The Franklin Institute has given out awards to 10 scientists, educators, and businessmen in recognition of innovative work that has benefited humanity, advanced science, launched new fields of inquiry, and deepened our understanding of the universe. The Philadelphia-based institute has been bestowing the honors, considered among the most prestigious in science, for 182 years. Of this year’s winners, five are involved in physics-related work.
Giacinto Scoles, Donner Professor of Science at Princeton University and a professor in the biophysics and condensed matter physics departments at the Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati in Trieste, Italy, and J. Peter Toennies, associate professor in the physics department at the University of Göttingen in Göttingen, Germany, are the corecipients of the 2006 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Physics. They are receiving the award, according to the citation, “for the development of new techniques for studying molecules, including unstable species that could not...
