Professor Dam Thanh Son delivers a speech at an international physics conference held in Vietnam's central province of Binh Dinh on July 16 this year (Photo: VNA)
Washington DC (VNA) – Vietnamese ProfessorDam Thanh Son of the University of Chicago was recently named one the threewinners of the 2018 Dirac Medal and Prize by International Centre forTheoretical Physics (ICTP).
Son and the two others winners – SubirSachdev of Harvard University and Xiao-Gang Wen of the Massachusetts Instituteof Technology – received the honour for their independent contributions towardunderstanding novel phases in strongly interacting many-body systems,introducing original cross-disciplinary techniques.
All three winners study how quantummechanics affects large groups of particles, known as many-body systems.
In its announcement of the laureates, theICTP wrote that Son was the first to understand that gauge/gravity dualitycould be used to address basic questions in strongly interacting many-bodyproblems.
ICTP's Dirac Medal, first awarded in 1985,is given in honor of Paul Dirac, one of the greatest physicists of the 20thcentury. It is awarded annually on Dirac's birthday, August 8, to scientistswho have made significant contributions to theoretical physics.
Dam Thanh Son was born in Hanoi to a pharmacy-professorfather and a biochemistry-associate-professor mother.
In 1984, he won a gold medal in his firsttime competing in the International Mathematical Olympiad at the age of 15. Ayear later, Son went to Moscow, Russia, to study physics at the LomonosovMoscow State University.
Talking about his decision to study physicsinstead of maths, Son mentioned the impact of his uncle who was a teacher, DamTrung Don, who guided the Vietnamese national physics team for years, and hisgrowing love and interest for the science.
Son received his Ph.D. at the Institute forNuclear Research in Moscow in 1995, at 25.
In his later life, he moved to the US. Hesubsequently held postdoctoral appointments at the University of Washington andthe Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a faculty appointment atColumbia University. He was also a fellow at the RIKEN Brookhaven NationalLaboratory Research Center.
Since 2002, he has served as a senior fellowat the Institute for Nuclear Theory and also held an appointment as a professorof physics at the University of Washington.
In 2012, he became the 19th person to hold aUniversity Professorship at the University of Chicago.
Son gained international prominence for hisapplication of ideas from string theory to the understanding of nuclear matterunder high temperature and high density. The scientist is the author orco-author of more than 100 scholarly publications.
The physicist has returned to Vietnam onmany occasions to attend the “Meet Vietnam” programme, which is organised bythe Meeting Vietnam Science Association and features various internationalworkshops and training courses on science. He has also joined the panel andorganising boards of several mathematics and physics competitions inVietnam.-VNA