The Hewlett-Packard Europhysics Prize
Markus Peter · Europhysics news · 1993
for Outstanding Achievement In Solid-State Physics The establishment of the Hewlett-Packard Europhysics Prize (H-PEP) dates back to 1974 when the Hewlett-Packard company from Palo Alto in California, which had set up its first Euro pean manufacturing plant in 1959, was enjoying a period of rapid expansion.As a member of the Board of Hewlett-Packard (Europe) SA, the European subsidiary, I was present when the President of the Board, Richard Alberding, an nounced that the company wished to contribute to the life of Geneva, home of the European head quarters, by providing occasional help to some of the Canton's many international organizations.The EPS was a logical choice: the importance of European physics was unquestioned and the young society had proven to be vigorous and viable.It was also one of the few societies which joined together both eastern and western Europe.There existed, of course, venerable internatio nal awards in physics, and various countries had national prizes, but a European prize was an innovation.The quality of the Selection Commit tee would be decisive and the presence of a solid sponsor was a key element.Initial reception of the Prize by the European physics community was not unanimous.All kinds of valid questions were asked, and many helpful suggestions offe red.Our main answer was that the Prize made no claim to exclusivity: EPS welcomed other awards in other fields from other sources.Time has pas sed; several prizes have joined the Society, and the uniqueness of the first award has become clear to friends and sceptics alike.The Prizes's Charter states that: "The Award shall be given in recognition of recent work by one or more individuals in the area of physics of condensed matter, specifically works leading to advances in the fields of elec tronic, electrical and materials engineering which, in the opinion of the Society's Selection Committee, represents scientific excellence."Recent work" is defined to mean completed within five years prior to the Award.The Award may be given for either pure or applied research at the discretion of the Society." The notion of "recent work" was to play a cen tral rôle, while that of "pure research" have given rise to discussion both inside and outside the committee, as has the reference to "engineering advances".We feel that these notions are difficult but important for the development of physics.My own view is that fundamental research is judged by academic authorities, and applied research by people with responsibilities in manufacturing.So for the working physicist, it makes a large diffe rence whether the goal is increased knowledge, or increased profit.But for a prize committee, this distinction is not decisive since what counts above all is scientific excellence.At the beginning, there were two Nobel Prizes which had been recognized previously by the H-PE Prize (K.von Klitzing, 1982; G.K. Binnig and H. Rohrer, 1984).Next came the discovery of high-temperature superconductivity, where eve rything went very quickly: nominations were made independently and the H-PE Prize announ ced first, although the Nobel Prize bears an earlier date.And then follow two Nobel Prizes in phy sics and one in chemistry that could have fallen under the objectives of the H-PE Prize.There is no harm that the choices of the prizes do not coin cide.Nobel awards might still fall to one of our laureates; less likely is that the H-PE Prize will go From left to right, D.E.Khmelnitskii and B.Z. Spivak (two of the five 1993 Hewlett-Packard Europhysics prizewinners), and A. Staufer and L. Cutler (from Hewlett-Packard) at the 1993