Boltzmann medal

Context:

Deepak Dhar, physicist, from the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Pune, has been selected for the Boltzmann medal recently. He became the first Indian to win this award.

Who is Professor Deepak Dhar?

• Professor Deepak Dhar born 1951 and completed his graduation in Science in 1970 from University of Allahabad, then Masters in Physics from Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur in 1972. Then he went to the US for PhD.

• Joined Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) as a research fellow in 1978. He worked at TIFR over the years as a full-time professor and retired in 2016.
• Since then, he has joined Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Pune (IISER) as a visiting faculty.

Why was he Awarded the Medal?

• He has been chosen for this award for his contributions in the field of statistical physics, including universal long-time relaxation in disordered magnetic systems, exact solutions in percolation and cluster counting problems and definition of spectral dimension of fractals.

About the Boltzmann medal-

• It is a prize awarded to physicists that obtain new results concerning statistical mechanics; it is named after the celebrated physicist Ludwig Boltzmann.
• It is awarded by the Commission on Statistical Physics (C3) of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics.
• It was initiated in 1975, with Nobel laureate (1982) K.G. Wilson being the first recipient.
• The award consists of the gilded Boltzmann medal with the inscription of Ludwig Boltzmann.
• The chosen two scientists will be presented the medals at the StatPhys conference to be held in Tokyo, 7-11 August, 2023.
• The medal, which honors outstanding achievements in the field of statistical physics, has been given to one or two persons, once in three years, in the last 47 years.
• It is given only once to a person and on the condition that that person has not won the Nobel prize so far.

Commission on Statistical Physics (C3) of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics

• It was established by the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) in 1945 to promote the exchange of information and views among the members of the international scientific community in the general field of Statistical Physics.

About IUPAP-

• Itis the only international physics organization that is organized and run by the physics community itself. 
• Its members are identified in physics communities in countries or regions around the world.
• The IUPAP was established in 1922 in Brussels with 13 Member countries and the first General Assembly was held in 1923 in Paris. 
• It currently has 60 country members.
• The Union is governed by its General Assembly which meets every three years.

Nobel Prize: What is the history behind the prestigious prize?

Alfred Nobel’s will of 1895 instructs that his fortune must be used as a fund to confer five annual prizes to those people who during the preceding year have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind. The prizes established through his will were for five fields– Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature and Peace.

The sixth category, Economic Sciences, was not originally listed in Alfred Nobel’s will. It was established in 1968 by the Bank of Sweden in memory of Alfred Nobel and was first awarded in 1969.

Post the death of Alfred Nobel, the Nobel Foundation was established to carry out the provisions of his will and to administer the funds. According to the will, three Swedish and one Norwegian institution must award the prizes. 

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awards the prizes for Chemistry, Physics and Economic Sciences, the Karolinska Institute confers the prize for physiology or medicine, and the Swedish Academy confers the prize for literature. The Nobel Peace Prize is conferred by the Norwegian Nobel Committee based in Oslo. 

What led to the creation of the Nobel Prizes?

In 1888, a French newspaper published the obituary of Alfred Nobel who was alive by that time by the title, The Merchant Of Death Is Dead. He was astonished to read his own obituary and decided to change his own will so that people remember him for a long time. 

During his entire life, Alfred Nobel wrote several wills but the last one was composed a year before his death and was signed at the Swedish–Norwegian Club in Paris on 27 November 1895. The will was not approved by the Storting in Norway until 26 April 1897. The Nobel Foundation was formed by the executors of the will, Ragnar Sohlman and Rudolf Lilljequist, to take care of the fortune and to organize the awarding of the Nobel Prizes. The foundation is exempted from all the taxes in Sweden since 1946 and from investment taxes in the United States since 1953. 

Source: Indian Express

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