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Math Science

Peter Lax wins Abel Prize 40

Posted by timothy from the the-ex-gets-half dept.
otisaardvark writes "The prestigious Abel Prize, awarded annually for lifetime contributions to mathematics, has been awarded to Peter Lax [pdf]. Professor Lax, born in Hungary and currently at New York University, has made profound contributions to the theory of partial differential equations, most famously his reformulation of a large class of important PDES (so-called "integrable systems") in terms of Lax pairs of coupled, simplified equations. Read a summary of his achievements here [pdf]."
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Peter Lax wins Abel Prize More

Peter Lax wins Abel Prize

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  • The Abel Prize (Score:5, Informative)

    by kisak ( 524062 ) on Sunday March 20, 2005 @03:54PM (#11992314) Homepage Journal
    The Abel Prize is named after the brilliant Norwegian mathematician Niels Henrik Abel [abelprisen.no] who died at the age of 26, after living his short life with little money and little support. It is quite amazing that at such young age Abel was able to produce results that put a lasting mark on modern mathematics. Another of the "young dead" in the history of mathematics is Galois [st-and.ac.uk], who died at the age of 21 and is remembered for results that expanded on earlier work of Abel. Because of these two and also many other mathematicians who did their best work at very young age, math has got the reputation of being the young man's science.

    The Abel prize [abelprisen.no] was introduced as a sort of "Nobel Prize of math" where people are rewarded for results and achievements that have shown themselves to be of lasting value in the field. Alfred Nobel did not want a Nobel Prize in math since he himself saw little scientific value of math! The most prestigious prize in math before the Abel came into being is the Fields medal, but this prize is only given to younger mathematicians (belove the age of 40) that has made break-through results and show promise for the future. The Fields medal is handed out every 4 years while the Abel is handed out every year (first prize was handed out in 2003).

    It would have been ironic for Abel if he were to know that such a huge money prize is to be given out in his name, when his whole life he had to live in poverty and fight to get time and money to do his scientific work. The irony of Abel's life is also that Abel himself finally got a professorship in Berlin; but too late, the letter was sent to him two days after his death.

    • Re:The Abel Prize (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Alfred Nobel did not want a Nobel Prize in math, not because he didn't see value in it (the 19th century achievements in physics and chemistry for which he created prizes showed that math had value), but because he hated mathematicians. His wife ran off with a mathematician and ever after he cursed mathematicians.

      • Re:The Abel Prize (Score:2, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Wrong. Nobel never married. He was a practical man and all his prizes are awarded for the greatest benefit to mankind (which might be questionable for mathematics). This is why an experiment discovering deuterium or the neutron will receive a prize almost immediately while something more abstract may never receive the prize. Einstein didn't receive the prize specifically for the general theory of relativity, arguably the greatest scientific theory of our time. He won it for the photoelectric effect and
      • Alfred Nobel was a jerk who invented dynamite, becoming extremely rich from explosives and a big oil field. His business helped kill unprecedented thousands of people, including civilians, 19th Century Europe. He set up a fund a year before he died, for high-profile awards to associate his name with "helping humanity", rather than "blowing up humanity".
        • Easy, there..wouldn't it be fair to say that any technology could be used for good or evil? Anyhow, it is my understanding that dynamite was an improvement over previous explosives as it was more stable and thus less likely to explode prematurely and kill people. Do you hate the Chinese for inventing gunpowder?

          I enjoy reading your comments generally and am surprised by the vehemence of this one.

          • Re:The Abel Prize (Score:2, Interesting)

            by Doc Ruby ( 173196 )
            I don't hate Nobel, or the Chinese, for their contributions to mass killings. I don't really hate anyone who doesn't directly affect my life personally, and that excludes the dead. I'm even more disappointed by people who have used energy science (including explosives) to kill, rather than to build. Nobel's explosives inventions contributed to the rapid increases in slaughter that culminated first in WWI. And he was certainly in the business of promoting killing: he made his first inventions in his family's

  • Wiles? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Alomex ( 148003 ) on Sunday March 20, 2005 @03:59PM (#11992348) Homepage

    Question is, how much longer are they going to hold the award from Andrew Wiles of Fermat fame?

