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PHYSICS
2011

The Prize Committee has unanimously decided that the 2011 Wolf Prize in Physics be jointly awarded to:

Maximilian Haider
CEOS GmbH and
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
Karlsruhe, Germany

Prof. Harald Rose
Carl Zeiss Senior Professor
Ulm University
Ulm, Germany

Knut Urban
Research Centre Jülich
Jülich, Germany,
RWTH Aachen,
Aachen, Germany

For their development of aberration-corrected electron microscopy, allowing the observation of individual atoms with picometer precision, thus revolutionizing materials science.

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Maximilian Haider
1950
Harald Rose
1935
Knut Urban
1941
2010

THE 2010 WOLF FOUNDATION PRIZE IN PHYSICS

The Prize Committee for Physics has unanimously decided that the 2010 Wolf Prize be jointly awarded to:

John F. Clauser
J.F. Clauser & Assoc.
Walnut Creek, CA
U.S.A.

Alain Aspect
Institut d’Optique,
Palaiseau, France

Anton Zeilinger
University of Vienna &
Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information
Austrian Academy of Sciences
Vienna, Austria


For their fundamental conceptual and experimental contributions to the foundations of quantum physics, specifically an increasingly sophisticated series of tests of Bell’s inequalities or extensions there of using entangled quantum states.

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John F. Clauser
1942, USA
Alain Aspect
1947, France
Anton Zeilinger
1945, Austria
2006/7

THE 2006/7 WOLF FOUNDATION PRIZE IN PHYSICS

The Prize Committee for Physics has unanimously decided that the 2006/7 Wolf Prize will be jointly awarded to:

Albert Fert
Unité Mixte de Physique CNRS-Thalès
Orsay, France

and
Peter Gruenberg
Institut fuer Festkoerperforschung (IFF)
Forschungszentrum Juelich
Juelich, Germany

for their independent discovery of the giant magnetoresistance phenomenon (GMR), thereby launching a new field of research and applications known as spintronics, which utilizes the spin of the electron to store and transport information.

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Albert Fert
1938, France
Peter Gruenberg
1939, Czechoslovakia
2005

THE 2005 WOLF FOUNDATION PRIZE IN PHYSICS

Daniel Kleppner
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

for groundbreaking work in atomic physics of hydrogenic systems, including research on the hydrogen maser, Rydberg atoms and Bose-Einstein condensation.

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Daniel Kleppner
1932, USA
2004

THE 2004 WOLF FOUNDATION PRIZE IN PHYSICS

Robert Brout
Universite Libre de Bruxelles
Brussels, Belgium

Francois Englert
Universite Libre de Bruxelles
Brussels, Belgium

Peter W. Higgs
University of Edinburgh
Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom

for pioneering work that has led to the insight of mass generation, whenever a local gauge symmetry is realized asymmetrically in the world of sub-atomic particles.

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Robert Brout
1928, USA
Francois Englert
1932, Belgium
Peter W. Higgs
1929, UK
2002/3

THE 2002/3 WOLF FOUNDATION PRIZE IN PHYSICS

Bertrand I. Halperin
Harvard University
Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

Anthony J. Leggett
University of Illinois,
Urbana, Illinois, USA

for key insights into the broad range of condensed matter physics: Leggett on superfluidity of the light helium isotope and macroscopic quantum phenomena; and Halperin on two- dimensional melting, disordered systems and strongly interacting electrons.

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Bertrand I. Halperin
1941, USA
Anthony J. Leggett
1938, UK
2000

THE 2000 WOLF FOUNDATION PRIZE IN PHYSICS

Raymond Davis Jr.
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and
Brookhaven National Laboratory
Upton, N.Y., USA

Masatoshi Koshiba
University of Tokyo
Tokyo, Japan

for their pioneering observations of astronomical phenomena by detection of neutrinos, thus creating the emerging field of neutrino astronomy.

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Raymond Davis Jr.
1914, USA
Masatoshi Koshiba
1926, Japan
1999

THE 1999 WOLF FOUNDATION PRIZE IN PHYSICS

Dan Shechtman
Technion - Israel Institute of Technology
Haifa, Israel

for the experimental discovery of quasi-crystals, non-periodic solids having long-range order, which inspired the exploration of a new fundamental state of matter.

