Abel Prize

The Abel Prize (/ˈɑːbəl/; Norwegian: Abelprisen) is a Norwegian prize awarded annually by the King of Norway to one or more outstanding mathematicians.[1] It is named after Norwegian mathematician Niels Henrik Abel (1802–1829) and directly modeled after the Nobel Prizes.[2][3][4][5][6][7][8] It comes with a monetary award of 7.5 million Norwegian Kroner (NOK) (increased from 6 million NOK in 2019).

Abel Prize
Awarded forOutstanding scientific work in the field of mathematics
CountryNorway
Presented byGovernment of Norway
First awarded2003
Websitewww.abelprize.no

The Abel Prize's history dates back to 1899, when its establishment was proposed by the Norwegian mathematician Sophus Lie when he learned that Alfred Nobel's plans for annual prizes would not include a prize in mathematics. In 1902, King Oscar II of Sweden and Norway indicated his willingness to finance a mathematics prize to complement the Nobel Prizes, but the establishment of the prize was prevented by the dissolution of the union between Norway and Sweden in 1905. It took almost a century before the prize was finally established by the Government of Norway in 2001, and it was specifically intended "to give the mathematicians their own equivalent of a Nobel Prize."[7] The laureates are selected by the Abel Committee, the members of which are appointed by the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.

The award ceremony takes place in the Aula of the University of Oslo, where the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded between 1947 and 1989.[9] The Abel Prize board has also established an Abel symposium, administered by the Norwegian Mathematical Society, which takes place twice a year.[10]

The Bernt Michael Holmboe Memorial Prize was created in 2005. Named after Abel's teacher, it promotes excellence in teaching.[11]

History

The prize was first proposed in 1899, to be part of the celebration of the 100th anniversary of Niels Henrik Abel's birth in 1802.[12] The Norwegian mathematician Sophus Lie proposed establishing an Abel Prize when he learned that Alfred Nobel's plans for annual prizes would not include a prize in mathematics. King Oscar II was willing to finance a mathematics prize in 1902, 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 an Abel Prize.[12]

The prize is awarded in the aula of the Domus Media building of the University of Oslo Faculty of Law, where the Nobel Peace Prize was formerly awarded

After interest in the concept of the prize had risen in 2001, 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. Atle Selberg received an honorary Abel Prize in 2002, but the first actual Abel Prize was awarded in 2003.[12][13]

A book series presenting Abel Prize laureates and their research was commenced in 2010. The first three volumes cover the years 2003–2007, 2008–2012, and 2013-2017 respectively.[14][15][16]

In 2019 Karen Uhlenbeck became the first woman to win the Abel Prize, with the award committee citing "the fundamental impact of her work on analysis, geometry and mathematical physics.[17]

Selection criteria and funding

Anyone may submit a nomination for the Abel Prize, although self-nominations are not permitted. The nominee must be alive. If the awardee dies after being declared the winner, the prize will be awarded posthumously.

The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters declares the winner of the Abel Prize each March after recommendation by the Abel Committee, which consists of five leading mathematicians. Both Norwegians and non-Norwegians may serve on the Committee. They are elected by the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters and nominated by the International Mathematical Union and the European Mathematical Society.[12][18] As of 2019, the committee is chaired by Norwegian mathematician Hans Munthe-Kaas (University of Bergen),[19] and before then was headed by Professor John Rognes.[20]

Funding

The Norwegian Government gave the prize an initial funding of NOK 200 million (about €21.7 million[21]) in 2001. Previously, the funding came from the Abel foundation, but today the prize is financed directly through the national budget.

The funding is controlled by the Board, which consists of members elected by the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.[18] The current leader of the Board is John Grue.

