In other awards news this week, I’m please to note that my friend, colleague, (and apparent comrade-in-arms in the “fight for the theory”) Ruth Gregory has been awarded the Institute of Physics’ Maxwell Prize and Medal.
“For her contributions to physics at the interface of general relativity and string theory, in particular for her work on the physics of cosmic strings and black holes.”
The press release says, among other things:
Dr Ruth Gregory, a young physicist from the University of Durham, has been awarded the 2006 Maxwell Medal for her outstanding work trying to understand the underlying structure of the universe. Working at the interface between general relativity and string theory, Dr Gregory has made important contributions to cosmic strings, black holes and brane worlds (a model which says all matter in the universe is trapped on a surface with three spatial dimensions, like dust particles on soap bubbles. This 3-D surface is known as a “brane”, a name derived from membrane, the 2-D equivalent).
Amazingly enough, according to their list of past winners, this is the first time a woman has been awarded this prize, so it’s good news that the IOP is finally getting that part of things right.
I should mention here that this is well deserved. Ruth (a CPT member at Durham who’s in the Department of Mathematical Sciences and in the Department of Physics) is as sharp as a… sharp thing…, has done some really good work over several years, and is one of the few people in the field who has the dubious priviledge of having an instability named after her (with Ray Laflamme).
The IOP have announced their annual awards (including the Dirac, the Maxwell, the Rutherford, the Kelvin, the Bragg….you get the idea) here, and it’s an interesting list of names, as always. (More general information about the prizes and what they are intended to honour can be found here.)
The awards (medals, certificates, cheques, gift baskets, etc) will be presented in January at a really swanky awards dinner at the Savoy Hotel in London.
Congratulations Ruth!
-cvj
October 7th, 2005 at 4:54 pm
Congratulations to Ruth! Well-deserved indeed. Gregory-Laflamme is one of my favorite instabilities.
October 7th, 2005 at 5:01 pm
Wonderful news!! Sure perks me up on a Friday afternoon.
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CONGRATULATIONS !!
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I’m not familiar with branes so I may not be using the right terminology here. Is there a chance that a type of brane (or a theorem about them) could be named after her?
October 7th, 2005 at 5:01 pm
Lord do those Brits award a lot of medals to themselves.
October 7th, 2005 at 5:11 pm
citrine,
The Gregory-Laflamme instability is already a significant naming. It was a discovery of an important and key aspect of the dynamics of a large number of different types of dynamical extended objects – it tells you that certain configurations are unstable to decaying into another type of configuration. One example is if you take a brane that looks like a long fat string …you think its happy to sit there, but in the right circumstances it will prefer to decay into a string of little blobs or beads instead, like a pearl necklace. Whether the beads/pearls will then disconnect and you get a bunch of separated pearls is still a subject of research, some 12 years later, as I understand it. It is an instability that plays a role in several areas of high energy physics where branes are increasingly being applied. So she’s got her name in the textbooks on this stuff for a long time to come.
Cheers,
-cvj
October 7th, 2005 at 5:16 pm
Clifford,
Thanks for enlightening me! I wasn’t exactly sure that the G-L instability had to do with branes, as several of her specialities were mentioned.
October 7th, 2005 at 5:38 pm
I’d like to add that Ruth is also an exceptional teacher. Her GR course is great!
Well done Ruth!
October 7th, 2005 at 6:57 pm
The list of previous winners is interesting. Note the 2005 winner!
October 7th, 2005 at 8:25 pm
It’s fantastic to hear such good news! Kudos to Ruth! Much deserved.
October 7th, 2005 at 8:27 pm
Many congratulations to Ruth! This is much deserved.