The 2013 Weizmann Prize for Exact Sciences will be awarded this coming November to Prof. Eshel Ben-Yaakov and Prof. Shimon Yanklewitz from the School of Physics and Astronomy at Tel Aviv University
The 2013 Weizmann Prize for Exact Sciences will be awarded to Prof. Eshel Ben-Yaakov and Prof. Shimon Yanklewitz - both from the School of Physics and Astronomy at Tel Aviv University. The prize, which will be awarded to the researchers in a festive ceremony this November, was decided by a committee of judges on behalf of the municipality of Tel Aviv-Jaffa: Prof. Haim Sider (Chairman), Prof. Shlomo Havlin and Prof. Uri Cheshnovsky. The award named after Dr. Chaim Weizmann, the first president of the State of Israel, has been awarded since 1934. On the seventy-year anniversary of Weizmann's birth, the Tel Aviv City Council decided to award an award to leading researchers working in Israel in the field of exact sciences.
Physics of living systems
In their decision, the judges stated that the prize will be awarded to Prof. Eshel Ben Yaakov "for his innovation in applying physical methods to the study of biological communities, such as bacteria, neural networks and (cancerous) tumors." His work is characterized by thinking outside the box and made an important contribution to the construction of a new field of research."
"I started my research in the physics of living systems over twenty years ago by investigating the principles of self-organization of bacterial colonies," says Prof. Ben Yaakov. "When I started, people were very skeptical of the idea that bacteria are sophisticated creatures that use a chemical language to have a complex social life. Today it is clear to many that in order to understand how our body works - in health and in sickness - we must first understand the living activities of bacteria, because from them we inherited many of the mechanisms that sustain us. Deciphering the principles of distributed information processing and the decision-making of social bacteria led me to brain research and the development of a neural memory chip, and in recent years also to cancer research. I developed a new understanding of cancer as a super-community with communication and complex takeover strategies, and from this came the idea that to fight cancer one should engage in 'cyber warfare' and disrupt the communication between its cells. The importance of the award, as far as I'm concerned, is as a means to bring awareness to the scientific and medical community in Israel of the importance of research in the physics of living systems."
The deep fundamental questions of physics
In their decision, the judges stated that the prize will be awarded to Prof. Shimon Yanklewitz "for his important and unique contributions to the study of field theories in general and calibration theories and supersymmetric calibration theories in particular." Calibration theory is the theoretical framework that makes it possible to unite quantum theory with special relativity and correctly describe the physics of elementary particles. In addition, the judges noted "his valuable and influential studies in the study of string theory and in particular in the study of the duality between string theory/gravity and field theories". String theory is a framework for building a unifying quantum theory of all particles and all forces in nature.
"The challenge to understand the 'world' of the most elementary particles and the basic forces that act between them (including gravity) is the deep fundamental wishes of physics, and is also the goal of my research," says Prof. Yanklewitz. "My research has its origin and purpose in the human desire and curiosity to understand the world around us and the more basic laws that operate in it. This is the same desire and curiosity that led to the greatest scientific discoveries throughout human history." Prof. Yanklewitz added that "the universe extends over an almost infinite space in terms of the perception of most people, and as we know, it is also expanding. But the visible universe, as big as it is, is finite. What is not finite is the space of human curiosity, desire and ability to explore its north. This is what challenges me and leads me in my research."
