The highest national award given out annually to scientists and scholars for lifetime achievements, the Zois Prize, was conferred on particle physicist Gabrijel Kernel and inorganic chemist Boris Zemva at a ceremony in the Cankarjev dom arts centre.Kernel is the founder of experimental physics of elementary particles and a major contributor to the development of the field in Slovenia, the Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Technology said.
The physicist, who is professor emeritus of the Ljubljana University, established in the 1970s a group of young Slovenian experts which joined the research with the Omicron spectometer in the Geneva-based European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN). Kernel, also an important member of the Jozef Stefan research institute, included the Slovenian group in the ARGUS experiment in the 1980s, and participated in the DELPHI experiment in the 1990s, which helped determine the parameters of the standard model of elementary particles. With his achievements in inorganic chemistry of fluorine, Zemva has made it among top researchers, who have pushed the boundaries in the field to the heights of unimaginable a few decades ago, the ministry said.
He contributed a chapter to the Encyclopedia of Inorganic Chemistry and is a recipient of the prestigious Humbold Prize, conferred annually to internationally renowned scientists and scholars, and was the fourth European to receive the award of the American Chemical Society. The Zois Award for top achievements in science, research and development meanwhile went to social geographer Vladimir Klemencic and historian Matjaz Klemencic for their book on the life of Carinthian Slovenians in the Second Austrian Republic. Zois Awards were also handed to Boris Turk of the Ljubljana Faculty of Chemistry and Chemical Technology for his achievements in transfer of signals with proteases and to Stanislav Gobec of the Ljubljana Faculty of Pharmacy for major achievements in pharmaceutical chemistry. The Puh Award for outstanding discoveries and inventions for the promotion of enterprise went to Miran Mozetic, Uros Cvelbar and Ludvik Kumar for the setting up of a dry procedure for the production of commutators in company Kolektor. The award bears the name of Slovenian inventor Janez Puh (1862 - 1914), better known as Johann Puch, while the Zois Awards are named after baron Ziga Zois (1747-1819) and have been presented annually since 1998 on the day this patron of arts and science was born. Last year the Zois Prize was conferred on classical philologist, translator and literary historian Kajetan Gantar.
Source: Slovenia Times
