The Adams Prize is one of the University's oldest and most prestigious prizes. The Prize is named after the mathematician John Couch Adams and was endowed by members of St John's College. It commemorates Adams's role in the discovery of the planet Neptune, through calculation of the discrepancies in the orbit of Uranus. Previous prize-winners include James Clerk Maxwell, Roger Penrose and Stephen Hawking.
The 2025 Prize
The 2025 Prize will be awarded for achievements in the field of Mathematics of Statistical Mechanics.
The Prize is open to any person who, on 31st October 2024, will hold an appointment in the UK, either in a university or in some other institution; and who is under 40. The Adjudicators may vary this age limit, on a case by case basis, where they consider it fair and reasonable to do so. Applicants may consult the Adjudicators in advance for a determination of eligibility. The value of the Prize is expected to be approximately £30,000, of which one third is awarded to the prize-winner on announcement of the prize, one third is provided to the prize-winner's institution (for research expenses of the prize-winner) and one third is awarded to the prize-winner on acceptance for publication in an internationally recognised journal of a substantial (normally at least 25 printed pages) original article, of which the prize-winner is an author, surveying a significant part of the winner's field.
Applications or nominations should be sent to the Secretary of the Adams Prize Adjudicators via email to adamsprize@maths.cam.ac.uk by 31st October 2024 together with a CV, a list of publications, the body of work (published or unpublished) to be considered, and a brief (no more than 2 pages) non-technical summary of the most significant new results of this work (designed for mathematicians not working in the subject area). There is no fee for entry, nor for any other aspect of the Prize.
Previous Prizes
| Year | Prize-winner | Subject |
| 2024 |
Dr Soheyla Feyzbakhsh (Imperial College London) Professor Nick Sheridan (University of Edinburgh) |
Geometry |
| 2023 |
Dr Anne Cori (Imperial College London) Professor Adam Kucharski (London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine) |
Mathematical and Statistical Epidemiology |
| 2022 | Professor Jack Thorne (Cambridge) | Number Theory |
| 2021 | Professor Mahir Hadžić (UCL) Professor Jeffrey Galkowski (UCL) |
Evolution Equations |
| 2020 | Professor Konstantin Ardakov (Oxford) Dr Michael Wemyss (Glasgow) |
Algebra |
| 2019 | Dr Heather Harrington (Oxford) "What are higher-order networks?" Dr Luitgard Veraart (London School of Economics and Political Science) |
The Mathematics of Networks |
| 2018 | Dr Claudia de Rham (Imperial College London) "The gravitational rainbow beyond Einstein gravity" Dr Gustav Holzegel (Imperial College London) |
The Mathematics of Astronomy and Cosmology |
| 2017 | Professor Graham Cormode (Warwick) Professor Richard Samworth (Cambridge) "Recent progress in log-concave density estimation" |
Statistical Analysis of Big Data |
| 2016 | Professor Clement Mouhot (Cambridge) | Applied Analysis |
| 2015 | Dr Arend Bayer (Edinburgh) "Wall-Crossing implies Brill-Noether. Applications of stability conditions on surfaces" Dr Tom Coates (Imperial College London) |
Algebraic Geometry |
| 2014 | Not awarded | Pattern Formation in Physics and Biology |
| 2013 | Professor Ivan Smith (Cambridge) "A Symplectic Prolegomenon" |
Topology |
| 2012 | Dr Sheehan Olver (Oxford) Dr Françoise Tisseur (Manchester) |
Computational Mathematics |
| 2011 | Dr Harald Helfgott (Bristol) "Growth in groups: ideas and perspectives" Dr Tom Sanders (Cambridge) "The Structure Theory of Set Addition Revisited" |
Discrete Mathematics or Number Theory |
| 2010 | Professor Jacques Vanneste (Edinburgh) "Balance and Spontaneous Wave Generation in Geophysical Flows" |
Fluid Mechanics |
| 2009 | Professor Raphaël Rouquier (Oxford) "Quiver Hecke Algebras and 2-Lie Algebras" |
Representation Theory |
| 2008 | Professor Tom Bridgeland (Sheffield) "Spaces of stability conditions" Dr David Tong (Cambridge) "Quantum Vortex Strings: a review" |
Quantum Fields and Strings |
