Davy Medal facts for kids
The Davy Medal is a special award given by the Royal Society of London. It's for someone who has made a really important new discovery in any area of chemistry. The medal is named after a famous scientist called Humphry Davy. Along with the medal, the winner also gets a money prize, which is currently £2000.
Winning the Davy Medal can be a sign that a scientist might later win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. As of 2022, 22 scientists who won the Davy Medal later went on to win a Nobel Prize! This shows how important the Davy Medal is in the world of science.
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What is the Davy Medal?
The Davy Medal is one of the most respected awards in chemistry. It celebrates amazing new discoveries. These discoveries help us understand the world around us better. They can also lead to new technologies and medicines.
The award is given out every year. It has been given out without stopping since it first started. This makes it a very consistent and important award.
History of the Davy Medal
The Davy Medal was first given out in 1877. The very first winners were two scientists named Robert Wilhelm Bunsen and Gustav Robert Kirchhoff. They won the medal for their work on spectrum analysis. This is a way of studying light to figure out what things are made of.
Since then, the medal has been awarded 140 times. Sometimes, more than one person wins the medal in the same year. This happens when two or more scientists work together or make similar important discoveries around the same time.
For example, in 1882, Dmitri Mendeleev and Julius Lothar Meyer both won. They were honored for discovering how the periodic table works. This table organizes all the chemical elements.
Another famous example is in 1903. Pierre Curie and Marie Curie won the medal together. They received it for their amazing work on radium. Radium is a radioactive element.
In 1968, John Cornforth and George Joseph Popják won. They figured out how certain natural substances, like steroids, are made inside living things.
Who Can Win the Davy Medal?
The Davy Medal is for scientists who make a big difference in chemistry. They might discover a new chemical reaction. Or they might find a new way to understand how atoms and molecules work. The award encourages new ideas and breakthroughs.
The Royal Society looks for discoveries that are:
- Outstandingly important: This means the discovery is a huge step forward.
- Recent: The discovery should be something new.
- In any branch of chemistry: Chemistry is a huge field. The discovery can be in any part of it.
Notable Winners of the Davy Medal
Many famous scientists have won the Davy Medal. Here are a few more examples:
- 1881: Adolf von Baeyer won for making indigo. Indigo is a famous blue dye.
- 1887: John Alexander Reina Newlands won for his work on the periodic law. This law helps us organize chemical elements.
- 1895: Sir William Ramsay won for helping discover argon. Argon is a gas found in the air.
- 1929: Gilbert Newton Lewis won for his ideas about how atoms connect. This is called valency.
- 1947: Linus Pauling won for his ideas about how atoms bond together. This helped us understand molecules better.
- 1957: Kathleen Lonsdale won for her studies on the structure of crystals. She used X-rays to see how atoms are arranged.
- 1959: Robert B. Woodward won for making complex natural products in the lab.
- 1964: Melvin Calvin won for figuring out how plants use carbon dioxide to make food. This is called photosynthesis.
- 1987: Alec John Jeffreys won for discovering DNA fingerprinting. This is used to identify people.
- 2010: Carol Robinson won for using a special method called mass spectrometry. She used it to study large protein groups.
- 2023: Margaret Brimble won for her important work in organic chemistry. Her discoveries have many uses in life sciences.
The Davy Medal continues to celebrate the best and brightest minds in chemistry. It highlights discoveries that change our understanding of science.
See also
- List of chemistry awards
