Since its inception in 1901, numerous Fellows and Honorary Fellows of the Society have been awarded the Nobel Prize. The first two recipients were Honorary Fellows Hendrik A Lorentz and Pieter Zeeman in 1902 for the Nobel Prize in Physics. The Society's first women winner was Honorary Fellow Marie Curie in 1903 for the Nobel Prize in Physics. Marie Curie was the first person to win or share two Nobel Prizes, being awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1911.
In 1964, Dorothy Hodgkin became not only the first female Fellow of the Society to win a Nobel Prize (Chemistry) but also the first female member of the University of Cambridge to do so. The Nobel Prize is one of many prestigious awards in the field of science that our members have been awarded and these include; The Copley Medal, The Royal Medal, The Dalton Medal, The Lomonosov Gold Medal, Max Planck Medal, The Goethe Prize, The Dirac Medal, The Eddington Medal, and the Albert Einstein Award to name but a few.
We currently have 52 Nobel Prize winners.
2019 | Physiology or Medicine Honorary Fellow
2017 | Nobel Prize in Chemistry Honorary Fellow
2020 | Nobel Prize in Physics Fellow
2012 | Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine Honorary Fellow
2010 | Nobel Prize in Medicine Fellow
2009 | Nobel Prize in Chemistry Honorary Fellow
2002 | Nobel prize in Physiology or Medicine Honorary Fellow
2002 | Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine Honorary Fellow
2001 | Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine Honorary Fellow
1997 | Nobel Prize in Chemistry Honorary Fellow
1991 | Nobel Prize for Physics Honorary Fellow
1983 | Nobel Prize in Physics Fellow
1982 | Nobel Prize in Chemistry Fellow
1979 | Nobel Prize in Physics Fellow
1977 | Nobel Prize in Physics Fellow
1977 | Nobel Prize in Economics Fellow
1974 | Nobel Prize in Physics Fellow
1973 | Nobel Prize in Physics Fellow
1967 | Nobel Prize in Chemistry Fellow
1967 | Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine Honorary Fellow
1964 | Nobel Prize in Chemistry Fellow
1963 | Nobel Prize in Medicine Fellow
1962 | Nobel Prize for Chemistry Fellow
1962 | Nobel Prize in Medicine Fellow
1962 | Nobel Prize in Chemistry Fellow
1960 | Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine Honorary Fellow
1957 | Nobel Prize in Chemistry Fellow
1954 | Nobel Prize in Physics Fellow
1952 | Nobel Prize in Chemistry Fellow
1951 | Nobel Prize in Physics Fellow
1948 | Nobel Prize in Physics Fellow
1947 | Nobel Prize in Physics Fellow
1937 | Nobel Prize in Physics Fellow
1935 | Nobel Prize in Physics Fellow
1933 | Nobel Prize in Physics Fellow
1932 | Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine Fellow
1929 | Nobel Prize in Medicine Fellow
1928 | Nobel Prize in Physics Fellow
1927 | Nobel Prize in Physics Honorary Fellow
1927 | Nobel Prize in Physics Fellow
1922 | Nobel Prize in Chemistry Fellow
1922 | Nobel Prize in Physics Honorary Fellow
1919 | Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine Honorary Fellow
1918 | Nobel Prize in Physics Honorary Fellow
1915 | Nobel Prize in Physics Fellow
1908 | Nobel Prize in Chemistry Fellow
1906 | Nobel Prize in Physics Fellow
1904 | Nobel Prize in Physics Fellow
1903 | Nobel Prize in Physics Honorary Fellow
1902 | Nobel Prize in Physics Honorary Fellow
From Darwin’s paper on evolution to the development of stem cell research, publications from the Society continue to shape the scientific landscape.
Mathematical Proceedings is one of the few high-quality journals publishing original research papers that cover the whole range of pure and applied mathematics, theoretical physics and statistics.
Biological Reviews covers the entire range of the biological sciences, presenting several review articles per issue. Although scholarly and with extensive bibliographies, the articles are aimed at non-specialist biologists as well as researchers in the field.
The Spirit of Inquiry celebrates the 200th anniversary of the remarkable Cambridge Philosophical Society and brings to life the many remarkable episodes and illustrious figures associated with the Society, including Adam Sedgwick, Mary Somerville, Charles Darwin, and Lawrence Bragg.
Become a Fellow of the Society and enjoy the benefits that membership brings. Membership costs £20 per year.
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Volcanoes are hazardous and beautiful manifestations of the dynamic processes that have shaped our planet. Volcanoes impact our environment in numerous ways. Over geological time volcanic activity has resurfaced the Earth and provided life with a terrestrial substrate upon which to proliferate. Volcanic degassing has shaped our secondary atmosphere and as part of the process of plate tectonics, maintained just the right amount of water and carbon dioxide at the surface to produce a stable and equitable climate. Magma in the subsurface in volcanic environments today gives Society geothermal energy. The fluids degassed from magmas in the plumbing systems of volcanoes give rise to hydrothermal ore deposits, the source of much of our copper and other metals, critical to the energy transition. In this lecture I will describe the nature and importance of magma degassing for our atmosphere and oceans, as a source of both pollutants and nutrients, and in the formation of mineral deposits. I will describe my own research in carrying out measurements of volcanic gases (using a range of spectroscopic methods, from the ground and using drones), and analysis of erupted lavas, to understand the chemistry and physics of volcanic outgassing and its role in sustaining our planetary environment.
One of the many outstanding achievements of G I Taylor was the discovery of relatively simple statistical laws that apply to highly complex turbulent flows. The emergence of simple laws from complexity is well known in other branches of physics, for example the emergence of the laws of heat conduction from molecular dynamics. Complexity can also arise at large scales, and the structural vibration of an aircraft or a car can be a surprisingly difficult phenomenon to analyse, partly because millions of degrees of freedom may be involved, and partly because the vibration can be extremely sensitive to small changes or imperfections in the system. In this talk it is shown that the prediction of vibration levels can be much simplified by the derivation and exploitation of emergent laws, analogous to some extent to the heat conduction equations, but with an added statistical aspect, as in turbulent flow. The emergent laws are discussed and their application to the design of aerospace, marine, and automotive structures is described. As an aside it will be shown that the same emergent theory can be applied to a range of problems involving electromagnetic fields.
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