Abel Prize: One of the Highest Honors for a Mathematician

The Abel Prize is awarded annually by the King of Norway to one or more outstanding Mathematician(s) and is dedicated in the memory of Norwegian mathematician, Niels Henrik Abel. The Abel prize recognizes the contribution to the field of mathematics which is extraordinary and of great influence. The first Abel Prize was awarded to a French mathematician Jean Pierre Serre in 2003.

The Abel prize was proposed by Norwegian mathematician Sophus Lie when he came to know that Alfred Nobel plans for annual prize do not include a prize in Mathematics. Sophus Lie got overwhelming support from the leading centers of mathematics in Europe. However, the promises and support were tied too personally to Sophus that after his death the effort to establish the annual prize in mathematics got buried. In 1905 King Oscar II showed his interest in annual mathematics prize just as Nobel prize, but that too came to an end by the dissolution of the union between Norway and Sweden.

In 2001 the Government of Norway announced to establish Abel fund worth 200 million(NOK) and thus the first Abel was presented in 2003. It is often referred to as Mathematician’s Nobel prize and comes with a monetary reward of 7.5 Million Norwegian Kroner(NOK).

How are the Abel laureates Selected?

Since the Abel prize recognizes any outstanding work in the field of Mathematics so any worthy nominee(s) can be nominated. The right to nominate is open to anyone and the nominations are accepted till September 15^th of every year. However, if nominated after the deadline then nomination would be considered for next year. It is important that the nomination should be kept confidential from  the nominee(s) and that deceased persons cannot be nominated. The nomination should be accompanied by the description of the work, CV of the nominee(s) and names of distinguished specialists in the field of nominee(s) to get their opinion.

Self nominations are not considered.

The members of Abel committee are nominated by International Mathematical Union and the European Mathematical Society to the Norwegian Academy of Sciences and Letters.  The Abel committee (consisting of 5 leading mathematicians Norwegian and Non-Norwegian from all over the world) then reviews the received nominations and recommends a worthy Abel laureate to the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. The committee members are appointed for 2 years by the Norwegian Academy of Sciences and Letters.

Based on the recommendations of the Abel committee the Norwegian academy of sciences and letters announces the Abel laureate(s) in March. The Award ceremony takes place in the University of Oslo and is presented by His Majesty King Harald V.

The First Woman to win the Abel Prize

In 2019, American Mathematician Karen Keskulla Ulhenbeck was the first women to be awarded the Abel prize. She was awarded 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.

One of the famous contribution of Ulhenbeck was her theories of predictive mathematics inspired by soap bubbles. The curved surface area of soap bubble is an example of” minimal surface”, surface that forms itself into a shape that takes least amount of area. Examining how these surfaces behave helps researchers understand a wide amount of phenomena across wide array of scientific studies.

This Year’s Abel Prize Laureates

The 2020 Abel Prize has been awarded to Hillel Furstenberg from Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel and Gregory Margulis from Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA “for pioneering the use of methods from probability and dynamics in group theory, Number theory and combinatorics”.

In addition to Abel prize, the Norwegian academy of sciences also awards The Kavli prize in nanoscience and Neuroscience.

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