GRAVITY RESEARCH FOUNDATION
PO BOX 81389
WELLESLEY HILLS MA 02481-0004
USA

Roger W. Babson (Founder)
George M. Rideout, Jr. (President)

The trustees are pleased to announce the Awards for Essays for 2015.

1. $4,000 – Local Conformal Symmetry: the Missing Symmetry Component for Space and Time by Gerard ‘t Hooft, Institute for Theoretical Physics, Utrecht University and Spinoza Institute, Postbox 80.195, 3508 TD Utrecht, the Netherlands; e-mail: g.thooft[AT]uu.nl

2. $1,250 – Gravity as the Breakdown of Conformal Invariance by Giovanni Amelino-Camelia[1], Michele Arzano[1], Giulia Gubitosi[2], and Joao Magueijo[2], [1]Dipartimento di Fisica, Università La Sapienza and Sez. Roma1 INFN, P.le A. Moro 2, 00185 Roma, Italia, [2]TheoreticalPhysics, Blackett Laboratory, Imperial College, London, SW7 2BZ, United Kingdom; e-mail: giovanni.amelino-camelia[AT]roma1.infn.it, michele.arzano[AT]roma1.infn.it, g.gubitosi[AT]imperial.ac.uk, j.magueijo[AT]imperial.ac.uk

3. $1,000 – Nature Abhors a Horizon by Per Kraus[1] and Samir D. Mathur[2], [1]Department of Physics and Astronomy, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1547, [2]Department of Physics, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210; e-mail: pkraus[AT]ucla.edu, mathur.16[AT]osu.edu

4. $750 – Fractionated Branes and Black Hole Interiors by Emil J. Martinec, Enrico Fermi Inst. and Dept. of Physics, University of Chicago, 5640 S. Ellis Ave., Chicago, IL 60637-1433; e-mail: e-martinec[AT]uchicago.edu

5. $500 – The Essence of Gravitational Waves and Energy by F. I. Cooperstock, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Victoria, P.O. Box 3055, Victoria, B.C. V8W 3P6, Canada; e-mail: cooperst[AT]uvic.ca

Selected for Honorable Mention this year were (listed in alphabetical order): Tim Adamo; N. Afshordi, R. B. Mann, and R. Pourhasan; Dharam Vir Ahluwalia, Lance Labun, and Giorgio Torrieri; Shreya Banerjee, Sayantani Bera, and Tejinder P. Singh; Tom Banks; Carlos Barcelo, Raul Carballo-Rubio, and Luis J. Garay; John D. Barrow and Alexander A. H. Graham; Eric Bergshoeff, Wout Merbis, Alasdair J. Routh, and Paul K. Townsend; Swastik Bhattacharya and S. Shankaranarayanan; Eugenio Bianchi, Lucas Hackl, and Nelson Yokomizo; N. E. J Bjerrum-Bohr, John F. Donoghue, Basem Kamal El-Menoufi, Barry R. Holstein, Ludovic Plante, and Pierre Vanhove; Xian O. Camanho, Jose D. Edelstein, and Alexander Zhiboedov; Massimo Cerdonio and Carlo Rovelli; Saurya Das; Upasana Das and Banibrata Mukhopadhyay; Aharon Davidson and Ben Yellin; John Bruce Davies; Laurent Freidel, Robert G. Leigh, and Djordje Minic; M. Gasperini; A. Gruppuso and A. Sagnotti; Carlos A. R. Herdeiro and Eugen Radu; Shahar Hod; Preston Jones and Douglas Singleton; Prado Martín-Moruno and Nelson J. Nunes; Ali Masoumi; Eduard G. Mychelkin and Maxim A. Makukov; T. Padmanabhan; Maulik Parikh; Jeremy Sakstein and Kazuya Koyama; Ashoke Sen; C. Sivaram; Joan Sola; C. S. Unnikrishnan and George T. Gillies; Aron C. Wall.

This announcement and abstracts of award-winning and honorable mention essays will be posted when ready on our web site, http://www.gravityresearchfoundation.org. The five award-winning essays will be published in a special issue of the International Journal of Modern Physics D (IJMPD). They will also be posted at a later date on our web site.

In 2015, for our sixty-sixth competition, the trustees of the Gravity Research Foundation are offering five awards for short essays for the purpose of stimulating thought and encouraging work on gravitation. The stipulations follow.

(1) We will make these Awards on May 15, 2015 for the best well-written essays, 1500 words or fewer (excluding abstracts, diagrams, references and minimal equations), on the subject of gravitation, its theory, applications, or effects.

(2)
The First Award will be 4000.00 USD
The Second Award will be 1250.00
The Third Award will be 1000.00
The Fourth Award will be 750.00
The Fifth Award will be 500.00

(3) Essays must be in English and e-mailed in a single PDF file before April 1, 2015. One essay only will be accepted from each author. Notify us within 24 hours if you do not receive an e-mail confirmation of your submission.

(4) Title pages should include essay title; authors’ names, e-mail and mailing addresses; submission date; an abstract of 125 words or less; and the statement: “Essay written for the Gravity Research Foundation 2015 Awards for Essays on Gravitation.” Pages should be numbered.