    • Re:Wiles? (Score:4, Informative)

      by kisak ( 524062 ) on Sunday March 20, 2005 @04:17PM (#11992453) Homepage Journal
      I think the Abel Committee [abelprisen.no] is obliged to also honour applied mathematicians, which is one reason Lax was chosen this year. The previous winners, Atiyah and Singer [abelprisen.no] and Serre [abelprisen.no] were all pure mathematicians (like Wiles is).

      Andrew Wiles will probably get the prize, but since the prize is very new, there are many important mathematicians to chose from. And even though Wiles is maybe the best known living mathematician to the general public (because of his solution of Fermat's theorem), among mathematicians Wiles is not consider the most dominant mathematician alive today (Serre, for instant, was generally seen as the natural choice for the first prize). Some of the possible worthy winners are also old and will maybe for this reason get the prize before Wiles which is still young and healthy.

  • Isn't there enough math classes already? :P

    • No (Score:5, Insightful)

      by bluGill ( 862 ) on Sunday March 20, 2005 @08:56PM (#11994158)

      Math is one of the few classes where you can learn something truly beautiful that is also useful. Few classes are more useful in day to day life. (reading, perhaps grammar)

      Find a good math instructor. In grade school and somewhat in high school, teachers are people who hate math, and so they are unwilling to show you just how much fun it really is.

      • Fortunately, this is not always true. I had a calculus teacher who was fantastic; in his class it was like a light bulb turning on for me.

  • Mathematics is not a science (neither is medicine) (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Why is this posted on Slashdot Science? Although a very important branch of human knowledge, matehematics is not a science because it does not use the scientific method. Scientific method is based on asking nature questions (through observation or experimentation)and building theories which explain nature's answers. Based on theories new experiments are suggested, which lead to new theories etc. Since mathematics DOES NOT STUDY nature, such a cycle does not exist in mathematics. Mathematical theories are no
    • Your post is patently ridiculous. First of all, every succesful scientific theory ever has had a foundation built from mathematics (in the hard sciences anyway -- biology and the like are excluded from this claim). Without the work of mathematicians, physics would be nigh impossible.

      You also make the claim that medicine is not a science because "understanding the way a healing method works is irrelevant." This statement is not only untrue (if you want to achieve better healing methods than herbal remedi
      • [ ] You understand what the "scientific method" is.
        [X] You are easily offended.
        • That's a nice argument and all, but you missed my point. Math is an integral part of science (no pun intended), and complaining about a math story going in this section of slashdot is absolutely ridiculous.
          • Math is a useful tool for science, but in itself, is not a science. Science is an empirical, starting with observations, making hypotheses, and then formulating theories about the underlying principles. With math, you're given the underlying principles in the form of axioms, and theorems are built up from there using deductive logic.
      • Boeman is right - Mathematics is NOT a science; to imply otherwise is like saying that 'grammar' is the same as 'literature'. Understanding the Book of Nature (i.e., Physics, Chemistry, Biology) requires that one understand the language in which it is written (Math.), but the language itself and Nature are different entities. Mathematics might be called 'quantitative philosophy'. Note that none of this takes any merit away from (mighty) Mathematics! You are right, of course, to say that 'w/out the work
    • If you define science to be the study of nature by asking nature questions, then math and engineering is not science. But that is a silly definition.

      If one instead define science to be the study of whatever can be studiet, with such scientific methods as falsification and use of Ockhams Razor, then math is provable scientific, as there are parts of math that can only be studied scientifically, because they are beyond proofs. As for engineering: It is a symbiont of science. Asking nature questions today r

  • It is gratifying to witness Slashdot occasionally returning to its autistic roots. Although in recent years the slogan of "News for Nerds," has become more and more undeserved, this particular story belongs squarely in the Nerd category.

    Although this specific story is not one which I care about, it is in the general category shared by other stories which I very often definitely DO care about...and so it's good to know that /.'s editors are still willing to post this type of material. It's quintessential o

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