
09 Aug ICTP announces Dirac Medallists 2017
The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), Trieste, Italy has just announced the prestigious Dirac Medallists for the year 2017. In an online announcement ICTP says “The 2017 ICTP Dirac Medal and Prize has been awarded to Charles H. Bennett (IBM Watson Research Centre), David Deutsch (Oxford) and Peter W. Shor (MIT) for their pioneering work in applying the fundamental concepts of quantum mechanics to solving basic problems in computation and communication and therefore bringing together the fields of quantum mechanics, computer science and information.”
The Medal is awarded every year to scientists who have made significant contributions to theoretical physics. The Medallists also receive a prize of US$ 5,000. The Dirac Medal is not awarded to Nobel Laureates, Fields Medallists, or Wolf Foundation Prize winners, although many Dirac Medallists have proceeded to win these prestigious prizes, for instance one of the first medallist Edward Witten went on to win the Fields Medal. In 2014, Indian physicist Ashoke Sen was one of the winners.
The 2017 selection committee consisted of Michael B. Green, David Gross, Bertrand Halperin, Giorgio Parisi, Martin Rees and Ashoke Sen.

Managing Editor of the English Section, Gonit Sora and Research Associate, Cardiff University, UK.