Johnian recipients of the Royal Medal of the Royal Society | St John's College, University of Cambridge

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<script type="text/javascript">  </script> </nav> <div class="search"> <form action="/search/node" method="get" id="search-block-form" accept-charset="UTF-8"> <div class="js-form-item form-item js-form-type-search form-item-keys js-form-item-keys form-no-label"> <label for="edit-keys" class="visually-hidden">Search</label> <input title="Enter the terms you wish to search for." data-drupal-selector="edit-keys" type="search" id="edit-keys" name="keys" value="" size="15" maxlength="128" class="form-search" aria-label="Search"/> </div> <div data-drupal-selector="edit-actions" class="form-actions js-form-wrapper form-wrapper" id="edit-actions"><input data-drupal-selector="edit-submit" type="submit" id="edit-submit" value="Search" class="button js-form-submit form-submit" /> </div> </form> </div> <a href="https://4thcourt.joh.cam.ac.uk" class="login-btn">4th Court</a> </div> </header> <main role="main"> <div class="page-content-container"> <div data-drupal-messages-fallback class="hidden"></div> <article data-history-node-id="381" class="node node--type-landing-page node--view-mode-full"> <div class="node__content">  <style> section.lead-background { background-size: cover; background-position: 0 0px; background-image: url(https://www.joh.cam.ac.uk/sites/default/files/banner_images/Pipette.jpg); z-index: -1; position: relative; } </style> <section class="lead lead-sm lead-background"> <div class="wrap container-fluid"> <div class="row"> <div class="col-sm-6 col-xs-8 col-sm-offset-6 col-xs-offset-4"> <h2 class="alternate"> Johnian recipients of the Royal Medal of the Royal Society </h2> </div> </div> </div> </section> <div id="lps-0" class="panel"> <div class="wrap container-fluid bump"> <div class="row"> <div class="col-sm-12 col-xs-12"> <div class="row"> <div class="col-sm-4 col-xs-12"> <h4> For contributions to the physical, biological and applied sciences </h4> </div> <div class="col-sm-8 col-xs-12"> <p>Each year, the Royal Society issues three Royal Medals, two for the most important contributions “to the advancement of Natural Knowledge” and one for notable contributions in the applied sciences.</p> <p>Founded by King George IV in 1825 and first awarded in 1826, initially, only two medals were awarded annually, the third being introduced in 1965 on behalf of Queen Elizabeth II.</p> <p>Listed below are those Johnians who have been awarded the Royal Medal to date. It is interesting to note the correlation between this and the <a href="https://www.joh.cam.ac.uk/johnian-recipients-copley-medal-royal-society">Copley Medal</a>: of 39 Royal Medallists, 12 have gone on to receive the Copley Medal in later years.</p> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div id="lps-1" class="panel-alternate"> <div class="wrap container-fluid bump"> <div class="row"> <div class="col-sm-12 col-xs-12"> <div class="row"> <div class="col-sm-12 col-xs-12"> <p><b>John Frederick William Herschel</b> <strong>(1833). </strong>For his Paper  "on the Investigation of the Orbits of Revolving Double Stars," inserted in the Fifth Volume of the Memoirs of the Royal Astronomical Society.</p> <p><b>John Frederick William Herschel (1836).</b>  For his paper on nebulae and clusters of stars, published in the Philosophical Transactions for 1833</p> <p><b>John Frederick William Herschel (1840). </b>For his paper entitled On the chemical action of the rays of the solar spectrum on preparations of silver, and other substances, both metallic and non-metallic, and on some photogenic processes, published in the Philosophical Transactions for 1840.</p> <p><b>James Joseph Sylvester (1861).</b> For his various memoirs and researches in mathematical science</p> <p><b>George Howard Darwin (1884)</b>. For his mathematical investigations on the rigidity of the Earth, and on tides.</p> <p><b>John Newport Langley (1892).</b>  For his work on secreting glands, and on the nervous system</p> <p><b>Charles Pritchard (1892).</b>  For his work on photometry and stellar parallax</p> <p><b>Arthur Schuster (1893).</b> For his spectroscopic inquiries, and his researches on disruptive discharge through gases and on terrestrial magnetism</p> <p><b>Percy Alexander MacMahon (1900).</b> For the number and range of his contributions to mathematical science</p> <p><b>William Burnside (1904).</b> For his researches in mathematics, particularly in the theory of groups</p> <p><strong>Alfred George Greenhill (1906).</strong> For his contributions to mathematics, especially the elliptic functions and their applications.            </p> <p><b>Augustus Edward Hough Love (1909).</b> On the ground of his researches in the theory of elasticity and cognate subjects</p> <p><b>William Mitchinson Hicks (1912).</b> On the ground of his researches in mathematical physics</p> <p><b>Grafton Elliot Smith (1912).