The Wigner Medal (1978-2018) was unique because it was a truly international award. It was not affiliated with any state or national society. The awarded was chosen by an international selection committee whose members were elected by the Board of Trustees of the Group Theory and Fundamental Physics Foundation and by the Standing Committee of the International Group Theory Colloquium.
The collaboration between the Group Theory and Fundamental Physics Foundation and the Standing Committee (SC) of the International Colloquium on Group Theoretical Methods in Physics mentioned above has ended in 2020 after forty years of fruitful cooperation (1978-2018). The cause was the absence of a valid representative of the Foundation in 2020. This problem led to the suspension of the selection process for the 2020 Wigner Medal. The latter had already been announced and had candidates. After unsuccessful attempts to contact the Foundation and reverse the situation and in deference for the creator of the medal, Arno Bohm, the SC decided to create a new award aimed to keep the spirit of the Wigner Medal.
The SC appointed a commission to study the feasibility of this new award and to determine the rules by which it should be governed. The commission consisted of: Hans D. Doebner (1931-2022), Jean-Pierre Gazeau, Gerald Goldin, Joris van der Jeugt, Piotr Kielanowski, Mariano A. del Olmo, Luc Vinet and Katrin Wendland. After its work was completed, the commission submitted to the SC the Weyl-Wigner Award bylaws. They were unanimously approved by the SC on the 1rst of November of 2021.
The Weyl-Wigner Award was created with the demand to recognize outstanding contributions to the understanding of physics through group theory, continuing the tradition of the Wigner Medal and keeping its high standards of quality and excellence.
The first Weyl-Wigner Award was awarded in Strasbourg in July 2022 during the ICGTMP Group34 Colloquium.
Contributions recognized by the Award may include the development and application of mathematical methods, applications of group theoretical methods in chemistry and other sciences, experimental predictions or formulations of general laws of nature using methods of group theory or representation theory, and other related developments. Group theory shall be construed in its widest sense, to include related mathematical structures.
Weyl-Wigner Award recipients:
2022: Nicolai Reshetikhin
Weyl-Wigner Award Selection Committees:
2024: N. Reshetikhin (Chair, Tsinghua U.– Beijing, China ), P. Etingof (MIT, Cambridge, USA), R. Kerner (Sorbonne U., Paris, France), S. Serfaty (New York U., USA) and E. Zelmanov (U. California – San Diego, USA).
2022: E. Zelmanov (Chair, U. California – San Diego, USA), M. Cheng (U. Amsterdam, Netherlands), A. Klimov (U. Guadalajara, Mexico), S. Serfaty (New York U., USA), R. Werner (Leibniz U. Hannover, Germany).