Module 4 · In Conversation
ICTP Distinguished Conversations
Alongside the formal Dirac Medal lectures, ICTP runs a long-form Distinguished Conversation series — relaxed in-depth interviews with Dirac medallists, Nobel laureates, and other leading theoretical physicists, often hosted by ICTP director Atish Dabholkar (a string theorist himself). The conversations are typically less technical than the Dirac lectures, focusing on the laureates’ intellectual trajectories, their most surprising discoveries, and the state of the field.
String Theory & Quantum Gravity
Edward Witten
Inaugural Dirac Medal (1985, age 33). Conversation covering supersymmetric quantum mechanics, topological field theory, M-theory, and the unifying role of geometry in physics — with the only physicist to have received the Fields Medal (1990).
David Gross
Nobel 2004 for asymptotic freedom in QCD; Dirac Medal recipient. Reflections on the discovery of asymptotic freedom, the Standard Model era, and the search for what comes next.
Atish Dabholkar & David Gross
ICTP director Dabholkar in extended conversation with David Gross on the trajectory of theoretical high-energy physics from QCD to strings to the modern landscape of effective field theories.
Ashoke Sen
Dirac Medal 2014. Pioneer of strong-weak duality (S-duality) in string theory and of black-hole microstate counting; Sen reflects on string field theory, dualities, and Indian theoretical physics.
Jeffrey Harvey & Igor Klebanov
Two architects of holography and string-theoretic duality (Klebanov co-discovered the Klebanov–Strassler solution; Harvey worked on heterotic strings and the moonshine modules) discussing where the field stands now.
Particle Physics & Field Theory
Luciano Maiani
Dirac Medal 2007 (with Iliopoulos) for the GIM mechanism predicting the charm quark. Former CERN Director-General; conversation on flavour physics, the Standard Model, and the post-LHC era.
Horacio Casini & Marina Huerta
Dirac Medal 2024. Their work on entanglement entropy in quantum field theory, modular Hamiltonians, and the c-theorem in 3D — a bridge between quantum information and high-energy physics.
The 2021 Dirac Medallists (panel)
A joint conversation with the 2021 Dirac Medal recipients (Alexander Polyakov, Charles Kane, Gene Mele) on conformal field theory, topological insulators, and the non-trivial bonds between high-energy and condensed-matter theory.
Condensed Matter & Holographic Duality
Subir Sachdev
Dirac Medal 2018 (with Halperin and Senthil). Strange metals, quantum critical points, the Sachdev–Ye–Kitaev model, and the bridge between condensed-matter physics and holographic duality.
Dam Thanh Son
Dirac Medal 2018 (with Sachdev and Senthil) for theory of strongly interacting many-body systems. Son’s holographic computation of the shear viscosity bound η/s ≥ 1/(4π) is one of the most striking AdS/CFT predictions in nuclear/condensed-matter physics.
Duncan Haldane
Dirac Medal 1993; Nobel Physics 2016 (with Kosterlitz and Thouless) for topological phases of matter. Haldane’s gap, the Haldane phase, the AKLT model, and the chern-insulator construction now central to topological condensed-matter physics.
Shinsei Ryu & Tadashi Takayanagi
Dirac Medal 2024 (with Casini & Huerta) for entanglement entropy. Co-discoverers of the Ryu–Takayanagi formula (2006): entanglement entropy of a CFT region equals the area of a minimal surface in the bulk, generalising the Bekenstein–Hawking formula.
Quantum Optics, Atomic Physics & Information
Serge Haroche & Anne L'Huillier
Two Nobel laureates: Haroche (2012, with Wineland; cavity QED, real-time observation of quantum jumps) and L'Huillier (2023, with Agostini and Krausz; attosecond high-harmonic generation). A conversation across the boundary of quantum optics and ultrafast science.
Eric Cornell & Wolfgang Ketterle
Nobel Physics 2001 (with Wieman) for Bose–Einstein condensation in dilute alkali gases. The early days of laser cooling and evaporative cooling, the BEC race of the 1990s, and the modern field of ultracold atoms.
Peter Zoller
Dirac Medal 2006 (with Cirac). Quantum information with cold atoms and trapped ions, the Cirac–Zoller proposal for a quantum computer (1995), and the rapidly maturing field of quantum simulation.
Ignacio Cirac
Dirac Medal 2006 (with Zoller). Tensor-network methods for quantum many-body systems (DMRG, MPS, PEPS), and the role of quantum information theory inside many-body physics.
Statistical Physics, Computational & Mathematical
Michele Parrinello
Dirac Medal 2009 (with Roberto Car). Co-inventor of Car–Parrinello molecular dynamics; conversation on the long arc of ab-initio simulation, metadynamics, and the rise of machine-learning interatomic potentials.
Ngô Bảo Châu
Fields Medal 2010 for the proof of the fundamental lemma in the Langlands programme. Conversation on the bridge between automorphic representation theory and theoretical physics, and the cultural place of mathematics in Vietnam.
All conversations are produced by ICTP and freely available on the ICTP Lectures YouTube channel.