Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society
The Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society is the highest award given by the Royal Astronomical Society. It usually recognises lifetime achievement in the fields supported by the RAS, but has occasionally been given for an individual discovery. The medal features an image of the 40-foot telescope constructed by Sir William Herschel, the first President of the RAS. All recipients are listed below.
Criteria
The RAS Council have "complete freedom as to the grounds on which it is awarded" and it can be awarded for any reason. Past awards have been given for "outstanding personal researches in the fields of astronomy and geophysics" as well as general contributions to astronomy and geophysics "that may be made through leadership in research programmes, through education and through scientific administration". It has been awarded both for research that has taken a lifetime, and for specific pieces of research.History
The RAS was founded in 1820 and the first Gold Medals were awarded in 1824. Silver medals were also awarded in 1824 and 1827, but that practice was quickly abandoned, instead the RAS established other awards.In some years, particularly early on, the RAS sometimes decided that there were no suitable nominations and so did not award the gold medal. There are therefore 17 years without an award, the most recent being 1942. One medal per year was the usual practise, although two medals were awarded in both 1867 and 1886. To ensure balance in research areas, in 1964 the award was expanded to two medals per year, one in astronomy and one in geophysics, which remains the current system.
The first woman to receive the Gold Medal was Caroline Herschel in 1828. No other woman received the award until Vera Rubin in 1996. Margaret and Geoffrey Burbidge were jointly awarded the 2005 Gold Medal in astronomy, the first joint award since 1886.
Discovery of Neptune
In the early years, more than one medal was often awarded in a year, but by 1833 only one medal was being awarded per year. This caused a problem when Neptune was discovered in 1846, because many felt any award should be given jointly to John Couch Adams and Urbain Le Verrier. They had both independently predicted the existence of the planet and calculated its possible positions. A controversy arose during the nomination process for the RAS gold medal, so no award was made in 1847. The controversy was resolved by giving 12 "testimonial" awards in 1848 to various people including Adams and Le Verrier. Gold medal awards resumed in 1849, with a limit of one per year. Adams and Le Verrier did not get their gold medals until 1866 and 1868, respectively. Adams, who was then President of the RAS, presented Le Verrier with the medal.General relativity
In 1919, Arthur Eddington led an expedition to observe the solar eclipse on 29 May. The photographs taken during that event confirmed Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity; Eddington presented his results at a special joint meeting of the RAS and the Royal Society in November 1919. The RAS also devoted their December 1919 meeting to discussion of general relativity. Einstein immediately became the leading candidate for the 2020 RAS Gold Medal.At that time, RAS Council selected the strongest nominations at its December meeting, which required a simple majority vote. A second vote would then be held in January to confirm that the medal should be awarded, which required a three-quarters super-majority; normally this was a formality. Einstein was nominated by H. H. Turner, seconded by James Jeans, and at the December meeting Council voted that Einstein was the strongest candidate. However, some members of Council felt it would be politically inappropriate to award the medal to a German citizen, because Britain was still technically engaged in the First World War against Germany. At the January meeting, Council did not confirm the award. Turner and Jeans were both Council members and had been present at the December meeting, but not in January; their absence may have swayed the outcome.
As a result, no gold medal was awarded in 1920. Embarrassingly, after the December vote Eddington had already passed a message to Einstein, stating that he would receive the medal. Eddington had to write an apologetic letter to Einstein informing him that the medal had been withdrawn. Einstein was again nominated for the 1921 medal, but Council decided that the issue was still too controversial so awarded the medal to Henry Norris Russell instead. Einstein does not appear to have been too offended by the affair, because he attended the June 1921 meeting of the RAS where he delivered a lecture on general relativity. He did not receive his gold medal until 1926, when the political situation had stabilised and the composition of Council had changed. Eddington received his own gold medal in 1924, before Einstein, in part for his work in confirming general relativity.