Laureates
Year Laureate(s) Image Institution(s) Country Citation
2003 Jean-Pierre Serre Collège de France  France "For playing a key role in shaping the modern form of many parts of mathematics, including topology, algebraic geometry and number theory."[22]
2004 Michael Atiyah University of Edinburgh

University of Cambridge

  United Kingdom "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."[23]
Isadore Singer Massachusetts Institute of Technology
University of California, Berkeley		  United States
2005 Peter Lax Courant Institute  United States (born in  Hungary) "For his groundbreaking contributions to the theory and application of partial differential equations and to the computation of their solutions."[24]
2006 Lennart Carleson Royal Institute of Technology  Sweden "For his profound and seminal contributions to harmonic analysis and the theory of smooth dynamical systems."[25]
2007 S. R. Srinivasa Varadhan Courant Institute  United States (born in  India) "For his fundamental contributions to probability theory and in particular for creating a unified theory of large deviation."[26]
2008 John G. Thompson University of Florida  United States "For their profound achievements in algebra and in particular for shaping modern group theory."[27]
Jacques Tits Collège de France  France (born in  Belgium)
2009 Mikhail Gromov Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques[28] and Courant Institute[29]  Russia and  France "For his revolutionary contributions to geometry."[30]
2010 John Tate University of Texas at Austin  United States "For his vast and lasting impact on the theory of numbers."[31]
2011 John Milnor Stony Brook University  United States "For pioneering discoveries in topology, geometry, and algebra."[32]
2012 Endre Szemerédi Alfréd Rényi Institute
and Rutgers University		  Hungary and  United States "For his fundamental contributions to discrete mathematics and theoretical computer science, and in recognition of the profound and lasting impact of these contributions on additive number theory and ergodic theory."[33]
2013 Pierre Deligne Institute for Advanced Study  Belgium "For seminal contributions to algebraic geometry and for their transformative impact on number theory, representation theory, and related fields."[34]
2014 Yakov Sinai Princeton University and Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics[35]  Russia and  United States "For his fundamental contributions to dynamical systems, ergodic theory, and mathematical physics."[36]
2015 John F. Nash Jr. Princeton University  United States "For striking and seminal contributions to the theory of nonlinear partial differential equations and its applications to geometric analysis."[37]
Louis Nirenberg Courant Institute  Canada and  United States
2016 Andrew Wiles University of Oxford[38][39]  United Kingdom "For his stunning proof of Fermat's Last Theorem by way of the modularity conjecture for semistable elliptic curves, opening a new era in number theory."[40]
2017 Yves Meyer École normale supérieure Paris-Saclay  France "For his pivotal role in the development of the mathematical theory of wavelets."[41]
2018 Robert Langlands Institute for Advanced Study  Canada and  United States "For his visionary program connecting representation theory to number theory."[42]
2019 Karen Uhlenbeck University of Texas at Austin  United States "For her pioneering achievements in geometric partial differential equations, gauge theory and integrable systems, and for the fundamental impact of her work on analysis, geometry and mathematical physics."[43][44]
2020 Hillel Furstenberg Hebrew University of Jerusalem  Israel and  United States (born in  Germany) "For pioneering the use of methods from probability and dynamics in group theory, number theory and combinatorics."[45]
Grigory Margulis Yale University  Russia and  United States

