Sloan Digital Sky Survey

SDSS Founder Bahcall Honored with the Dan David Prize and the Franklin Medal in Physics

John Bahcall, the Richard Black Professor of Natural Sciences at the Institute of Advanced Study, Princeton, N.J., has been awarded both the Dan David Prize and the 2003 Benjamin Franklin medal in physics.

An early proponent of the concept of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, Bahcall was instrumental in defining the SDSS mission and facilitating the backing of the unprecedented undertaking.

Bahcall was the recipient of the "Future" Dan David Prize for his contribution and discoveries in cosmology and astronomy which "will hold great promise for improvement of our world."

In the citation by the Philadelphia-based Franklin Institute, Bahcall, Raymond Davis and Masatoshi Koshiba were heralded for their "discovery of solar neutrinos, furthering our understanding of the internal processes of the Sun and stars in general."

The Dan David foundation is a joint, international enterprise, endowed by the Dan David foundation and headquartered at Tel Aviv University. The Franklin Institute Science Museum that sponsors the medal is "an informal science learning institution, located in Philadelphia..."