Balzan Prize 2023 to David Damrosch and Heino Falcke#
The Academia Europaea is delighted to announce the award of the 2023 Balzan Prize for World Literature
to Professor David Damrosch, member of the Literary and theatrical studies section since 2012 and the award of 2023 Balzan Prize for High resolution images: from planetary to cosmic objects to Professor Heino Falcke, member of the Earth and Cosmic Sciences section since 2013.
David Damrosch is awarded the prize "for his creative approach to world literature as a transnational circulation of works that remain alive because they are embraced and changed beyond their culture of origin. For his stupendous knowledge of Western and non-Western literatures in all their geographical breadth and historical depth." David Damrosch is an American literary historian, currently the Ernest Bernbaum Professor at Harvard University.
Heino Falcke receives the prize "for being the first to envision imaging the immediate surroundings of a black hole, and for his leadership of the “Event Horizon Telescope”, specifically designed for this purpose. This telescope produced the sharpest images ever of what surrounds black holes in the distant galaxy known as M87 and in our own galaxy, the Milky Way, thereby validating Einstein’s General Relativity in situations where gravity is so strong that spacetime is significantly curved." Heino Falcke is a German-Dutch professor of radio astronomy and astroparticle physics at the Radboud University Nijmegen.
Professor Valerio Acocella, chair of the Earth and Cosmic Sciences section writes:
Professor Falcke, a member of the Earth and Cosmic section of the Academy, receives the prize "for being the first to envision imaging the immediate surroundings of a black hole, and for his leadership of the “Event Horizon Telescope”, specifically designed for this purpose. This telescope produced the sharpest images ever of what surrounds black holes in the distant galaxy known as M87 and in our own galaxy, the Milky Way, thereby validating Einstein’s General Relativity in situations where gravity is so strong that spacetime is significantly curved”.
Heino Falcke is a Professor of astroparticle physics and radio astronomy at the Radboud University of Nijmegen (Netherlands). He studies the role of super massive black holes and jets in galaxies, and accretion physics through theoretical, observational and experimental astronomy. Combining these fields, he wants to test General Relativity and alternative theories in the most extreme strong field limit. In 2019 he presented the first ever image of a black hole at a press conference in Brussels."
About the Balzan Prize#
The International Balzan Prize Foundation aims is to promote culture, the sciences, and the most meritorious initiatives in the cause of humanity, peace, and fraternity among peoples throughout the world.
