Professor James Binney receives Isaac Newton Medal and Prize

The College would like to congratulate Professor James Binney, who has received The 2023 Isaac Newton Medal and Prize.

Professor Binney's award was given for his work advancing the science of stellar dynamics and using strong physical intuition to widen and deepen our understanding of how galaxies are structured and formed.

Professor Binney commented:

Of course I feel hugely honoured to be awarded the Isaac Newton Medal. Embarrassed too because Newton was such a towering intellect and I'm such a humble foot soldier. In Newton's time quite a small number of extraordinary people discovered the scientific method and ever since foot soldiers like me have been pushing the boundaries of knowledge at an ever-increasing pace. I'm so glad I decided to go into astrophysics when I graduated in 1971. It's been an amazing five decades in astronomy. The engineers have given us tools of previously unimaginable power, and intellectually astronomy has migrated to the core of physics from an outlying position that was neither physics nor mathematics. I'm proud to feel I've played a small role in those developments. It's very satisfying that the IoP values my career so absurdly highly.

Science is a collaborative enterprise, and I owe almost everything to the wonderful students, postdocs and colleagues with whom I've published this last half century.

Dynamically consistent galaxy models are vital tools for interpreting astronomical data, which are always incomplete and biased. Over decades, Binney has introduced new ways of building model galaxies, and of understanding the orbits of stars within them. This has led to insights that have significantly influenced our understanding of how galaxies, both elliptical and spiral, are structured, formed and evolve. He pointed out the importance of velocity anisotropy for elliptical galaxies, and the role that central black holes play in limiting star formation.

With collaborators, he showed that spiral structure is important for the chemical evolution of galaxies, and made the case that galaxies like our own grow by bleeding gas from the vast reservoir of intergalactic gas. His contributions were key to establishing that ours is a barred galaxy and his work led to major revisions of the parameters that describe the bar and the Sun's orbit around it.

The Isaac Newton Medal and Prize is for world-leading contributions to physics by an individual of any nationality.