Sir Samuel Frederick Edwards, Emeritus Cavendish professor of physics, University of Cambridge, UK, and Patrick A. Lee, William and Emma Rogers professor of physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA, are the winners of the 2005 Dirac Medal.

Sir Samuel Frederick Edwards, one of the founding fathers of condensed matter physics, is being honoured for his fundamental contributions to polymer physics, spin glass theory and the physics of granular matter.

Patrick A. Lee, who is internationally known for his work on weak localization and interaction effects, is being recognized for his pioneering contributions to our understanding of disordered and strongly interacting many-body systems.

Established in 1985 by the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics, the Dirac Medal, which is now recognized as one of the world’s most prestigious prizes in physics, is given to scientists who have made significant contributions to theoretical physics and mathematics. Each recipient receives a cash award and a medal, and will also present a Dirac Medal lecture at ICTP at a later date. Recipients of the Nobel Prize, Fields Medal and Wolf Foundation Prize are not eligible for the Dirac Medal.

The announcement of the Dirac Medal is made each year on 8 August, the birth date of the great 20th century physicist Paul A.M. Dirac, who won the Nobel Prize in 1933. Dirac was a close associate and friend of ICTP from the Centre’s first days in the early 1960s until his death in 1984.

For additional information about the Dirac Medal and the list of previous winners, see http://www.ictp.trieste.it/~sci_info/awards/Dirac/DiracMedal.html.