Natural Sciences

Three IAS Members in the School of Mathematics and Natural Sciences have received the 2022 ICTP Dirac Medal “for groundbreaking and mathematically rigorous contributions to the understanding of the statistical mechanics of classical and quantum physical systems.”

Past and current scholars in the School of Mathematics and Natural Sciences have won four of the prestigious prizes granted by the International Mathematical Union (IMU), including the 2022 Fields, Abacus, and Chern Medals, and the Gauss Prize. 

Five past Members in the School of Natural Sciences and the School of Mathematics have been selected as 2022 Simons Investigators, enabling them to undertake a long-term study of fundamental questions in their fields. 

"In Particle Fever, theorist Nima Arkani-Hamed says on camera, 'I’ve spent the last 15 years thinking about the LHC.' Today, he’s still thinking about collider physics, but from different points of view.

"As Chris Hamilton (Institute for Advanced Study) explains in a recent research article, understanding the current orbits of binary stars in the Milky Way requires separating the effects of nature (the eccentricities that the binary systems are born with) and nurture (the outside gravitational effects of passing stars and the background galactic pull)."

Chris Hamilton, current Member in the School of Natural Sciences, has received the International Astronomical Union’s (IAU) 2021 Ph.D. Prize to Recognize Excellence in Astrophysics for his thesis “Secular Dynamics of Binaries in Stellar Clusters," supervised by current IAS Visitor and frequent Member Roman Rafikov. 

Ahmed Almheiri, past Member (2017–22) in the School of Natural Sciences, has received a 2022 IUPAP Early Career Scientist Award in Particles and Fields “for substantial and impactful contributions to the understanding of black holes and quantum gravity, specifically related to the information paradox and its connection to quantum information theory and quantum error correction.”

Past Member Roger Ulrich (1975) has been named a winner of the 2022 Kavli Prize in Astrophysics. He is cited, along with Conny Aerts and Jørgen Christensen-Dalsgaard, for “pioneering work and leadership in the development of helioseismology and asteroseismology.”

"Frank Wilczek, the Nobel Prize-winning theoretical physicist and author renowned for his boundary-pushing investigations into the fundamental laws of nature, was honored Wednesday with this year’s prestigious Templeton Prize, awarded to individuals whose life’s work embodies a fusion of science and spirituality."

Update (06/17/2022): This research is now published in Astrophysical Journal Letters and can be accessed here.

Looks can be deceiving. The light from an incandescent bulb seems steady, but it flickers 120 times per second. Because the brain only perceives an average of the information it receives, this flickering is blurred and the perception of constant illumination is a mere illusion.