This year’s Copernicus Prize winners – Professors P. James E. Peebles and Barry C. Barish – during their visit to Warsaw had the opportunity to visit the most important historical sites in the capital and visit unique museums showcasing the history of our city and country.

On 20 June, Professors P. James E. Peebles and Barry C. Barish became the first ever winners of the Copernican Prizes. The awards ceremony took place during a gala at the Royal Castle in Warsaw.

The first honouree – Canadian astronomer and cosmologist Professor Phillip James Edwin Peebles – received the award for theoretical research that established the field of physical cosmology and laid the foundations of the modern model of the Universe.

The second recipient of the Prize – physicist Prof. Barry C. Barish – received the Academy’s award for his leading contribution to the epochal discovery of gravitational waves, which were predicted by Albert Einstein in his theory of relativity.

Exceptional visit of Nobel Prize winners to Warsaw

During their stay in the capital, the laureates of the award also had the opportunity to visit historical sites important to the history of Warsaw and Poland. The visit was particularly meaningful for Professor Barrish, who, although born in the United States, his parents came from Podlasie.

On the weekend before the Copernican Awards gala, representatives of the Copernican Academy visited the King John III Palace Museum in Wilanów and the Royal Łazienki Museum together with the Nobel Prize winners.

In the following days, the guests of the Copernican Academy also visited the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, the National Museum and the Museum of the University of Warsaw with its Central Campus.