Home > Abel Prize

Every year from 2003 onwards a board consisting of five mathematicians at The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters will declare the winner of the Abel Prize; the amount of money that comes with the prize is similar to the Nobel Prize, which is awarded in Sweden and Norway. The reason for this prize is that the Nobel Prize excludes mathematics. Norway gave the prize an initial funding of NOK 200,000,000 in 2001. The prize is an attempt at creating publicity for mathematics, making the science more prestigious especially for young people.

In April 2003, the first candidate to win the prize was announced, and the following June the prize was awarded for the first time. In March 2004, the winners of the second annual prize were announced; this time two mathematicians shared the prize.

1 Laureates

(the most recent listed on top)

• 2004:   Michael F. Atiyah ( University of Edinburgh) and Isadore M. Singer ( MITMotto Mens et Manus ("mind and hand") Established 1861 School type Private President Charles Vest (successor Susan Hockfield to take office in December 2004) Location Cambridge, Mass. USA Enrollment 4,112 undergraduate, 6,228 graduate Faculty 974 Campus U)
  "for their discovery and proof of the index theoremIn the mathematics of manifolds and differential operators, the Atiyah-Singer index theorem is an important unifying result that connects topology and analysis. It deals with elliptic differential operators (such as the Laplacian) on compact manifolds., bringing together topologyTopology is the study or science of places. It derives its name from the Greek words τοπος meaning place and λογος meaning study, talk. See also earth science, geography, human geography, g, geometryGeometry is the branch of mathematics dealing with spatial relationships. From experience, or possibly intuitively, people characterize space by certain fundamental qualities, which are termed axioms in geometry. Such axioms are insusceptible to proof, bu and analysisAn analysis is a critical evaluation, usually made by breaking a subject (either material or intellectual) down into its constituent parts, then describing the parts and their relationship to the whole. See also analytic and synthesis. As such, it can be, and their outstanding role in building new bridges between mathematics and theoretical physicsTheoretical physics attempts to understand the world by making a model of reality, used for rationalizing, explaining, predicting physical phenomena through a physical theory . There are three types of theories in physics; mainstream theories, proposed th".
• 2003:   Jean-Pierre Serre ( Collège de France)
  "for playing a key role in shaping the modern form of many parts of mathematics, including topology, algebraic geometry and number theory".