(5) The decision of the judges will be final and no reviews or comments will be provided.

(6) Please check the winners’ announcement to be posted on our website: www.gravityresearchfoundation.org around May 15, 2015. We will also attempt to send all participants a general e-mail notification.

(7) The five award-winning essays will be published in a special issue of the International Journal of Modern Physics D (IJMPD). Authors of essays designated Honorable Mention will be invited to submit their essays to the IJMPD where these may undergo additional refereeing at editorial discretion for possible publication. Authors of all other essays are free and encouraged to publish their essays after May 15th. Submission e-mail address: George M. Rideout, Jr., President, grideoutjr[AT]aol.com

Recent First Award Winners:
2014 – Lawrence M. Krauss, Arizona State University and Frank Wilczek, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
2013 – Baocheng Zhang, Qing-yu Cai, Ming-sheng Zhan, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan and Li You, Tsinghua University, Bejing, PR China
2012 – Claus Kiefer and Manuel Kraemer, University of Cologne, Koeln, Germany
2011 – Ivan Agullo, Penn State and Leonard Parker, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
2010 – Mark Van Raamsdonk, University of British Columbia, Vancouver
2009 – Alexander Burinskii, Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia
2008 – T. Padmanabhan, IUCAA, Pune, India
2007 – S. Carlip, University of California at Davis
2006 – Vijay Balasubramanian, University of Pennsylvania; Donald Marolf, University of California at Santa Barbara and Moshe Rozali, University of British Columbia
2005 – John Ellis, CERN; N. E. Mavromatos, King’ss College London and D. V. Nanopoulos, Texas A and M University
2004 – Maulik Parikh, Columbia University, New York
2003 – Martin Bojowald, The Pennsylvania State University
2002 – Steven B. Giddings, University of California at Santa Barbara and Stanford University
2001 – Csaba Csaki and Joshua Erlich, Los Alamos National Lab and Christophe Grojean, University of California at Berkeley
2000 – Arthur Lue and Erick J. Weinberg, Columbia University, New York

Gravity Research Foundation

PO BOX 81389
WELLESLEY HILLS MA 02481-0004
USA
Roger W. Babson George M. Rideout, Jr.
FOUNDER President

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

The trustees are pleased to announce the Awards for Essays for 2014.

1. $4,000 – From B-Modes to Quantum Gravity and Unification of Forces by Lawrence M. Krauss[1] and Frank Wilczek[2]; [1]Department of Physics and School of Earth and Space Exploration, Arizona State University, PO BOX 871404 Tempe, AZ 85287-1404 and Mount Stromlo Observatory, Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Australian National University, Weston, ACT, Australia 2611, [2]Department of Physics, MIT, Cambridge MA 02139; e-mail: krauss[AT]asu.edu, wilczek[AT]mit.edu

2. $1,250 – Black Holes as Gravitational Atoms by Cenalo Vaz, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio 45221-0011; email: Cenalo.Vaz[AT]UC.Edu

3. $1,000 – What Drives the Time Evolution of the Spacetime Geometry? by T. Padmanabhan, IUCAA, Post Bag 4, Ganeshkhind, Pune 411 007, India; e-mail: paddy[AT]iucaa.ernet.in

4. $750 – Schrödinger’s Cat and the Firewall by Timothy J. Hollowood, Department of Physics, Swansea University, Swansea, SA2 8PP, UK; e-mail: t.hollowood[AT]swansea.ac.uk

5. $500 – Gravitational Waves and the (Quantum) Nature of the Primordial Seed by Rafael A. Porto, School of Natural Sciences, Institute for Advanced Study, Olden Lane, Princeton, NJ 08540 and Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY, Theory Group, D-22603 Hamburg, Germany; e-mail: rporto[AT]ias.edu

Selected for Honorable Mention this year were (listed in alphabetical order): F. D. Albareti, J. A. R. Cembranos, and A. L. Maroto; C. R. Argüelles and R. Ruffini; Manjari Bagchi and Diego F. Torres; Shant Baghram, Saeed Tavasoli, Farhang Habibi, Roya Mohayaee, and Joseph Silk; Vijay Balasubramanian, Bartlomiej Czech, and Jan de Boer; Tom Banks and W. Fischler; Carlos Barceló, Raúl Carballo-Rubio, and Luis J. Garay; Spyros Basilakos, José Ademir Sales Lima, and Joan Solà; Christian G. Böhmer and Robert J. Downes; Marco Bruni, Juan Carlos Hidalgo, and David Wands; Saurya Das; John Bruce Davies; Laurent Freidel, Robert G. Leigh, and Djordje Minic; Rodolfo Gambini and Jorge Pullin; Zahra Haghani, Tiberiu Harko, Hamid Reza Sepangi, and Shahab Shahidi; Richard T. Hammond; Carlos A. R. Herdeiro and Eugen Radu; Shahar Hod; Kristan Jensen and Julian Sonner; Justin Khoury, Godfrey E. J. Miller, and Andrew J. Tolley; Huiquan Li; Samir D. Mathur; Leopoldo A. Pando Zayas; Fabrizio Pinto; Dirk Puetzfeld and Yuri N. Obukhov; Mukund Rangamani and Massimilliano Rota; Carlo Rovelli and Francesca Vidotto; Varun Sahni and Yuri Shtanov; Jeremy Sakstein, Bhuvnesh Jain, and Vinu Vikram; P. Salucci, C. Frigerio Martins, and E. Karukes; Anushrut Sharma and Tejinder P. Singh; C. S. Unnikrishnan and George T. Gillies

