But, what is the Abel Prize?

On January 1, 2002, the Niels Henrik Abel Memorial Fund was established to annually award the Abel Prize for outstanding scientific work in the field of mathematics. The Abel Prize was named in honor of Norwegian mathematician Niels Henrik Abel (1802-1829). Abel produced such notable work as a proof involving the impossibility of solving the quintic equation by radicals (what is now called the Abel-Ruffini theorem) and a theory involving elliptic, hyperelliptic and what is now called abelian functions.

Many mathematical terms are based on his last name, such as abelian group, abelian category, abelian variety, and Abel transform. His life was cut tragically short by tuberculosis (TB).

The Abel Prize is awarded by the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters through an Abel Committee consisting of five mathematicians. It is presented by the King of Norway. The amount of money awarded is around one million U.S. dollars.

The prize was created in part because the Nobel Prize does not include an award for mathematics. One of the purposes of the Abel Prize is to create publicity for mathematics (similar to the Nobel Prize in other fields of science) and to generate interest among young people to enter the field of mathematics.

The Abel Prize was awarded to Jean-Pierre Serre (College de France) in 2003; Michael F. Atiyah (University of Edinburgh, England) and Isadore M. Singer (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, U.S.A.) in 2004; Peter D. Law (New York University) in 2005; Lennart Carleson (Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden) in 2006; and Varadhan in 2007.

Information about Professor Srinivasa S. R. Varadhan and his Abel Prize is found at the New York University Web site: http://www.nyu.edu/public.affairs/releases/detail/1522.

The Home Web page for the Abel Prize is: http://www.abelprisen.no/en/.

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