The Thomas Ranken Lyle Medal is awarded at most every two years by the Australian Academy of Science to a mathematician or physicist for his or her outstanding research accomplishments.[1] It is named after Thomas Ranken Lyle, an Irish mathematical physicist who became a professor at the University of Melbourne. The award takes the form of a bronze medal bearing the design of the head of Thomas Lyle, as sculpted by Rayner Hoff.[2]
The medal was founded by the Australian National Research Council (ANRC) in 1932,[3] [4] and first awarded in 1935.[1] [2] When the Australian Academy of Science was established in 1954, it took over the roles of the ANRC, including administration of the medal.
| Year | Recipients | Contribution |
|---|---|---|
| 1935 | ||
| 1941 | [5] | |
| 1941 | [6] | |
| 1947 | [7] | |
| 1947 | atmospheric tides[8] | |
| 1949 | ||
| 1951 | ||
| 1953 | [9] | |
| 1957 | ||
| 1959 | [10] | |
| 1961 | ||
| 1963 | [11] | |
| 1963 | ||
| 1966 | nuclear reaction theory, plasma physics, and atmospheric tides[12] | |
| 1968 | "a wide range of mathematical disciplines" including fractional iteration of functions, numerical integration, graph theory, and relativistic kinematics[13] | |
| 1970 | ||
| 1972 | ||
| 1975 | radio astronomy of the sun[14] | |
| 1977 | number theory[15] | |
| 1979 | statistics of stationary processes[16] | |
| 1981 | ||
| 1981 | ||
| 1983 | ||
| 1985 | ||
| 1987 | ||
| 1989 | ||
| 1989 | ||
| 1991 | ||
| 1993 | ||
| 1993 | ||
| 1995 | martingale limit theory[17] | |
| 1997 | quarks and nucleon structure[18] | |
| 1999 | ||
| 2001 | ||
| 2003 | nuclear structure[19] | |
| 2005 | [20] | |
| 2007 | nonlinear optics[21] | |
| 2009 | unified field theory, parity violations, fundamental constants[22] | |
| 2011 | [23] | |
| 2013 | [24] | |
| 2015 | ||
| 2017 | Establishment of the fields of galactic archaeology and astrophotonics[25] | |
| 2019 | semiconductor physics (semiconductor lasers, infrared and terahertz detectors based on quantum wells, quantum dots and nanowires) | |
| 2021 | David McClelland | Detecting gravitational waves |
| 2023 | Susan Scott | mathematics and physics[26] |
| Nick Wormald | ||