The 2011 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Physics presented to Nicola Cabibbo

Abstract The Franklin Institute of Philadelphia awards the 2011 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Physics to Nicola Cabibbo for his pioneering work in the field of elementary particle physics, with special emphasis on his role in furthering our understanding of the underlying symmetries that relate one elementary particle interaction to another. Cabibbo, who tragically died in Rome on the 16th of August, 2010, was one of the most brilliant theoretical physicists of the post-World War II period, universally known in the world of physics for his theory describing the decay by weak interactions of particles containing the quantum property known as strangeness. In more than 200 published papers, Cabibbo also made fundamental contributions to other areas of elementary particle physics, including descriptions of electron–positron scattering, the development and application of supercomputers for calculations of quark interactions, and the theory of neutrino oscillations.