This announcement and abstracts of award-winning and honorable mention essays will be posted when ready on our web site, http://www.gravityresearchfoundation.org. The five award-winning essays will be published in a special issue of the International Journal of Modern Physics D (IJMPD). They will also be posted at a later date on our web site.

Copyright © 2014 Gravity Research Foundation, All rights reserved.
Our mailing address is:

Gravity Research Foundation
P.O. Box 81389
Wellesley Hills, MA 02481-0004
www.gravityresearchfoundation.org

In 2014, for our sixty-fifth competition, the trustees of the Gravity Research Foundation are offering five awards for short essays for the purpose of stimulating thought and encouraging work on gravitation. The stipulations follow.

(1) We will make these Awards on May 15, 2014 for the best well-written essays, 1500 words or fewer (excluding abstracts, diagrams, references and minimal equations), on the subject of gravitation, its theory, applications, or effects.

(2) The First Award will be $4000.00
The Second Award will be $1250.00
The Third Award will be $1000.00
The Fourth Award will be $750.00
The Fifth Award will be $500.00

(3) Essays must be in English and e-mailed in a single PDF file before April 1, 2014. One essay only will be accepted from each author. Notify us within 24 hours if you do not receive an e-mail confirmation of your submission.

(4) Title pages should include essay title; authors’ names, e-mail and complete mailing addresses; submission date; an abstract of 125 words or less; and the statement: “Essay written for the Gravity Research Foundation 2014 Awards for Essays on Gravitation.” Pages should be numbered.

(5) The decision of the judges will be final and no reviews or comments will be provided.

(6) Please check the winners’ announcement to be posted on our website: gravityresearchfoundation.org around May 15, 2014. We will also attempt to send all participants a general e-mail notification.

(7) The five award-winning essays will be published in a special issue of the International Journal of Modern Physics D (IJMPD). Authors of essays designated Honorable Mention will be invited to submit their essays to the IJMPD where these may undergo additional refereeing at editorial discretion for possible publication. Authors of all other essays are free and encouraged to publish their essays after May 15th.

Submission e-mail address: George M. Rideout, Jr., President (grideoutjr[AT]aol.com)

Recent First Award Winners:
2013 – Baocheng Zhang, Qing-yu Cai, Ming-sheng Zhan, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan and Li You, Tsinghua University, Bejing, PR China
2012 – Claus Kiefer and Manuel Kraemer, University of Cologne, Koeln, Germany
2011 – Ivan Agullo, Penn State and Leonard Parker, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
2010 – Mark Van Raamsdonk, University of British Columbia, Vancouver
2009 – Alexander Burinskii, Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia
2008 – T. Padmanabhan, IUCAA, Pune, India
2007 – S. Carlip, University of California at Davis
2006 – Vijay Balasubramanian, University of Pennsylvania; Donald Marolf, University of California at Santa Barbara and Moshe Rozali, University of British Columbia
2005 – John Ellis, CERN; N. E. Mavromatos, King’s College London and D. V. Nanopoulos, Texas A-and-M University
2004 – Maulik Parikh, Columbia University, New York
2003 – Martin Bojowald, The Pennsylvania State University
2002 – Steven B. Giddings, University of California at Santa Barbara and Stanford University
2001 – Csaba Csaki and Joshua Erlich, Los Alamos National Lab and Christophe Grojean, University of California at Berkeley
2000 – Arthur Lue and Erick J. Weinberg, Columbia University, New York
1999 – John Ellis, CERN; N. E. Mavromatos, University of Oxford and D. V. Nanopoulos, Texas A and M University

GRAVITY RESEARCH FOUNDATION
PO BOX 81389
WELLESLEY HILLS MA
02481-0004 USA

The trustees are pleased to announce the Awards for Essays for 2013.