| 2007 | Dr Paul Fearnhead (Lancaster) "Computational Methods for Complex Stochastic Systems: a review of some alternative to MCMC" |
Statistics |
| 2006 | Professor Jonathan Sherratt (Heriot-Watt) "Periodic Travelling Waves in Cyclic Populations: Field Studies and Reaction-Diffusion Models" |
Mathematical Biology |
| 2005 | Dr Mihalis Dafermos (Cambridge) Dr David Stuart (Cambridge) "Analysis of the adiabatic limit for solitons in classical field theory" |
Differential Equations |
| 2004 | Professor Dominic Joyce (Oxford) "A new construction of compact 8-manifolds with holonomy Spin(7)" |
Differential Geometry |
| 2003 | Dr David Hobson (Bath) "A survey of mathematical finance" |
Financial Mathematics |
| 2002 | Dr Susan Howson (Nottingham) | Number Theory |
| 2001 | Dr Sandu Popescu (Bristol) | Quantum Information |
| 2000 | Not awarded | |
| Prior to 2000, candidates were required to have a close connection to the University of Cambridge, and were also required to write a specially composed essay for the prize. This was widened to allow a candidate to be judged on their achievements in research. | ||
| 1998 | Not awarded | Pattern Formation |
| 1996 | No candidates | Number Theory and Arithmetical Algebraic Geometry |
| 1994 | No candidates | Fluid Dynamics |
| 1992 | Paul Glendinning (Gonville and Caius) "Chaos and Routes to Chaos in Lorenz Maps" |
Dynamical Systems |
| 1990 | Not awarded | Differential Geometry |
| 1988 | Not awarded | Elementary Particle Physics |
| 1986 | Brian Ripley (Churchill) "Statistical Inference for Spatial Processes" |
Spatial and Geometrical Aspects of Probability and Statistics |
| 1984 | Bernard John Carr (Trinity) | Cosmology |
| 1982 | Stephen Donkin (King's) "Tensor Products and Filtrations for Rational Representations of Algebraic Groups" Gordon James (Sidney Sussex) "Representations of General Linear Groups" Aidan Schofield (Trinity) "Simple Artinian Rings" Dan Segal (Peterhouse) "Polycyclic Groups" Martin Taylor (Trinity) "Classgroups of Group Rings" |
Algebra |
| 1980 | Brian Kennett (Emmanuel) "Seismic Wave Propagation in Stratified Media" Michael McIntyre (Trinity) "Waves and Mean Flows" |
Theories of Wave Generation Propagation, Interaction and Stability |
| 1978 | Alastair Mees (King's) "Ordinary Feedback Systems" |
Differential Equations |
| 1976 | Dr Tim Pedley (Gonville and Caius) "The Fluid Mechanics of Large Blood Vessels and of Bronchial Airways" |
Applications of Mathematics in Biology |
| 1974 | Dr David Barton (St John's) John Fitch (St John's) "Applications of algebraic manipulation programs in physics" |
Computer Science excluding Hardware |
| 1972 | Dr Alan Baker (Trinity) "Transcendental Number Theory" Additional prizes awarded to: Professor Christopher Hooley (Corpus Christi) "Applications of Sieve Methods in the Theory of Primes" Professor Hugh Lowell Montgomery (Trinity) "Advances in Multiplicative Number Theory" |
The Theory of Numbers |
| 1970 | Robert Burridge (King's) "The theory of earthquake mechanics" Leslie John Walpole (Emmanuel) "Theoretical elasticity of composite continua" John Raymond Willis (Fitzwilliam) "The solution of asymmetric problems of elasticity by Fourier transforms" |
Continuum Mechanics of some class of solid materials, in regard to the theoretical basis and/or applications |
| 1968 | No candidates | Differential Topology, including topological aspects of Differential Equations, Calculus of Variations and Nonlinear Analysis |
| 1966 | Dr Roger Penrose (St John's) "An analysis of the structure of space-time" Additional prizes awarded to: Dr Stephen Hawking (Gonville and Caius) "Singularities and the geometry of space-time" Dr Jayant Narlikar (King's) "Gravitation, Mach's principle, and cosmology" |
Geometrical Problems of Relativity, with special references to the foundations of General Relativity and Cosmology |
| 1964 | Dr James Gardner Oldroyd (Trinity) "An approach to non-Newtonian fluid mechanics" Dr Owen Martin Phillips (Trinity) "The dynamics of the upper ocean" |
Fluid Mechanics |
| 1962 | John Robert Ringrose (St John's) "Spectral Analysis: diagonal and super-diagonal forms for linear operators" |
|
