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 ...

• 1899–1901: Hugh Marshall, for his discovery of the Persulphates, and for his Communications on the Properties and Reactions of these Salts
 * 20th/21st century

• 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)