insights, working with Roberto Peccei, about CP conservation by strong interactions.

Pati is recognized for his role (with Salam) in the formulation of the original gauge theory with quark-lepton unification, and the resulting insight that baryon number violation is a likely consequence of such unification.

Peebles Shares Gruber Foundation's Cosmology Prize

P.J.E. Peebles, Albert Einstein Professor of Science at Princeton University, and a fellow of the APS, has been named co-recipient of the first annual Cosmology Prize of the Peter Gruber Foundation "for his profound contributions to our knowledge of the physical processes that shaped the structure of our universe." His citation continues, "Over more than three decades, (Peebles) has, with rigor and imagination, advanced our understanding of phenomena which range from the creation of the lightest elements to the formation of galaxies and the cosmic distribution of matter and radiation." To be awarded in November at the Pontifical Academy of Science at the Vatican, the Cosmology Prize was created to honor scientific advances in our perception and understanding of the universe, and carries a cash award of $150,000. Peebles shares the inaugural award with Allan Sandage, of the Carnegie Institute in Washington, DC, who is being honored for his work on the respective values of the Hubble Constant, the deceleration parameter and the age of the universe.