Keith Medal
# Keith Medal

The Keith Medal was a prize awarded by the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's national academy, for a scientific paper published in the society's scientific journals, preference being given to a paper containing a discovery, either in mathematics or earth sciences.

The Medal was inaugurated in 1827 as a result of a gift from Alexander Keith of Dunnottar, the first Treasurer of the Society. It was awarded quadrennially, alternately for a paper published in: Proceedings A (Mathematics) or Transactions (Earth and Environmental Sciences). The medal bears the head of John Napier of Merchiston.

The medal is no longer awarded.

## Recipients of the Keith Gold Medal

Source (1827 to 1913): Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh

### 19th century

* 1827–29: David Brewster, on his Discovery of Two New Immiscible Fluids in the Cavities of certain Minerals
* 1829–31: David Brewster, on a New Analysis of Solar Light
* 1831–33: Thomas Graham, on the Law of the Diffusion of Gases
* 1833–35: James David Forbes, on the Refraction and Polarization of Heat
* 1835–37: John Scott Russell, on Hydrodynamics
* 1837–39: John Shaw, on the Development and Growth of the Salmon
* 1839–41: Not awarded
* 1841–43: James David Forbes, on Glaciers
* 1843–45: Not awarded
* 1845–47: Sir Thomas Brisbane, for the Makerstoun Observations on Magnetic Phenomena
* 1847–49: Not awarded
* 1849–51: Philip Kelland, on General Differentiation, including his more recent Communication on a process of the Differential Calculus, and its application to the solution of certain Differential Equations
* 1851–53: William John Macquorn Rankine, on the Mechanical Action of Heat
* 1853–55: Thomas Anderson, on the Crystalline Constituents of Opium, and on the Products of the Destructive Distillation of Animal Substances
* 1855–57: George Boole, on the Application of the Theory of Probabilities to Questions of the Combination of Testimonies and Judgments
* 1857–59: Not awarded
* 1859–61: John Allan Broun, on the Horizontal Force of the Earth’s Magnetism, on the Correction of the Bifilar Magnetometer, and on Terrestrial Magnetism generally
* 1861–63: William Thomson, on some Kinematical and Dynamical Theorems
* 1863–65: James David Forbes, for Experimental Inquiry into the Laws of Conduction of Heat in Iron Bars
* 1865–67: Charles Piazzi Smyth, on Recent Measures at the Great Pyramid
* 1867–69: Peter Guthrie Tait, on the Rotation of a Rigid Body about a Fixed Point
* 1869–71: James Clerk Maxwell, on Figures, Frames, and Diagrams of Forces
* 1871–73: Peter Guthrie Tait, First Approximation to a Thermo-electric Diagram
* 1873–75: Alexander Crum Brown, on the Sense of Rotation, and on the Anatomical Relations of the Semicircular Canals of the Internal Ear
* 1875–77: Matthew Forster Heddle, on the Rhombohedral Carbonates and on the Felspars of Scotland
* 1877–79: Henry Charles Fleeming Jenkin, on the Application of Graphic Methods to the Determination of the Efficiency of Machinery
* 1879–81: George Chrystal, on the Differential Telephone
* 1881–83: Sir Thomas Muir, Researches into the Theory of Determinants and Continued Fractions
* 1883–85: John Aitken, on the Formation of Small Clear Spaces in Dusty Air
* 1885–87: John Young Buchanan, for a series of communications, extending over several years, on subjects connected with Ocean Circulation, Compressibility of Glass, etc.
* 1887–89: Edmund Albert Letts, for his papers on the Organic Compounds of Phosphorus
* 1889–91: Robert Traill Omond, for his contributions to Meteorological Science
* 1891–93: Sir Thomas Richard Fraser, for his papers on Strophanthus hispidus, Strophanthin, and Strophanthidin
* 1893–95: Cargill Gilston Knott, for his papers on the Strains produced by Magnetism in Iron and in Nickel
* 1895–97: Sir Thomas Muir, for his continued communications on Determinants and Allied Questions
* 1897–99: James Burgess, on the Definite Integral ...

### 20th/21st century

* 1899–1901: Hugh Marshall, for his discovery of the Persulphates, and for his Communications on the Properties and Reactions of these Salts
* 1901–03: Sir William Turner, for A Contribution to the Craniology of the People of Scotland and Contributions to the Craniology of the People of the Empire of India
* 1903–05: Thomas Hastie Bryce, for his two papers on The Histology of the Blood of the Larva of Lepidosiren paradoxa
* 1905–07: Alexander Bruce, on the Distribution of the Cells in the Intermedio-Lateral Tract of the Spinal Cord
* 1907–09: Wheelton Hind, On the Lamellibranch and Gasteropod Fauna found in the Millstone Grit of Scotland
* 1909–11: Alexander Smith, for his researches upon Sulphur and upon Vapour Pressure
* 1911–13: James Russell, for his series of investigations relating to magnetic phenomena in metals and the molecular theory of magnetism
* 1913–15: James Hartley Ashworth
* 1915–17: Robert Cockburn Mossmann
* 1917–19: John Stephenson
* 1919–21: Ralph Allan Sampson
* 1921–23: John Walter Gregory
* 1923–25: Herbert Westren Turnbull
* 1925–27: Robert Meldrum Craig jointly with ?
* 1927–29: Christina Miller
* 1929–31: Alan William Greenwood
* 1931–33: Arthur Crichton Mitchell, for his work on geomagnetism
* 1933–35: Lancelot Thomas Hogben
* 1935–37: Harold Stanley Ruse
* 1937–39: Francis Albert Eley Crew
* 1939–41: Sir William Hunter McCrea jointly with Edward Copson
* 1941–43: James Ritchie
* 1943–45: William Leonard Edge
* 1945–47: Charlotte Auerbach
* 1947–49: Arthur Geoffrey Walker
* 1949–51: Alastair Graham
* 1951–53: Daniel Edwin Rutherford
* 1953–55: Alexander David Peacock
* 1955–57: Ivor Malcolm Haddon Etherington
* 1957–59: John Barclay Tait
* 1959–61:
* 1961–63: Robert Alexander Rankin
* 1963–65: Reinhold Henry Furth
* 1965–67: Alexander John Haddow
* 1967–69: Henry Jack
* 1969–71: Charles Dewar Waterston
* 1971–73: Douglas Samuel Jones
* 1973–75: Kenneth Lyon Blaxter
* 1975–77: Michael Stephen Patrick Eastham
* 1977–79: Brian John Bluck
* 1979–81: John Mackintosh Howie
* 1981–83: John Heslop-Harrison
* 1983–85: John Bryce McLeod
* 1985–87:
* 1987–89: John Macleod Ball
* 1989–91:
* 1991–93:
* 1993–95: Euan Clarkson (78th award)
* 1995–97: No award
* 1997–99: Vladimír Šverák (79th award)
* 1999–2001:
* 2001–03: No award
* 2005: No award
* 2006: Antonio DeSimone, Stefan Müller, Robert Kohn, Felix Otto
* Medal no longer awarded (though a 2011 edition had been planned)
