Tony Hilton Royle Skyrme (/skɜːrm/; 5 December 1922, Lewisham – 25 June 1987) was a British physicist. He first proposed modeling the effective interaction between nucleons in nuclei by a zero-range potential, an idea still widely used today in nuclear structure and in equation of state for neutron stars. However, he is best known for formulating the first topological soliton to model a particle, the skyrmion. Some of his most important work can be found in selected papers. Skyrme was awarded the Hughes Medal by the Royal Society in 1985.