DIO has established three prizes, a grand each. At least two of the awards will be roughly annual (their pace will be up to judges); the other, at opportunity. Three international panels, totalling ten highly qualified judges, will decide future recipients. See below.
Dennis Rawlins, DIO's Publisher, has already awarded the initial (2004) ones, totalling $4000 — but will not even have a vote in future DIO-prize-judging.
The first E. Myles Standish Award for Scientific Principle goes to Myles Standish himself. E. Myles Standish's eminence in celestial mechanics is already internationally recognized. A leading pioneer in the establishment of numerical integration as the basis of national ephemerides, his orbits — computed by him and his colleagues at Cal Tech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory — have for decades reliably guided the world's ships & airplanes to their terrestrial ports, and NASA's craft to their celestial targets. The Standish Award reflects DIO's gratitude for Myles' lifetime of insisting on high standards of science and truth, and for his opposition to pretense in academe.
The first R. R. Newton Award for Scientific History goes to nonhistorian Charles T. Kowal (Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab), long a legendary living-immortal in astronomy, as discoverer of (among other objects) Chiron and two satellites of Jupiter. The specific historical discovery recognized by this Award is his recovery of Galileo's 1613 drawing of Neptune near Jupiter: perhaps the most shockingly outré discovery in the entire enterprise of astronomical history.
The first B. L. van der Waerden Award for Induction goes (doubly) to the admirably original researches of Alexander Jones (University of Toronto), whose utterly unexpected solutions of the Almajest mean motions of Mars and Jupiter displaced several others' (including Ptolemy's & DR's) unhistorical solutions. DIO looks forward to many more such central enlightenments from this still-youthful classicist.
The DIO Awards are established as follows:
The E. Myles Standish Award for Scientific Principle.
Presented approximately annually to a scholar who has
excelled in the area of scientific principle by
example, creativity, and-or analysis. Judges:
Stephen Brush, University of Maryland;
President Emeritus, History of Science Society.
E. Myles Standish, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California
Institute of Technology.
Christopher Walker, Department of West Asian Antiquities, British Museum.
The R. R. Newton Award for Scientific History.
Presented approximately annually for a discovery
in which history is advanced by use of scientific analysis. Judges:
Chas. Kowal, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.
Keith Pickering, Editor DIO.
F. Richard Stephenson, Physics, University of Durham;
International Astronomical Union.
The B. L. van der Waerden Award for Historical Induction.
Offering $1000
for each solution deemed superior to any of DR's eight best ancient-astronomy
inductions
(all eight posted at:
DIO 11.2 [2003]
p.33), their relative merit to be adjudicated by an independent panel
comprised of four eminent scholars,
all of whom have challenged past DR induction(s),
most of them successfully at least once. Judges:
Dennis Duke, Physics Department, Florida State University.
Alexander Jones, Classics Department, University of Toronto.
Hugh Thurston, Professor Emeritus, Mathematics, University of
British Columbia.
Curtis Wilson, History of Science, St.John's College, Annapolis.
Note added 2006/1/1:
As noted at ibid p.31, three of the four panel judges must be
convinced of a submitted solution's superiority. However,
the rarity of trustworthily independent judges in the astronomical history
field being what it has persistently been, DR regards these judges as
virtually irreplaceable. Thus, since two among the four van der Waerden Award
judges are of advanced age, DIO wishes to warn potential
aspirants that we are not obliged to replace any judges that become deceased.
I.e., unless a candidate wishes to face the challenge of convincing
a unanimity of three judges (or eventually three of two judges!),
it would be wise to submit promptly. Another way of looking at the situation:
given that the eight challenges were mailed to every serious scholar
of astronomical history over two years ago
(and most of the eight DIO solutions were likewise mailed out
individually, ordmag a decade ago), and given that scholars
have unsuccessfully attempted betterment of several of the eight:
if the van der Waerden Award opportunity
is not met with reasonable promptitude,
DIO will consider itself free to adopt the position
that the eight theories cited have been validated
by general and long-term communal failure to excel them,
despite our repeated encouragements, challenges,
even offers (and grantings)
of generous fiscal remuneration for success in exceeding us.
Note added 2004/12/5:
In any year during which none of the eight DR inductions is eliminated,
the 4-man van der Waerden Award committee is free to bestow its Award
upon the creator of a worthy induction unrelated to the DR list.
Indeed, if 2005 brings no eliminations,
DR asks the committee to consider retro-honoring:
[a] Jack Horner's arguments that TyRex was a scavenger; or
[b] the late Aubrey Diller's end-of-rational-controversy proof
(DIO 4.2 [1994]
p.56 Table 1) that Hipparchos in the 2nd century BC used
an accurate equation of spherical trig, and possessed
a long-lost figure (23°40') for the Earth's obliquity
which was much more accurate than the only extant precise
ancient value, that of Eratosthenes-Ptolemy (23°51'20'').
The awarding of all DIO prizes will henceforth be strictly up to the several appointed panels, in order that evaluation of merit will be entirely out of DR's hands. The panels are also encouraged to consider & suggest improvements of the definitions of standards & principles, by which potential recipients will be judged.
Anyone is free to propose nominees or achievements, by simply sending
specifics to the appropriate panel of judges.
And anyone in the world is eligible for the awards. With one exception: DR.