The Abel Prize is an international prize presented annually by the King of Norway to one or more outstanding mathematicians. The prize is named after Norwegian mathematician Niels Henrik Abel (1802–1829). It has been often described as the "mathematician's Nobel" prize[1][2][3][4][5][6] and is among the most prestigious awards in mathematics. It comes with a monetary award, which in 2009 was €684,000 (US$929,000).[7]
The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters annually declares the winner of the Abel Prize after selection by a committee of five international mathematicians. The committee is headed by Kristian Seip. The amount of money that comes with the prize is usually close to US$ 1 million, similar to the Nobel Prize, which is awarded in Sweden and Norway and excludes mathematics. Norway gave the prize an initial funding of NOK 200,000,000 (about US$23,000,000) in 2001. The prize is an attempt at creating publicity for mathematics, making the discipline more prestigious, especially for young people.
The prize board has also established an Abel symposium, administered by the Norwegian Mathematical Society.
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History
The prize was first proposed to be part of the 1902 celebration of 100th anniversary of Abel's birth.[8] In 1899, shortly before his death, Sophus Lie proposed establishing an Abel Prize when he learned that Alfred Nobel's plans for annual prizes, made known in 1897, would not include a prize in mathematics. King Oscar II was willing to finance a mathematics prize in Abel's name, and the mathematicians Ludwig Sylow and Carl Størmer drew up statutes and rules for the proposed prize. However, Lie's influence waned after his death, and the dissolution of the Union between Sweden and Norway in 1905 ended the first attempt to create the Abel Prize.
In 2001, after interest in the prize had risen, a working group was formed to develop a proposal, which was presented to the prime minister of Norway in May. In August 2001, the Norwegian government announced that the prize would be awarded beginning in 2002, the two-hundredth anniversary of Abel's birth. The first prize was actually awarded in 2003.
Out of the first seven years (2003–2009), three of the prize winners (Lax, Varadhan and Gromov) have been mathematicians associated with New York University's Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences.
A book series recently commenced, with one volume every five years, will present the Abel Prize laureates and their research. The first volume[9] covers the years 2003–2007.
Laureates
| Year | Laureate(s) | Nationality | Citation |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2003 | Jean-Pierre Serre |  France |
“for playing a key role in shaping the modern form of many parts of mathematics, including topology, algebraic geometry and number theory” |
| 2004 | Michael F. Atiyah Isadore M. Singer |
 United Kingdom /  Lebanon United States |
“for their discovery and proof of the index theorem, bringing together topology, geometry and analysis, and their outstanding role in building new bridges between mathematics and theoretical physics” |
| 2005 | Peter D. Lax |  Hungary / United States |
“for his groundbreaking contributions to the theory and application of partial differential equations and to the computation of their solutions” |
| 2006 | Lennart Carleson |  Sweden |
“for his profound and seminal contributions to harmonic analysis and the theory of smooth dynamical systems” |
| 2007 | S. R. Srinivasa Varadhan |  India / United States |
“for his fundamental contributions to probability theory and in particular for creating a unified theory of large deviation” |
| 2008 | John G. Thompson Jacques Tits |
United States; Belgium / France |
“for their profound achievements in algebra and in particular for shaping modern group theory” |
| 2009 | Mikhail Gromov |  Russia / France |
"for his revolutionary contributions to geometry" |
See also
- Three of the prize winners (Serre, Atiyah, Thompson) were awarded the Fields Medal.
- List of prizes, medals, and awards – mathematics
- Nemmers Prize in Mathematics
- Nevanlinna Prize
- Schock Prize
- Six of the prize winners (Serre, Lax, Carleson, Thompson, Tits, Gromov) were awarded the Wolf Prize in Mathematics.
References
- ^ Cipra, Barry (2009-03-26). "Russian Mathematician Wins Abel Prize". Science. http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2009/326/1. Retrieved 2009-03-29.
- ^ Geometer wins maths 'Nobel', nature.com, March 2009.
- ^ El revolucionario geómetra Gromov, 'Nobel' de matemáticas , El Pais, March 2009
- ^ Russian-born mathematician wins math's version of the Nobel, Scientific American blog, March 2009.
- ^ Abel Prize Awarded: The Mathematicians' Nobel, Keith Devlin, maa.org, April 2004.
- ^ Foderaro, Lisa W. (June 1, 2009), "In N.Y.U.'s Tally of Abel Prizes for Mathematics, Gromov Makes Three", New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/01/nyregion/01nyu.html
- ^ "French-Russian mathematician Gromov wins Abel prize," AFP, Mar 26, 2009
- ^ History of the Abel Prize
- ^ H. Holden; R. Piene, eds. (2010), The Abel Prize 2003–2007, Heidelberg: Springer, doi:10.1007/978-3-642-01373-7, ISBN 978-3-642-01372-0, http://www.springer.com/math/history+of+mathematics/book/978-3-642-01372-0
External links
- The Abel Prize official web site
- The Abel Symposium web site
- Weisstein, Eric W., "Abel Prize" from MathWorld.
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