RUSSIA

Russian billionaire Yury Milner set up a record $3 million prize for theoretical physicists to reward them for their contribution to fundamental science.

“The Fundamental Physics Prize Foundation is a not-for-profit corporation dedicated to advancing our knowledge of the Universe at the deepest level by awarding annual prizes for scientific breakthroughs, as well as communicating the excitement of fundamental physics to the public,” reads the official website.

The $3 million prize is more than the Nobel Prize, which currently stands at $1.2 million and Shaw Prize and Kavli Prize, each $1 million.

There will be two categories of the prize. The Fundamental Physics Prize recognizes transformative advances in the field, while the New Horizons in Physics Prizes are targeted at promising junior researchers.

The award was given for the first time to nine scientists, three of them born in Soviet Union (Alexei Kitayev, Maxim Konstevich and Andrei Linde), for research in universe expansion and string theory.

The prize became news even for the winners. “It was an absolute surprise,” said Edward Witten, theoretical physicist from Princeton University, New Jersey, who won the prize for his contribution to string theory research.

As opposed to the Nobel Prize, the Fundamental Physics Prize will be awarded to theoretical physicists, even if their ideas have not been confirmed by experimental data. It aims to celebrate revolutionary ideas that push theoretical thinking forward.

“I hope the new prize will bring long overdue recognition to the greatest minds working in the field of fundamental physics, and if this helps encourage young people to be inspired by science, I will be deeply gratified,” Milner said.

Prize to popularize physics

Milner, 50, is one of Russia’s 100 richest men, according to Forbes, and in the last three years invested a lot in Twitter, Spotify and Facebook. His investment funds are worth $12 billion, and his personal worth is $1 billion.

He created the prize out of love for theoretical physics, which he studied at the Moscow State University and the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1980s-90s. The first winners were chosen by Milner himself. Further winners will be selected by previous winners.

The money is given out without any conditions, with the aim of attracting the public’s attention to theoretical physics, and in hope that those who received the award would give public lectures “targeted at a general audience, on subjects ranging from the basics of modern physics to cutting-edge research.”

However, some criticized the new award. Mathematician Peter Walt said that the winning theories, like string theory, are almost impossible to prove experimentally.

The next Fundamental Physics Prize will be awarded in the first quarter of 2013.