1. $4,000 – Information Conservation Is Fundamental: Recovering the Lost Information in Hawking Radiation by Baocheng Zhang[1], Qing-yu Cai[1], Ming-sheng Zhan[1], and Li You[2]; [1]Wuhan Institute of Physics and Mathematics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430071, People’s Republic of China, [2]Department of Physics, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China; e-mail: zhangbc[AT]wipm.ac.cn, qycai[AT]wipm.ac.cn, mszhan[AT]wipm.ac.cn, lyou[AT]mail.tsinghua.edu.cn

2. $1,250 – What Is the Shape of the Initial State? by Nishant Agarwal[1], R. Holman[2], and Andrew J. Tolley[3]; [1]McWilliams Center for Cosmology, Department of Physics, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, [2]Department of Physics, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, [3]Department of Physics, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH 44106; e-mail: nishanta[AT]andrew.cmu.edu, rh4a[AT]andrew.cmu.edu, andrew.j.tolley[AT]case.edu

3. $1,000 – What Happens at the Horizon? by Samir D. Mathur, Department of Physics, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210; e-mail: mathur.16[AT]osu.edu

4. $750 – On Negative Mass by Jonathan Belletete and M.B. Paranjape; Departement de Physique, Universite de Montreal, Quebec, Canada, H3C 3J7; e-mail: jonathan.belletete[AT]umontreal.ca, paranj[AT]lps.umontreal.ca

5. $500 – Dark Energy with Rigid Voids versus Relativistic Voids Alone by Boudewijn F. Roukema; Nicolaus Copernicus University, ul. Gagarina 11, 87-100 Torun, Poland; e-mail: boud[AT]astro.uni.torun.pl

Selected for Honorable Mention this year were (listed in alphabetical order):
A. Accioly, J. Helayel-Neto, E. Scatena, R. Turcati; S. L. Adler; H. Arponen; M. Arzano, S. Bianco, O. Dreyer; A. Bagchi, D. Grumiller; T. Banks; S. Basilakos, J. Ademir Sales Lima, J. Sola’; A. Bhattacharyya, A. Sinha; T. Biswas; X. Calmet; S. Capozziello, T. Harko, F. S.N. Lobo, G. J. Olmo; L. Nam Chang, Z. Lewis, D. Minic, T. Takeuchi; Bin Chen, Jia-ju Zhang; B. D. Chowdhury; U.a Das, B. Mukhopadhyay; P. Girdhar, A. Kobakhidze; H. M. Haggard, C. Rovelli; R. T. Hammond; S. Hod; T. Jacobson; A. Kaya; T. S. Koivisto, D. E. Wills; B. Majumder; J. Mielczarek; D. G. Moore, V. H. Satheeshkumar; S. Mukoyama, J.-P. Uzan; D. Neill, I. Z. Rothstein; Y. Jack Ng; H. Padmanabhan, T. Padmanabhan; K. Papadodimas, S. Raju; K. Ropotenko; P. A. Sanchez, M. Bellini; C. Sivaram; M. Smerlak; D. Stojkovic; H. Telkamp; Li Xiang, Yi Ling, You Gen Shen.

This announcement and abstracts of award-winning and honorable mention essays will be posted when ready on our web site, http://www.gravityresearchfoundation.org. The five award-winning essays will be posted on our web site and published in a special issue of the International Journal of Modern Physics D (IJMPD).

GRAVITY RESEARCH FOUNDATION
PO BOX 81389
WELLESLEY HILLS MA 02481-0004
USA

2013 Awards for Essays on Gravitation

In 2013, for our sixty-fourth competition, the trustees of the Gravity Research Foundation are offering five awards for short essays for the purpose of stimulating thought and encouraging work on gravitation. The stipulations follow.

(1) We will make these Awards on May 15, 2013 for the best well-written essays, 1500 words or less (excluding abstracts, diagrams, references and minimal equations), on the subject of gravitation, its theory, applications, or effects.

(2) The First Award will be $4000.00
The Second Award will be 1250.00
The Third Award will be 1000.00
The Fourth Award will be 750.00
The Fifth Award will be 500.00

(3) Essays must be in English and e-mailed in a single PDF file before April 1, 2013. Early submission is desirable. One essay only will be accepted from each author. Notify us within 24 hours if you do not receive an e-mail confirmation of your submission.

(4) Title pages should include essay title; authors’ names, complete mailing and e-mail addresses; submission date; an abstract of 125 words or less; and the statement: “Essay written for the Gravity Research Foundation 2013 Awards for Essays on Gravitation.” Pages should be numbered.

(5) The decision of the judges will be final and no reviews or comments will be provided.

(6) Please check the winners’ announcement to be posted on our website: http://www.gravityresearchfoundation.org around May 15, 2013. We will also attempt to send all participants a general e-mail notification.

(7) The five award-winning essays will be published in a special issue of the International Journal of Modern Physics D (IJMPD). Authors of essays designated Honorable Mention will be invited to submit their essays to the IJMPD where these may undergo additional refereeing at editorial discretion for possible publication. Authors of all other essays are free and encouraged to publish their essays after May 15th.