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Dan Shechtman
1941, Israel
1998

THE 1998 WOLF FOUNDATION PRIZE IN PHYSICS

Yakir Aharonov
Tel Aviv University
Tel Aviv, Israel,
and University of South Carolina
Columbia, South Carolina, USA

Sir Michael V. Berry
Bristol University
Bristol, United Kingdom

for the discovery of quantum topological and geometrical phases, specifically the Aharonov-Bohm effect, the Berry phase, and their incorporation into many fields of physics.

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Yakir Aharonov
1932, Israel
Sir Michael V. Berry
1941, UK
1996/7

THE 1996/7 WOLF FOUNDATION PRIZE IN PHYSICS

John A. Wheeler
Princeton University
Princeton, New Jersey
and University of Texas
Austin, Texas, USA

for his seminal contributions to black holes physics, to quantum gravity, and to the theories of nuclear scattering and nuclear fission.






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John A. Wheeler
1911-2008, USA
1994/5

THE 1994/5 WOLF FOUNDATION PRIZE IN PHYSICS

Vitaly L. Ginzburg
Lebedev Physical Institute
Moscow, Russia

for his contributions to the theory of superconductivity and to the theory of high-energy processes in astrophysics.

Yoichiro Nambu
University of Chicago
Chicago, Illinois, USA

for his contribution to elementary particle theory, including recognition of the role played by spontaneous symmetry-breaking in analogy with uperconductivity theory, and the discovery of the color symmetry of the strong interactions.

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Vitaly L. Ginzburg
1916, USSR
Yoichiro Nambu
1921, Japan
1993

THE 1993 WOLF FOUNDATION PRIZE IN PHYSICS

Benoit B. Mandelbrot
IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center
Yorktown Heights, N.Y., USA

by recognizing the widespread occurrence of fractals and developing mathematical tools for describing them, he has changed our view of nature.

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Benoit B. Mandelbrot
1924, Poland
1992

THE 1992 WOLF FOUNDATION PRIZE IN PHYSICS

Joseph H. Taylor, Jr.
Princeton University
Princeton, New Jersey, USA

for his discovery of an orbiting radio pulsar and its exploitation to verify the general theory of relativity to high precision.

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Joseph H. Taylor Jr.
1941, USA
1991

THE 1991 WOLF FOUNDATION PRIZE IN PHYSICS

Maurice Goldhaber
Brookhaven National Laboratory
New York, N.Y., U.S.A.

Valentine L. Telegdi
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH)
Zurich, Switzerland

for their separate seminal contributions to nuclear and particle physics, particularly those concerning the weak interactions involving leptons.



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Maurice Goldhaber
1911, USA
Valentine L. Telegdi
1922, Hungary-2006,USA
1990

THE 1990 WOLF FOUNDATON PRIZE IN PHYSICS

Pierre-Gilles de Gennes
College de France
Paris, France

David J. Thouless
University of Washington
Seattle, Washington, USA

for a wide variety of pioneering contributions to our understanding of the organization of complex condensed matter systems,de Gennes especially for his work on macromolecular matter and liquid crystals and Thouless for his on disordered and low-dimensional systems.

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Pierre-Gilles de Gennes
1932-2007, France
David J. Thouless
1934, UK
1988

THE 1988 WOLF FOUNDATION PRIZE IN PHYSICS

Roger Penrose
University of Oxford
Oxford, United Kingdom

Stephen W. Hawking
University of Cambridge
Cambridge, United Kingdom

for their brilliant development of the theory of general relativity, in which they have shown the necessity for cosmological singularities and have elucidated the physics of black holes. In this work they have greatly enlarged our understanding of the origin and possible fate of the Universe.

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Roger Penrose
1931, UK
Stephen W. Hawking
1942, UK
1987

THE 1987 WOLF FOUNDATION PRIZE IN PHYSICS

Herbert Friedman
U.S. Naval Research Laboratory
Washington, D.C., USA

for pioneering investigations in solar X-rays.

Bruno B. Rossi
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

Riccardo Giacconi
Space Telescope Science Institute
and Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore, Maryland, USA

for the discovery of extra-solar X-ray sources and the elucidation of their physical processes.

