2013 Fundamental Physics Prize Awarded To Alexander Polyakov

-- The Winner Receives a Prize of US $3 Million and Trophy Designed by World-Renowned Danish-Icelandic Artist Olafur Eliasson

GENEVA, March 21, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- The Fundamental Physics Prize Foundation is pleased to announce that the 2013 Fundamental Physics Prize has been awarded to Alexander Polyakov for his many discoveries in field theory and string theory.

The 2013 Fundamental Physics Prize winner was selected from the list of 2013 Physics Frontiers Prize winners by the Selection Committee, which is solely comprised of prior recipients of the Fundamental Physics Prize and includes Nima Arkani-Hamed, Alan Guth, Alexei Kitaev, Maxim Kontsevich, Andrei Linde, Juan Maldacena, Nathan Seiberg, Ashoke Sen and Edward Witten. The selection process was certified by a representative of Ernst & Young.

"I feel elated and surprised to receive this recognition. It is a great honor. I hope it will help attract more people to the field of physics and spur innovation and discovery across the globe," said Polyakov.

"I want to congratulate Alexander Polyakov," said Nima Arkani-Hamed, a member of the Selection Committee. "This award recognizes the culmination of years of dedicated work that are unlocking the secrets of the universe."

The name of the US $3 million prize winner was unveiled at the culmination of a ceremony which took place on the evening of March 20, 2013 at the Geneva International Conference Centre. The ceremony was hosted by Hollywood actor and science enthusiast Morgan Freeman. The evening honored the 2013 laureates − 16 outstanding scientists including Stephen Hawking and CERN scientists who led the decades-long effort to discover the Higgs-like particle at the Large Hadron Collider. Sarah Brightman and Russian pianist Denis Matsuev performed live for the guests of the ceremony.

"The Fundamental Physics Prize celebrates what is possible in humanity's quest to understand the deepest questions of the universe. It is humbling to be surrounded by so much brain power and I'm excited by the promise of future discovery they represent," commented Yuri Milner.

All of the 2012 and 2013 Fundamental Physics Prize Foundation winners participated in the ceremony and also received the special award trophy, a work of art created by Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson.

The Fundamental Physics Prize trophy is a silver sphere with a coiled vortex inside. The form is, in fact, a toroid, or doughnut shape, resulting from two sets of intertwining three-dimensional spirals. Found in nature, these spirals are seen in animal horns, nautilus shells, whirlpools, and even galaxies and black holes. The award is made of silver, an artistically significant material for a physics prize, as silver materialized from exploding stars.

For broadcast-ready video from the Fundamental Prize ceremony, please click here: www.eurovision.net/worldlink

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About the Prizes

The Fundamental Physics Prize Foundation is a not-for-profit corporation established by the Milner Foundation and dedicated to advancing our knowledge of the universe at the deepest level by awarding annual prizes for scientific breakthroughs, as well as communicating the excitement of fundamental physics to the public. According to the Foundation's rules, laureates of all prizes are chosen by a Selection Committee, which is comprised of prior recipients of the Fundamental Physics Prize.

Information on the Fundamental Physics Prize is available at: www.fundamentalphysicsprize.org

2013 Fundamental Physics Prize Foundation laureates

1. The laureate of 2013 Fundamental Physics Prize is:

Alexander Polyakov for his many discoveries in field theory and string theory including the conformal bootstrap, magnetic monopoles, instantons, confinement/de-confinement, the quantization of strings in non-critical dimensions, gauge/string duality and many others. His ideas have dominated the scene in these fields during the past decades.

2. The laureates of 2013 Physics Frontiers Prize are:

Charles Kane, Laurens Molenkamp and Shoucheng Zhang for the theoretical prediction and experimental discovery of topological insulators.

Alexander Polyakov for his many discoveries in field theory and string theory including the conformal bootstrap, magnetic monopoles, instantons, confinement/de-confinement, the quantization of strings in non-critical dimensions, gauge/string duality and many others. His ideas have dominated the scene in these fields during the past decades.

Joseph Polchinski for his contributions in many areas of quantum field theory and string theory. His discovery of D-branes has given new insights into the nature of string theory and quantum gravity, with consequences including the AdS/CFT correspondence.

3. The laureates of 2013 New Horizons in Physics Prize are:

Niklas Beisert for the development of powerful exact methods to describe a quantum gauge theory and its associated string theory.

Davide Gaiotto for far-reaching new insights about duality, gauge theory, and geometry, and especially for his work linking theories in different dimensions in most unexpected ways.

Zohar Komargodski for his work on the dynamics of four-dimensional field theories. In particular, his proof (with Schwimmer) of the "a-theorem" has solved a long-standing problem, leading to deep new insights.

4. Two Special Fundamental Physics Prizes of $3,000,000 each awarded:

One to Stephen Hawking for his discovery of Hawking radiation from black holes, and his deep contributions to quantum gravity and quantum aspects of the early universe.

One to be shared by the leaders of the LHC project, CMS and ATLAS experiments from the time the LHC was approved by the CERN Council in 1994, including Peter Jenni, Fabiola Gianotti (ATLAS), Michel Della Negra, Tejinder Singh Virdee, Guido Tonelli, Joe Incandela (CMS) and Lyn Evans (LHC), for their leadership role in the scientific endeavour that led to the discovery of the new Higgs-like particle by the ATLAS and CMS collaborations at CERN's Large Hadron Collider.