Submission e-mail address: George M. Rideout, Jr., President (grideoutjr[AT]aol.com)

Recent First Award Winners:
2012 – Claus Kiefer and Manuel Kraemer, University of Cologne, Koeln, Germany
2011 – Ivan Agullo, Penn State and Leonard Parker, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
2010 – Mark Van Raamsdonk, University of British Columbia, Vancouver
2009 – Alexander Burinskii, Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia
2008 – T. Padmanabhan, IUCAA, Pune, India
2007 – S. Carlip, University of California at Davis
2006 – Vijay Balasubramanian, University of Pennsylvania; Donald Marolf, University of California at Santa Barbara and Moshe Rozali, University of British Columbia
2005 – John Ellis, CERN; N. E. Mavromatos, King’s College London and D. V. Nanopoulos, Texas A and M University
2004 – Maulik Parikh, Columbia University, New York
2003 – Martin Bojowald, The Pennsylvania State University
2002 – Steven B. Giddings, University of California at Santa Barbara and Stanford University, Stanford, California
2001 – Csaba Csaki and Joshua Erlich, Los Alamos National Lab and Christophe Grojean, University of California at Berkeley
2000 – Arthur Lue and Erick J. Weinberg, Columbia University, New York
1999 – John Ellis, CERN; N. E. Mavromatos, University of Oxford and D. V. Nanopoulos, Texas A and M University
1998 – Viqar Husain, University of British Columbia, Vancouver

GRAVITY RESEARCH FOUNDATION
PO BOX 81389
WELLESLEY HILLS MA 02481-0004
USA

2013 Awards for Essays on Gravitation

In 2013, for our sixty-fourth competition, the trustees of the Gravity Research Foundation are offering five awards for short essays for the purpose of stimulating thought and encouraging work on gravitation. The stipulations follow.

(1) We will make these Awards on May 15, 2013 for the best well-written essays, 1500 words or less (excluding abstracts, diagrams, references and minimal equations), on the subject of gravitation, its theory, applications, or effects.

(2) The First Award will be $4000.00
The Second Award will be 1250.00
The Third Award will be 1000.00
The Fourth Award will be 750.00
The Fifth Award will be 500.00

(3) Essays must be in English and e-mailed in a single PDF file before April 1, 2013. Early submission is desirable. One essay only will be accepted from each author. Notify us within 24 hours if you do not receive an e-mail confirmation of your submission.

(4) Title pages should include essay title; authors’ names, complete mailing and e-mail addresses; submission date; an abstract of 125 words or less; and the statement: “Essay written for the Gravity Research Foundation 2013 Awards for Essays on Gravitation.” Pages should be numbered.

(5) The decision of the judges will be final and no reviews or comments will be provided.

(6) Please check the winners’ announcement to be posted on our website: http://www.gravityresearchfoundation.org around May 15, 2013. We will also attempt to send all participants a general e-mail notification.

(7) The five award-winning essays will be published in a special issue of the International Journal of Modern Physics D (IJMPD). Authors of essays designated Honorable Mention will be invited to submit their essays to the IJMPD where these may undergo additional refereeing at editorial discretion for possible publication. Authors of all other essays are free and encouraged to publish their essays after May 15th.

Submission e-mail address: George M. Rideout, Jr., President (grideoutjr[AT]aol.com)

Recent First Award Winners:
2012 – Claus Kiefer and Manuel Kraemer, University of Cologne, Koeln, Germany
2011 – Ivan Agullo, Penn State and Leonard Parker, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
2010 – Mark Van Raamsdonk, University of British Columbia, Vancouver
2009 – Alexander Burinskii, Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia
2008 – T. Padmanabhan, IUCAA, Pune, India
2007 – S. Carlip, University of California at Davis
2006 – Vijay Balasubramanian, University of Pennsylvania; Donald Marolf, University of California at Santa Barbara and Moshe Rozali, University of British Columbia
2005 – John Ellis, CERN; N. E. Mavromatos, King’s College London and D. V. Nanopoulos, Texas A and M University
2004 – Maulik Parikh, Columbia University, New York
2003 – Martin Bojowald, The Pennsylvania State University
2002 – Steven B. Giddings, University of California at Santa Barbara and Stanford University, Stanford, California
2001 – Csaba Csaki and Joshua Erlich, Los Alamos National Lab and Christophe Grojean, University of California at Berkeley
2000 – Arthur Lue and Erick J. Weinberg, Columbia University, New York
1999 – John Ellis, CERN; N. E. Mavromatos, University of Oxford and D. V. Nanopoulos, Texas A and M University
1998 – Viqar Husain, University of British Columbia, Vancouver

GRAVITY RESEARCH FOUNDATION
PO BOX 81389
WELLESLEY HILLS MA 02481-0004
USA

Roger W. Babson, Founder
George M. Rideout, Jr., President

The trustees are pleased to announce the Awards for Essays for 2012.

1. $4,000 – Can Effects of Quantum Gravity Be Observed in the Cosmic Microwave Background? by Claus Kiefer and Manuel Kraemer, Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of Cologne, Zuelpicher Strasse 77, 50937 Koeln, Germany; e-mail: kiefer[AT]thp.uni-koeln.de mk[AT]thp.uni-koeln.de

2. $1,250 – What Can the Information Paradox Tell Us about the Early Universe? by Samir D. Mathur, Department of Physics, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210; e-mail: mathur[AT]mps.ohio-state.edu

3. $1,000 – The Unbearable Beingness of Light – Dressing and Undressing Photons in Black Hole Spacetimes by Timothy J. Hollowood and Graham M. Shore, Department of Physics, Swansea University, Swansea, SA2 8PP, UK: e-mail: t.hollowood[AT]swansea.ac.uk g.m.shore[AT]swansea.ac.uk

