Tony Skyrme

Tony Hilton Royle Skyrme
Tony Skyrme in 1946
Born(1922-12-05)5 December 1922
Lewisham, London, England
Died25 June 1987(1987-06-25) (aged 64)
Birmingham, England, UK
NationalityBritish
Known forSkyrmions
Scientific career
FieldsNuclear physics
High-energy physics

Tony Hilton Royle Skyrme (/skɜːrm/; 5 December 1922 – 25 June 1987) was a British physicist who was born in Lewisham.

He proposed modelling the effective interaction between nucleons in nuclei by a zero-range potential. This idea is still widely used today in nuclear structure, and in equations of state for neutron stars.

Skyrme is perhaps best known for formulating the first topological soliton to model a particle, the skyrmion. Some of his most important work can be found in his selected papers. Skyrme was awarded the Hughes Medal by the Royal Society in 1985.