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Date: Dec. 11, 1996
Princeton Faculty Win Wolf Prize
in Both Mathematics and Physics
Princeton, N.J.--Princeton faculty have won the prestigious Wolf Prize in both mathematics and in physics. Yakov Sinai, professor of mathematics, has been named one of two winners of the Wolf Prize in mathematics for 1997, and John Wheeler, Joseph Henry Professor of Physics, Emeritus, has won the prize in physics.
This is the second year in a row that a Princeton University mathematician has won the Wolf Prize; last year Andrew Wiles was also a co-winner.
Sinai, who will share the award with Joseph Keller of Stanford University, was cited by the Wolf Foundation for "his fundamental contributions to mathematically rigorous methods in statistical mechanics and the ergodic theory of dynamical systems and their applications in physics."
Wheeler was cited for his "seminal contributions to black hole physics, quantum gravity, and the theories of nuclear scattering and nuclear fission."
Born in Moscow in 1935, Sinai was educated at Moscow State University and was a researcher there in the 1960s and a professor from 1971 to 1993, when he came to Princeton as professor of mathematics. Since 1971 he has also held the position of senior researcher at the Landau Institute of Theoretical Physics. Among his previous awards are the 1989 Heineman Prize and the 1992 Dirac Medal.
Wheeler, who earned his 1933 PhD in physics at Johns Hopkins University, taught at Princeton from 1938 until 1976 and then directed the Center for Theoretical Physics at the University of Texas, Austin, for 10 years. Among his previous honors is the Italian Matteucci Medal.
Based in Israel, the Wolf Foundation was established by Ricardo Wolf "to promote science and art for the benefit of mankind." Each year it awards prizes of $100,000 for outstanding achievement in agriculture, chemistry, medicine and the arts, as well as mathematics and physics. Since 1978 it has named 165 laureates from 18 countries. The prize is conferred each year by the President of Israel at a ceremony in the Knesset, the Israeli parliament.