Hopkins Prize

The following are the Regulations for the WILLIAM HOPKINS PRIZE founded in memory of WILLIAM HOPKINS (1793-1866).

1. That the Prize be called "THE WILLIAM HOPKINS PRIZE"

2. That this Prize be adjudged once in three years.

3. That it be adjudged for the best original memoir, invention or discovery, in connextion with Mathematico-physical or Mathematico-experimental science that may have been published during the three years immediately preceding, but that the adjudicators be at liberty, if it seem to them advisable in any particular case, to award the Prize for a discovery in Mathematics alone, or in Experimental Physicsalone, or for one which has not been published within theforementioned period.

4. That it be confined to those who are or have been Members of the University of Cambridge.

5. That the fund be vested in the Cambridge Philosophical Society, and the Prize adjudged by three Fellows of the Society, nominated by the Council of the Society for each occasion.

6. That, in the event of any difficulty arising in carrying out the above provisions in any particular instance, either from lack of a prize-subject of sufficient merit, or from anyother cause, the Council be at liberty to carry over the amount of the Prize for that term towards augmenting the fund for future prizes, or to award it to someone not a member of the University.

Award of the William Hopkins Prize

1867 - SIR G. G. STOKES

1870 - J. CLERK MAXWELL

1873 - LORD RAYLEIGH

1876 - LORD KELVIN

1879 - SIR G. H. DARWIN

1882 - SIR R. T. GLAZEBROOK

1885 - W. M. HICKS

1888 - SIR H. LAMB

1891 - SIR J. J. THOMSON

1894 - W. D. NIVEN

1897 - SIR J. LARMOR

1900 - S. S. HOUGH

1903 - J. H. POYNTING

1906 - W. BURNSIDE

1909 - G. H. BRYAN

1912 - C. T. R. WILSON

1915 - R. A. SAMPSON

1918 - SIR F W. DYSON

1921 - SIR A. S. EDDINGTON

1924 - SIR J. H. JEANS

1927 - SIR G. I. TAYLOR

1930 - P. A. M. DIRAC

1933 - P. M. S. BLACKETT

1936 - E. A. MILNE

1939 - SIR J. D. COCKCROFT

1942 - H. J. BHABHA

1945 - C. F. POWELL

1948 - SIR J. LENNARD-JONES

1951 - R. A. LYTTLETON

1954 - M. RYLE

1957 - A. SALAM

1960 - M. J. LIGHTHILL

1963 - J. M. ZIMAN

1966 - A. KELLY

1969 - T. BROOKE BENJAMIN

1972 - A. HEWISH

1975 - S. W. HAWKING

1979 - D.P. McKenzie

1980 - Lord M. J. Rees

1985 - D.O. Gough

1988 - M.B. Green

1991 - S.K. Donaldson

1993 - R.D.E. Saunders

1996 - Sir J.E. Baldwin

1999 - P.K. Townsend

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Upcoming Events

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03

02

To Bend or to Break?  — new views on the hardening of metals

Professor Lindsay Greer

  • 18:00 - 19:00 Bristol-Myers Squibb Lecture Theatre Lent Term G.I. Taylor Lecture

Kipling’s “Iron‒Cold Iron‒is master of them all” captures the familiar importance of metals as structural materials.  Yet common metals are not necessarily hard; they can become so when deformed.  This phenomenon, strain hardening, was first explained by G. I. Taylor in 1934.  Ninety years on from this pioneering work on dislocation theory, we explore the deformation of metals when dislocations do not exist, that is when the metals are non-crystalline.  These amorphous metals have record-breaking combinations of properties.  They behave very differently from the metals that Taylor studied, but we do find phenomena for which his work (in a dramatically different context) is directly relevant.

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17

02

Why there’s no such thing as “the” scientific advice

Professor Stephen John

  • 18:00 - 19:00 Bristol-Myers Squibb Lecture Theatre Lent Term

During the Covid-19 pandemic, U.K. policy-makers claimed to be "following the science". Many commentators objected that the government did not live up to this aim. Others worried that policy-makers ought not blindly "follow" science, because this involves an abdication of responsibility. In this talk, I consider a third, even more fundamental concern: that there is no such thing as "the" science. Drawing on the case of adolescent vaccination against Covid-19, I argue that the best that any scientific advisory group can do is to offer a partial perspective on reality. In turn, this has important implications for how we think about science and politics. 

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