News & Views item - October  2004

 

 

Nominations for Abel Prize Close November 15, 2004. (October 14, 2004)

    Destined to be the "Nobel Prize for mathematics" the NOK 6 million Abel Prize honours a remarkable Norwegian. Peter Hall reports.

The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters is seeking nominations for the Abel Prize, the world’s most prestigious award for a lifetime of attainment in the mathematical sciences. Nominations close on November 15.

 

Officially, the Abel prize celebrates the extraordinary achievements, and long-lasting influence, of a short-lived, Norwegian-born hero of theoretical mathematics. Niels Henrik Abel brought together several major mathematical technologies — algebra, analysis and geometry — to produce remarkable results which, even today, 175 years after his death at the age of 26, play major roles in advancing the frontiers of his field.


However, it would be just as accurate to say that the Prize honours Norway’s passion and admiration for a young man whose life-story epitomises determination, stoicism and sacrifice in the face of tribulation.


Indeed, Abel’s life is a poignant, if magnified, reminder of the challenges scientists endure, in a world which often seems not to understand their goals, or appreciate the many difficulties they encounter. Facing lengthy delays in the review of one of his major papers, and unable to obtain a position on his return to Norway after working abroad, Abel succumbed to tuberculosis. On his death-bed, Abel asked a friend whether he would take care of Abel’s long-suffering fiancée, who had remained behind during his travels. The friend married the fiancée, and they lived happily ever after. Two days after Abel’s death, an offer of a permanent position at the University of Berlin arrived in his mailbox.
 

The Abel Prize is intended to become the Nobel Prize of mathematics. There are close parallels, even down to the manner of its awarding (by the King of Norway). However, alone among the great prizes of science, it is funded by the citizens of a small country, in memory of one of their own whom a great many of them admire, even though they could not claim to understand his work.
 

The Prize was established by the Norwegian parliament in 2002, with a grant of 200 million Norwegian Kroner (approximately AUD 44 million at that time). In contrast to this donation by the citizens of a single nation, awards such as the Nobel Prize and the Wolf Prize are supported from private sources. From the public Abel endowment, an annual prize (worth six million Kroner, AUD 1.25 million, in 2005) is awarded to one or more mathematical scientists.

 

Further information about the Prize is available at:  http://www.abelprisen.no/en/