4. $750 – Holographic Space-Time by Tom Banks, NHETC and Department of Physics and Astronomy, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ 08854-8019, and SCIPP and Department of Physics, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064-1077; e-mail: banks[AT]scipp.ucsc.edu

5. $500 – Secret Life of the Spacetime by T. Padmanabhan, IUCAA, Post Bag 4, Ganeshkhind, Pune – 411007, India; e-mail: paddy[AT]iucaa.ernet.in

Selected for Honorable Mention this year were (listed in alphabetical order) Giovanni Amelino-Camelia, Valerio Astuti and Giacomo Rosati; Jacob D. Bekenstein; Adam R. Brown and Alex Dahlen; Marcelo Botta Cantcheff; Marios Christodoulou, Aldo Riello and Carlo Rovelli; Joseph P. Conlon; Christian Corda; Lawrence B. Crowell; Upasana Das and Banibrata Mukhopadhyay; Arundhati Dasgupta and Adamantia Zampeli; Aharon Davidson and Ben Yellin; Henrique P. de Oliveira, Leopoldo A. Pando Zayas and Cesar A. Terrero-Escalante; Irina Dymnikova; Ariel Edery and Hugues Beauchesne; Homer G. Ellis; Tiberiu Harko and Francisco S. N. Lobo; Shahar Hod; Viqar Husain and Dawood Kothawala; Ted Jacobson; Priti Mishra and Tejinder P. Singh; Sujoy Kumar Modak and Douglas Singleton; Kouji Nakamura; M. B. Paranjape; Ira Z. Rothstein; Rolf Schimmrigk; C. Sivaram and Kenath Arun; Albert Stebbins; W.M. Stuckey, T.J. McDevitt and M. Silberstein; Yu Tian, Xiao-Ning Wu and Hongbao Zhang; Christos G. Tsagas; C. S. Unnikrishnan and G. T. Gillies; Ram Gopal Vishwakarma.

This announcement and abstracts of award-winning and honorable mention essays will be posted when ready on our web site, http://www.gravityresearchfoundation.org. The five award-winning essays will be published in a special issue of the International Journal of Modern Physics D (IJMPD). They will also be posted at a later date on our web site.

In 2012 for our sixty-third competition, the Trustees of the Gravity Research Foundation are offering five awards for short essays for the purpose of stimulating thought and encouraging work on gravitation. The stipulations follow.

(1) The Trustees of the Gravity Research Foundation will make these Awards on May 15, 2012 for the best well-written essays, 1500 words or less (excluding abstracts, diagrams, references and minimal equations), on the subject of gravitation, its theory, applications, or effects.

(2) The First Award will be $4000.00
The Second Award will be 1250.00
The Third Award will be 1000.00
The Fourth Award will be 750.00
The Fifth Award will be 500.00

(3) Essays must be in English and e-mailed in a single PDF file before April 1, 2012. Early submission is desirable. One essay only will be accepted from each author. Notify us within 24 hours if you do not receive an e-mail confirmation of your submission.

(4) Title pages should include essay title; authors’ names, complete mailing and e-mail addresses; submission date; an abstract of 125 words or less; and the statement: “Essay written for the Gravity Research Foundation 2012 Awards for Essays on Gravitation.” Pages should be numbered.

(5) The decision of the judges will be final and no reviews will be provided.

(6) Please check the list of winners to be posted on our website: http://www.gravityresearchfoundation.org around May 15, 2012. We will attempt to send all participants a general e-mail notification.

(7) The five award-winning essays will be published in a special issue of the International Journal of Modern Physics D (IJMPD). Authors of essays designated Honorable Mention will be invited to submit their essays to the IJMPD where these may undergo additional refereeing at editorial discretion for possible publication. Authors of all other essays are free and encouraged to publish their essays after May 15th.

Submission e-mail address: George M. Rideout, Jr., President (grideoutjr[AT]aol.com)

Gravity Research Foundation
PO BOX 81389
Welleesley Hills MA 02481-0004
USA

Recent First Award Winners:
2011 – Ivan Agullo, Penn State and Leonard Parker, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
2010 – Mark Van Raamsdonk, University of British Columbia, Vancouver
2009 – Alexander Burinskii, Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia
2008 – T. Padmanabhan, IUCAA, Pune, India
2007 – S. Carlip, University of California at Davis
2006 – Vijay Balasubramanian, University of Pennsylvania; Donald Marolf, University of California at Santa Barbara and Moshe Rozali, University of British Columbia
2005 – John Ellis, CERN; N. E. Mavromatos, King’s College London and D. V. Nanopoulos, Texas A and M University
2004 – Maulik Parikh, Columbia University, New York
2003 – Martin Bojowald, The Pennsylvania State University
2002 – Steven B. Giddings, University of California at Santa Barbara and Stanford University, Stanford, California
2001 – Csaba Csaki and Joshua Erlich, Los Alamos National Lab and Christophe Grojean, University of California at Berkeley
2000 – Arthur Lue and Erick J. Weinberg, Columbia University, New York
1999 – John Ellis, CERN; N. E. Mavromatos, University of Oxford and D. V. Nanopoulos, Texas A and M University
1998 – Viqar Husain, University of British Columbia, Vancouver
1997 – Robert Myers, McGill University, Quebec

The trustees are pleased to announce the Awards for Essays for 2011.