See also

References
  1. "Statutter for Niels Henrik Abels matematikkpris" (in Norwegian).
  2. "Robert P. Langlands Is Awarded the Abel Prize, a Top Math Honor".
  3. Dreifus, Claudia (29 March 2005). "From Budapest to Los Alamos, a Life in Mathematics". The New York Times.
  4. Cipra, Barry A. (26 March 2009). "Russian Mathematician Wins Abel Prize". ScienceNOW. Archived from the original on 29 March 2009. Retrieved 29 March 2009.
  5. "Geometer wins maths 'Nobel'". Nature. 26 March 2009. Retrieved 17 October 2012.
  6. Foderaro, Lisa W. (31 May 2009). "In N.Y.U.'s Tally of Abel Prizes for Mathematics, Gromov Makes Three". The New York Times. Retrieved 17 October 2012.
  7. Devlin, Keith (April 2004). "Abel Prize Awarded: The Mathematicians' Nobel". Mathematical Association of America. Archived from the original on 27 August 2012. Retrieved 4 November 2012.
  8. Piergiorgio Odifreddi; Arturo Sangalli (2006). The Mathematical Century: The 30 Greatest Problems of the Last 100 Years. Princeton University Press. p. 6. ISBN 0-691-12805-7.
  9. "University of Oslo". Oslo Opera House. Retrieved 22 December 2012.
  10. "Main Page". The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. Retrieved 26 July 2012.
  11. "Abel Prize | mathematics award". Encyclopedia Britannica.
  12. "The History of the Abel Prize". The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. Retrieved 26 July 2012.
  13. O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Atle Selberg", MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, University of St Andrews.
  14. H. Holden; R. Piene, eds. (2010). The Abel Prize 2003–2007. The Abel Prize. Heidelberg: Springer. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-01373-7. ISBN 978-3-642-01372-0.
  15. H. Holden; R. Piene, eds. (2014). The Abel Prize 2008–2012. The Abel Prize. Heidelberg: Springer. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-39449-2. ISBN 978-3-642-39449-2.
  16. H. Holden; R. Piene, eds. (2019). The Abel Prize 2013-2017. The Abel Prize. Heidelberg: Springer. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-99028-6. ISBN 978-3-319-99027-9.
  17. Change, Kenneth (19 March 2019). "Karen Uhlenbeck Is First Woman to Receive Abel Prize in Mathematics". The New York Times. Retrieved 19 March 2019.
  18. "Nomination Guidelines". The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. Retrieved 26 July 2012.
  19. "The Abel Committee 2018/2019". www.abelprize.no. Retrieved 19 September 2018.
  20. "The Abel Committee 2015/2016". Retrieved 4 January 2016.
  21. "Google Currency Converter". Retrieved 27 March 2017.
  22. "The Abel Prize Laureate 2003". The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. Retrieved 23 December 2012.
  23. "The Abel Prize Laureate 2004". The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. Retrieved 23 December 2012.
  24. "The Abel Prize Laureate 2005". The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. Retrieved 23 December 2012.
  25. "The Abel Prize Laureate 2006". The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. Retrieved 23 December 2012.
  26. "The Abel Prize Laureate 2007". The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. Retrieved 23 December 2012.
  27. "The Abel Prize Laureate 2008". The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. Retrieved 23 December 2012.
  28. "The Abel Committee's Citation 2009". The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. Retrieved 9 August 2016.
  29. Foderaro, Lisa W. (31 May 2009). "In N.Y.U.'s Tally of Abel Prizes for Mathematics, Gromov Makes Three". The New York Times. Retrieved 17 October 2012.
  30. "The Abel Prize Laureate 2009". The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. Retrieved 9 August 2016.
  31. "The Abel Prize Laureate 2010". The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. Retrieved 23 December 2012.
  32. "The Abel Prize Laureate 2011". The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. Retrieved 23 December 2012.
  33. "The Abel Prize Laureate 2012". The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. Retrieved 23 December 2012.
  34. "The Abel Prize Laureate 2013". The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. Retrieved 20 June 2013.
  35. "The Abel Committee's Citation 2014". The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. Retrieved 9 August 2016.
  36. "The Abel Prize Laureate 2014". The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. Retrieved 26 March 2014.
  37. "The Abel Prize Laureates 2015". The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. Retrieved 9 August 2016.
  38. "The Abel Committee's Citation 2016". The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. Retrieved 9 August 2016.
  39. "Sir Andrew J. Wiles receives the Abel Prize" (Press release). The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. Retrieved 9 August 2016.
  40. "The Abel Prize Laureate 2016". The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. Retrieved 15 March 2016.
  41. "The Abel Prize Laureate 2017". The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. Retrieved 21 March 2017.
  42. "The Abel Prize Laureate 2018". The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. Retrieved 20 March 2018.
  43. "Karen Uhlenbeck first woman to win the Abel Prize". The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. Retrieved 19 March 2019.
  44. Chang, Kenneth (19 March 2019). "Karen Uhlenbeck Is First Woman to Receive Abel Prize in Mathematics - Dr. Uhlenbeck helped pioneer geometric analysis, developing techniques now commonly used by many mathematicians". The New York Times. Retrieved 19 March 2019.
  45. "The Abel Prize Laureates 2020". The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. Retrieved 18 March 2020.
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