| 1960 | Vasant Shankar Huzurbazar (Fitzwilliam) "Invariance Theory of Prior Probabilities" Walter Laws Smith (Pembroke) "Contributions to Renewal Theory" |
Probability Theory |
| 1958 | Paul Taunton Matthews (Clare) Professor Abdus Salam (St John's) "Invariance Properties in Elementary Particle Physics" John Gerald Taylor (Christ's) "The Dispersion Relations in Quantum Field Theory" |
Quantum Field Theory |
| 1956 | Harold Gordon Eggleston (Trinity) "Convexity in Euclidean Space" Of great merit: Peter John Hilton (Pembroke) "Homotopy theory of modules" Ioan Mackenzie James (Gonville and Caius) "On the homotopy groups of spheres" |
Topology |
| 1954 | No candidates | Cosmical Magnetism |
| 1952 | Bernhard Hermann Neumann (Fitzwilliam) "An essay on free products of groups with amalgamations" Of nearly equal merit: William Leonard Edge (Trinity) "Unitary Matrices in Galois Fields" |
A contribution to the theory of groups (by algebraic, analytical, topological or other methods, and including applications in which the use of group theory plays the major part) |
| 1950 | George Keith Batchelor (Trinity) "The theory of homogeneous turbulence" William Reginald Dean (Trinity) "Problems in the motion of an imcompressible viscous fluid" Leslie Howarth (St John's) "Some aspects of boundary layer theory" Essays of great merit: Rodney Hill (Pembroke) Gilford Norman Ward (Queens') |
Problems in the mechanics of solids and fluids (including elasticity, plasticity and hydrodynamics) |
| 1948 | John Charles Burkill (Peterhouse) "Integrals and trigonometric series" Subrahmanyan Chandresekhar (Trinity) "On a class of non-linear integral equations" Walter Kurt Hayman (St John's) "Maximum modulus and valency of functions meromorphic in the unit circle" John MacNaughton Whittaker (Trinity) "Series of polynomials" |
An essay on some subject in mathematical analysis |
| 1943 | Suspended | |
| 1942 | Hormasji Jehangir Bhabha (Gonville and Caius) | The theory of the elementary particles and their interactions |
| 1940 | Harold Davenport (Trinity) "On the geometry of numbers" |
The Theory of Numbers |
| 1938 | Not awarded | The distributional properties of functions of statistical variables |
| 1936 | William Vallance Douglas Hodge (Pembroke) "Harmonic integrals" Essays of great distinction: Thomas Gerald Room (St John's) John Arthur Todd (Trinity) Patrick Du Val (Trinity) |
(i) The theory of algebraic systems of curves on an algebraic surface (ii) The application of topological methods to the theory of algebraic loci (iii) The general reduction of an algebraic surface to one without multiplicities (iv) The geometrical representation of the physical universe |
| 1934 | Sydney Goldstein (St John's) Highly commended: Louis Rosenhead (St John's) |
The mathematical representation of unsteady flow in fluids |
| 1932 | Alan Herries Wilson (Emmanuel) | The Quantum-Mechanical theory of aperiodic phenomena |
| 1930 | Abram Samoilovitch Besicovitch (Trinity) "Almost periodic functions" |
The theory of almost periodic functions |
| 1928 | Sydney Chapman (Trinity) "Solar and Lunar diurnal variations of terrestrial magnetism" |
The variations in the Earth's magnetic field in relation to electric phenomena in the upper atmosphere and on the Earth |
| 1926 | Sir Harold Jeffreys (St John's) | The constitution of the interior of the Earth and the missing words |
| 1924 | Sir Ralph Fowler (Trinity) | The physical state of matter at high temperatures |
| 1922 | Joseph Proudman (Trinity) Highly commended: H. Jeffreys (St John's) |
The Theory of the Tides |
| 1920 | William Hicks (St John's) Highly commended: John William Nicholson (Trinity) |
The nature and analysis of optical spectra |
| 1918 | John William Nicholson (Trinity) | The Diffraction of Sound Waves |
| 1916 | James Hopwood Jeans (Trinity) | The course of evolution of the configurations possible for a rotating and gravitating fluid mass, including the discussion of the stabilities of the various forms |
| 1914 | Geoffrey Ingram Taylor (Trinity) "Turbulent Motions in Fluids" |
The phenomena of the disturbed motion of fluids, including the resistances encountered by bodies moving through them |
| 1912 | Samuel Bruce McClaren (Trinity) John William Nicholson (Trinity) |