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Herbert Friedman
1916, USA
Bruno B. Rossi
1905 Italy-1993 Usa
Riccardo Giacconi
1931, Italy
1986

HE 1986 WOLF FOUNDATION PRIZE IN PHYSICS

Mitchell J. Feigenbaum
Cornell University
Ithaca, N.Y., USA

for his pioneering theoretical studies demonstrating the universal character of non-linear systems, which has made possible the systematic study of chaos.

Albert J. Libchaber
University of Chicago
Chicago, Illinois, USA

for his brilliant experimental demonstration of the transition to turbulence and chaos in dynamical systems.

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Mitchell J. Feigenbaum
1944, USA
Albert J. Libchaber
1934, France
1984/5

THE 1984/5 WOLF FOUNDATION PRIZE IN PHYSICS

Conyers Herring
Stanford University
Stanford, California, USA

Philippe Nozieres
Institut Laue-Langevin
Grenoble, France

for their major contributions to the fundamental theory of solids, especially of the behaviour of electronsin metals.

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Conyers Herring
1914, USA2009, USA
Philippe Nozieres
1932, France
1983/4

THE 1983/4 WOLF FOUNDATION PRIZE IN PHYSICS

Erwin L. Hahn
University of California
Berkeley, California, USA

for his discovery of nuclear spin echoes and for the phenomenon of self-induced transparency.

Sir Peter B. Hirsh
University of Oxford
Oxford, United Kingdom

for his development of the utilization of the transmission electron microscope as a universal instrumentto study the structure of crystalline matter.

Theodore H. Maiman
Maiman Associates
Marina del Rey, California, USA

for his realization of the first operating laser, the pulsed three level ruby laser.

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Erwin L. Hahn
1921, USA
Sir Peter B. Hirsh
1925, Germany
Theodore H. Maiman
1927-2007, USA
1982

THE 1982 WOLF FOUNDATION PRIZE IN PHYSICS

Leon M. Lederman
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
Batavia, Illinois, USA

Martin M. Perl
Stanford Linear Accelerator Laboratory
Stanford University
Stanford, California, USA

for their experimental discovery of unexpected new particles establishing a third generation of quarks and leptons.

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Leon M. Lederman
1922, USA
Martin M. Perl
1927, USA
1981

THE 1981 WOLF FOUNDATION PRIZE IN PHYSICS

Freeman J. Dyson
Institute for Advanced Study
Princeton, New Jersey, USA

Gerard ´T Hooft
University of Utrecht
Utrecht, The Netherlands

Victor F. Weisskopf
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

for their outstanding contributions to theoretical physics, especially in the development and application of the quantum theory of fields.

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Freeman J. Dyson
1923, UK
Gerard ´T Hooft
1946, Netherlands
Victor F. Weisskopf
1908, Austria -2002, USA
1980

THE 1980 WOLF FOUNDATION PRIZE IN PHYSICS

Michael E. Fisher
Cornell University
Ithaca, N.Y., USA

Leo P. Kadanoff
University of Chicago
Chicago, Illinois, USA

Kenneth G. Wilson
Cornell University
Ithaca, N.Y., USA

for pathbreaking developments culminating in the general theory of the critical behavior at transitions between the different thermodynamic phases of matter.

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Michael E. Fisher
1931, Trinidad
Leo P. Kadanoff
1937, USA
Kenneth G. Wilson
1936, USA
1979

THE 1979 WOLF FOUNDATION PRIZE IN PHYSICS

George E. Uhlenbeck
Rockefeller University
New York, N.Y., USA

for his discovery, jointly with the late S.A. Goudsmit, of the electron spin.

Giuseppe Occhialini
University of Milan
Milan, Italy

for his contributions to the discoveries of electron pair production and of the charged pion.

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George E. Uhlenbeck
1900, Netherlands -1988, USA
Giuseppe Occhialini
1907 -1993, Italy
1978

THE 1978 WOLF FOUNDATION PRIZE IN PHYSICS

Chien-Shiung Wu
Columbia University
New York, N.Y., USA

for exploring the weak interaction, helping establish the precise form and the non-conservation of parity for this natural force.


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Chien-Shiung Wu
1912, China -1997, USA