Argentine physicist Juan Martín Maldacena to receive Galileo Galilei Medal and only to miss Nobel Prize – 18/02/2019

Argentine physicist Juan Martín Maldacena (50) will receive the Galileo Galilei Medal, an award that will be awarded for the first time in 2019.

With this new distinction, the Buenos Aires scientist – according to the experts – will have received all the major distinctions he can aspire to in his discipline, except the Nobel.

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This low profile man, born in Caballito and studied at UBA and Balseiro, is at the top of theoretical physics. He teaches today at Princeton, which was the University of Einstein. when he emigrated to the United States.

Maldacena won the prestigious prize "for his pioneering ideas in theoretical physics, and in particular by the discovery of the duality between the theory of gravity and that of quantum fields, with profound implications. "

The recognition will be granted by the National Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN) of Italy, in collaboration with the Galileo Galilei Institute (GGI), in Florence. The announcement was made last Friday in the Anniversary of Galileo Galilei scientist's birthday.

As stated by INFN, the medal ceremony will take place on May 2 in Arcetri, Florence region where Galileo Galilei died on January 8, 1642.

"Maldacena is one of the most influential figures in theoretical physics of recent decades. His numerous and fundamental ideas have opened up new perspectives in the field of string theory, field theory and quantum gravity, "INFN said in his statement.

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"Professor Maldacena was the first to propose in 1997 a precise holographic correspondence between the theory of gravity and that of the fields," explains Alberto Lerda, head of the theoretical committee of INFN.

"This correspondence, known today under the name of "The conjecture of Maldacena", had a wide variety of applications in many areas of theoretical physics. More than twenty years later, the Maldacena article is still the most cited in the sector, "continues Lerda.

Maldacena is one of the most awarded Argentine scientists at the national and international levels. Last year, he received the Lorentz Medal, awarded by the Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences of the Netherlands. It's a distinction not less than that of Nobel Prize and this has a statistical curiosity: several Nobel laureates had previously Lorentz, physicist who had received his Nobel Prize in 1902.

The Argentine physicist also won the Dannie Heineman Prize in Mathematical Physics, the ICTP Dirac Medal and the Milner Foundation's Fundamental Physics Award, among other awards for his work.

Maldacena was born in Buenos Aires in 1968. She attended General San Martín Military High School, then studied physics for two years at the National University of Buenos Aires (UBA) to pursue this career at the Balseiro Institute. There he graduated. He then obtained his doctorate at Princeton University where, since 2001, he is a professor of physics at the Institute of Advanced Studies. In addition, Maldacena became the youngest life teacher in Harvard history.

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