1. $4,000 – Stimulated Creation of Quanta during Inflation and the Observable Universe by Ivan Agullo (1) and Leonard Parker (2), (1) Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos, Physics Department, Penn State, University Park, PA 16802-6300, (2) Physics Department, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, P.O. Box 413, Milwaukee, WI 53201; e-mail: agullo[at]gravity.psu.edu leonard[at]uwm.edu

2. $1,250 – Relative Locality: A Deepening of the Relativity Principle by Giovanni Amelino-Camelia (1), Laurent Freidel (2), Jerzy Kowalski-Glikman (3), and Lee Smolin2, (1) Dipartimento di Fisica, Universita’ “La Sapienza” and Sez. Roma1 INFN P. le A. Moro 2, 00185 Roma, Italy, (2) Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics , 31 Caroline Street North, Waterloo, Ontario N2J 2Y5, Canada, (3) Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of Wroclaw, Pl. Maxa Borna 9, 50-204 Wroclaw, Poland; e-mail: amelino[at]roma1.infn.it lfreidel[at]perimeterinstitute.ca jkowalskiglikman[at]ift.uni.wroc.pl lsmolin[at]perimeterinstitute.ca

3. $1,000 – The Value of the Cosmological Constant by John D. Barrow and Douglas J. Shaw, DAMTP, Centre for Mathematical Sciences, Cambridge University, Cambridge CB3 0WA, United Kingdom; e-mail: J.D.Barrow[at]damtp.cam.ac.uk D.Shaw[at]damtp.cam.ac.uk

4. $750 – Losing Information outside the Horizon by Samir D. Mathur, Department of Physics, The Ohio State University, Columbus OH, 43210; e-mail: mathur[at]mps.ohio-state.edu

5. $500 – Quantum Gravity and Dark Matter by Chiu Man Ho (1), Djordje Minic (2), and Y. Jack Ng (3), (1) Department of Physics and Astronomy, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37235, (2) Department of Physics, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061, (3) Institute of Field Physics, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599; e-mail: chiuman.ho[at]vanderbilt.edu dminic[at]vt.edu yjng[at]physics.unc.edu

Selected for Honorable Mention this year were (listed in alphabetical order) Olga V. Babourova and Boris N. Frolov; B. J. Carr and A. A. Coley; Naresh Dadhich; Scott Dodelson; Chris Done; Arthur E. Fischer; Rodolfo Gambini, Jorge Pullin, and Saeed Rastgoo; Daniel Grumiller and Florian Preis; E. I. Guendelman; L Herrera; Shahar Hod; L. P. Horwitz, A. Yahalom, M. Lewkowicz, and J. Levitan; Ali Kaya; H. Kleinert; Kazuya Koyama, Gustavo Niz, and Gianmassimo Tasinato; Ishwaree P. Neupane; Julio Oliva and Sourya Ray; T. Padmanabhan; Giandomenico Palumbo; Antonio Enea Romano and Pisin Chen; Gustavo E. Romero and Daniela Perez; M. M. Sheikh-Jabbari; C. Sivaram; N. C. Tsamis and R. P. Woodard; C. S. Unnikrishnan and G. T. Gillies.

This announcement and abstracts of award-winning and honorable mention essays will be posted when ready on our web site, http://www.gravityresearchfoundation.org. The five award-winning essays will be published in the Journal of General Relativity and Gravitation (GRG) and subsequently, in a special issue of the International Journal of Modern Physics D (IJMPD). They will also be posted at a later date on our web site.

Roger W. Babson, Founder
George M. Rideout, Jr., President

GRAVITY RESEARCH FOUNDATION
PO BOX 81389
WELLESLEY HILLS MA 02481-0004
USA

In 2011 for our sixty-second competition, the trustees are offering five Awards for short Essays for the purpose of stimulating thought and encouraging work on Gravitation. The stipulations follow:

(1) We will make these Awards on May 15, 2011 for the best essays, 1500 words or less (excluding abstracts, diagrams, references and minimal equations), on the subject of Gravitation, its theory, applications, or effects.

(2) The First Award will be        $4000.00
The Second Award will be          1250.00
The Third Award will be             1000.00
The Fourth Award will be             750.00
The Fifth Award will be                500.00

(3) Essays must be in English and e-mailed in a single PDF file before April 1, 2011. Page numbering and early submission is greatly encouraged. One essay only will be accepted from each author. Notify us if you do not receive an e-mail confirmation within 48 hours.

(4) Cover pages should include essay title; authors’ names, addresses and e-mail addresses; the statement: “Essay written for the Gravity Research Foundation 2011 Awards for Essays on Gravitation”; submission date; and a summary paragraph of 125 words or less.

(5) The decision of the judges will be final, no reviews will be provided and no essays will be returned.