The Theory of Radiation |
| 1911 | Augustus Edward Hough Love (Trinity) "Some Problems of Geodynamics" |
Some Investigation connected with the physical constitution or motion of the earth |
| 1909 | George Adolphus Schott (Trinity) "Electromagnetic radiation" |
The radiation from electric systems or ions in accelerated motion and the mechanical reactions on their motion which arise from it |
| 1907 | Ernest William Brown (Christ's) | The inequalities in the Moon's motion due to the direct action of the planets |
| 1905 | Not awarded | Wave motion of finite amplitude and unchanging type, in deep water |
| 1903 | Not awarded | The bearing on mathematical physics of recent progress in the theory of the representation of discontinuous quantity by series, with special consideration of the logical limitations of the processes involved |
| 1901 | Hector Munro MacDonald (Clare) | Electric Waves |
| 1899 | Joseph Larmor (St John's) Gilbert Thomas Walker (Trinity) |
The Theory of the Aberration of Light |
| 1897 | Not awarded | The solution of the differential equation y'' + (1/x)y'+ [1+(n2/x2)]y = 0 may be written in the form y = AJn (ix) + BKn (ix), where A and B are arbitrary constants, i=√-1, Jn (x) denotes Bessel's function of the nth order, and Kn (ix) is a function of x which vanishes when x is infinite. The subject selected for the Adams Prize Essay in 1897 is a discussion of the roots of the equation Kn (ix) = 0. |
| 1895 | No candidates | Discontinuous fluid motion in three dimensions |
| 1893 | John Henry Poynting (Trinity) | The methods of determining the absolute and relative value of gravitation and the mean density of the earth |
| 1891 | No candidates | The Motion of a Satellite about a Spheroidal Planet, and the Reaction on the Planet |
| 1889 | Not awarded | On the Criterion of the Stability and Instability of the Motion of a Viscous Fluid |
| 1887 | No candidates | Ellipsoidal and Spheroidal Harmonic Analysis |
| 1885 | Not awarded | Investigate the laws governing the interaction of cyclones and anticyclones on the Earth's surface |
| 1883 | Joseph John Thomson (Trinity) | A general investigation of the action upon each other of two closed vortices in a perfectly incompressible fluid |
| 1879 | Not awarded | The mutual disturbances of two planets when their mean motions are either exactly or very nearly commensurable |
| 1877 | Edward John Routh (Peterhouse) | The Criterion of Dynamical Stability |
| 1875 | Not awarded | A Theory of the Reflection and Refraction of Light |
| 1873 | Not awarded | A dissertation on the effect of the tides in altering the length of the day |
| 1871 | Isaac Todhunter (St John's) | A determination of the circumstances under which discontinuity of any kind presents itself in the solution of a problem of maximum or minimum in the calculus of variations, and applications of particular instances |
| 1869 | Not awarded | On the determination of the orbit of a planet or comet from three observations |
| 1867 | Not awarded | A new or improved method of finding by approximation the imaginary roots of a numerical equation of any degree |
| 1865 | Edward Walker (Trinity) | A systematic account of the phenomena and laws of terrestrial and cosmical magnetism so far as they have been hitherto ascertained by experiment |
| 1863 | Not awarded | A dissertation on the phenomena of dark and bright lines in spectra |
| 1861 | Not awarded | The Theory of the Physical Phenomena of the Great Comet of 1858 |
| 1859 | Not awarded | The theory of the mutual perturbations of two planets when their mean motions are accurately commensurate; especially in the case where the mean motions are in the ratio of 2 to 1. |
| 1857 | James Clerk Maxwell (Trinity) | The motion of Saturn's rings |
| 1855 | No candidates | The theory of Biela's Double Comet |
| 1853 | Not awarded | An investigation of the perturbations of the Moon in latitude produced by the actions of Venus, and particularly of the secular movement, and the inequalities of long period in the movement of the moon and node |
| 1850 | Robert Peirson (St John's) | The theory of the long inequality of Uranus and Neptune, depending on the near commensurability of their mean motions |