</b> No citation</p> <p><b>William Johnson Sollas (1914).</b> For researches in palaeontology</p> <p><b>Joseph Larmor (1915).</b> On the ground of his numerous and important contributions to mathematical and physical science</p> <p><b>William Halse Rivers Rivers (1915).</b> On the ground of his important contributions to ethnography and ethnology</p> <p><b>William Bateson (1920).</b> On the ground of his contributions to biological science, and especially his studies in genetics</p> <p><b>Frederick Frost Blackman (1921).</b> For his researches on the gaseous exchange in plants & on the operation of limiting factors</p> <p><b>Albert Charles Seward (1925).</b> For his researches on the palaeobotany of Gondwanaland</p> <p><b>John Edward Marr (1930).</b> For his pioneer work in the accurate zoning of the palaeozoic rocks</p> <p><b>Patrick Playfair Laidlaw (1933). </b>For his work on diseases due to viruses, including that on the cause and prevention of distemper in dogs</p> <p><b>Alfred Harker (1935).</b> In recognition of his distinguished work and influence as a petrologist</p> <p><b>Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac (1939).</b> For the leading part he had taken in the development of the new quantum mechanics</p> <p><b>William Whiteman Carlton Topley (1942).</b> For his outstanding work on experimental epidemiology and immunology</p> <p><b>Harold Jeffreys (1948).</b> For his distinguished work in geophysics and his important contributions to the astronomy of the solar system</p> <p><b>Edward Victor Appleton (1950).</b> For his work on the ele [sic] transmission of electromagnetic waves round the earth and for his investigations of the ionic state of the upper atmosphere</p> <p><b>Frederic Charles Bartlett (1952).</b> In recognition of his creation of an experimental school of psychology which has established under his leadership an outstanding position recognized internationally as without superior</p> <p><b>Nevill Francis Mott (1953).</b> In recognition of his eminent work in the field of quantum theory and particularly in the theory of metals</p> <p><b>John Douglas Cockcroft (1954).</b> In recognition of his distinguished work on nuclear and atomic physics</p> <p><b>William Vallance Douglas Hodge (1957).</b> In recognition of his distinguished work on algebraic geometry</p> <p><b>Rudolf Ernst Peierls (1959).</b> In recognition of his distinguished work on the theoretical foundations of high energy and nuclear physics</p> <p><b>Raymond Arthur Lyttleton (1965).</b>  In recognition of his distinguished contributions to astronomy, particularly for his work on the dynamical stability of galaxies</p> <p><b>Frank Yates (1966).</b> In recognition of his profound and far-reaching contributions to the statistical methods of experimental biology</p> <p><b>Joseph Burtt Hutchinson (1967).</b> In recognition of his distinguished work on the genetics and evolution of crop-plants with particular reference to cotton</p> <p><b>Charles William Oatley (1969).</b> In recognition of his distinguished work in the wartime development of radar and latterly for the design and development of a highly successful scanning electron microscope</p> <p><b>Frederick Sanger (1969).</b> In recognition of his pioneer work on the sequence of amino acids in proteins and of nucleotides of ribonucleic acids</p> <p><b>Fred Hoyle (1974).</b> In recognition of his distinguished contributions to theoretical physics and cosmology</p> <p><b>Abdus Salam (1978).</b> In recognition of his outstanding contributions to the physics of elementary particles with special reference to the unification of the electromagnetic and weak interactions</p> <p><b>Roger Penrose (1985).</b> For his fundamental contributions to the theory of gravitational collapse and to other geometric aspects of theoretical physics</p> <p><b>Eric James Denton (1987).</b> In recognition of his outstanding contributions to the physiology of marine animals, to marine biology generally, and his leadership of UK marine science</p> <p><b>Robert Aubrey Hinde (1996).</b> In recognition of his contributions to the field of animal behaviour and the dominant influence it achieved on the emerging field of ethology</p> <p><b>Christopher Martin Dobson (2009).</b> For his outstanding contributions to the understanding of the mechanisms of protein folding and mis-folding, and the implications for disease</p> <p><strong>Links </strong></p> <p><a href="https://royalsociety.org/awards/royal-medal/">Royal Medal - Royal Society</a></p> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </article> </div> </main> <footer role="contentinfo"> <div class="wrap container-fluid"> <div class="row"> <div class="col-xs-6 col-sm-3"> <ul> <li>Get in touch</li> <li class="footer-Contactus"><a href="/index.php/contact-us" data-drupal-link-system-path="node/253">Contact us</a></li> <li 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