(6) The list of winners will be posted on our website: http://www.gravityresearchfoundation.org on or about May 15, 2011. All participants will receive a general e-mail notification.

(7) The five award-winning essays will be published in the Journal of General Relativity and Gravitation (GRG) and, subsequently, in a special issue of the International Journal of Modern Physics D (IJMPD). Authors of all other essays are free and encouraged to publish their essays after May 15th. Authors of essays designated Honorable Mention will be invited to submit their essays to the IJMPD where these may undergo additional refereeing at editorial discretion for possible publication.

Submission e-mail address: George M. Rideout, Jr., President (grideoutjr[at]aol.com)

Recent First Award Winners:
2010 – Mark Van Raamsdonk, University of British Columbia, Vancouver
2009 – Alexander Burinskii, Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia
2008 – T. Padmanabhan, IUCAA, Pune, India
2007 – S. Carlip, University of California at Davis
2006 – Vijay Balasubramanian, University of Pennsylvania; Donald Marolf, University of California at Santa Barbara and Moshe Rozali, University of British Columbia
2005 – John Ellis, CERN; N. E. Mavromatos, King’s College London and D. V. Nanopoulos, Texas A&M University
2004 – Maulik Parikh, Columbia University, New York
2003 – Martin Bojowald, The Pennsylvania State University
2002 – Steven B. Giddings, University of California at Santa Barbara and Stanford University, Stanford, California
2001 – Csaba Csaki and Joshua Erlich, Los Alamos National Lab and Christophe Grojean, University of California at Berkeley
2000 – Arthur Lue and Erick J. Weinberg, Columbia University, New York
1999 – John Ellis, CERN; N. E. Mavromatos, University of Oxford and D. V. Nanopoulos, Texas A and M University
1998 – Viqar Husain, University of British Columbia, Vancouver
1997 – Robert Myers, McGill University, Quebec
1996 – D. V. Ahluwalia, Los Alamos National Lab and C. Burgard, Universitaet Hamburg/DESY, II, Germany

GRAVITY RESEARCH FOUNDATION
PO BOX 81389
WELLESLEY HILLS MA 02481-0004
USA

THE TRUSTEES ARE PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE THE AWARDS FOR ESSAYS FOR 2010.

1. $4,000 – Building Up Spacetime with Quantum Entanglement by Mark Van Raamsdonk, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of British Columbia, 6224 Agricultural Road, Vancouver, B.C., V6T 1W9, Canada; e-mail: mav[AT]phas.ubc.ca

2. $1,250 – Membrane Paradigm Realized? by Samir D. Mathur, Department of Physics, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210; e-mail: mathur[AT]mps.ohio-state.edu

3. $1,000 – The Dangers of Extremes by Donald Marolf, Physics Department, UCSB, Santa Barbara, CA 93106; e-mail: marolf[AT]physics.ucsb.edu

4. $750 – The Necessity of Torsion in Gravity by Richard T. Hammond, Department of Physics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599 and ARO Research Triangle Park; e-mail: rhammond[AT]email.unc.edu

5. $500 – Conditions for Spontaneous Homogenization of the Universe by Krzysztof Bolejko (1) and William R. Stoeger (2), (1) Steward Observatory, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721 and Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center, Bartycka 18, 00-716 Warszawa, Poland; (2) Vatican Observatory Research Group, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721: e-mail: bolejko[AT]camk.edu.pl

Selected for Honorable Mention this year were (listed in alphabetical order): Antonio Accioly, Jose’ Helayel- Neto, and Eslley Scatena; Giovanni Amelino-Camelia, Niccolo’ Loret, Gianluca Mandanici, and Flavio Mercati; Sudarshan Ananth; R. Balbinot, I. Carusotto, A. Fabbri, and A. Recati; Rabin Banerjee; R. Brout; A. A. Coley; F. I. Cooperstock and M. J. Dupre; Aharon Davidson and Ilya Gurwich; John Bruce Davies; A. Di Virgilio, U. Schreiber, N. Beverini, and A. Tartaglia; Sourish Dutta, Robert J. Scherrer, and Stephen D. H. Hsu; Ariel Edery and Benjamin Constantineau; Shahar Hod; Craig J. Hogan; Vishnu Jejjala, Djordje Minic, Y. Jack Ng, and Chia-Hsiung Tze; Axel Kleinschmidt and Hermann Nicolai; Lance Labun and Johann Rafelski; M. D. Maia; Adam Moss, Ali Narimani, and Douglas Scott; Ishwaree P. Neupane; T. Padmanabhan; Don N. Page; Carlo Rovelli and Francesca Vidotto; Tejinder P. Singh; C. Sivaram; Martin S. Sloth; George F. Smoot; C. S. Unnikrishnan and G. T. Gillies; Asher Yahalom.

This announcement and abstracts of award-winning and honorable mention essays will be posted when ready on our web site, http://www.gravityresearchfoundation.org/. The five award-winning essays will be published in the Journal of General Relativity and Gravitation (GRG) and subsequently, in a special issue of the International Journal of Modern Physics D (IJMPD). They will also be posted at a later date on our web site.