The Abel Prize for 2020 has been awarded to two mathematicians – Hillel Furstenberg and Gregory Margulis, for their work in “pioneering the use of methods from probability and dynamics in group theory, number theory and combinatorics”.
The Abel Prize for 2019 has been awarded to Karen Uhlenbeck. The citation reads:
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.
The Heidelberg Laureate Forum is an annual gathering of maths and computer science prize laureates, including Abel Prize winners and Fields Medalists, together with 200 young researchers from across maths and computer science. It’s a great opportunity for the researchers to meet each other and the Laureates, and see talks from the leading lights in the field. From the HLF press release:
The 7th HLF will take place from September 22 to 27, 2019 […]. This prominent, versatile event combines scientific, social and outreach activities in a unique atmosphere, fuelled by comprehensive exchange and scientific inspiration. Laureate lectures, young researcher workshops and a structure welcoming unfettered discussions are the elements that compose the Forum’s platform.
Over the course of the weeklong conference, young researchers will be given the exclusive possibility to profoundly connect with their scientific role models and find out how the laureates made it to the top of their fields. As described by a young researcher, “It’s a life-changing experience. Getting the opportunity to actually speak to the laureates in close contact can really shape us.”
Applications are now open (until 15th February) for the 2019 HLF – if you are or know someone who’s an undergrad, postgrad or postdoc in maths or computer science who might enjoy a week away in scenic Bavaria with some of the world’s greatest mathematicians and computer scientists, applications can be made at application.heidelberg-laureate-forum.org.
The Abel Prize for 2018 has been awarded to Robert Langlands, for his work on representation theory and number theory. The Abel Prize website has a page with more information, including a lay explanation of Langlands’ work by Alex Bellos.
Robert P. Langlands wins the 2018 Abel Prize “for his visionary program connecting representation theory to number theory.” Congratulations! pic.twitter.com/HBiTJhChe0
— The Abel Prize (@abel_prize) March 20, 2018
There’s been a lot of maths news this month, but we’ve all been too busy to keep up with it. So, in case you missed anything, here’s a summary of the biggest stories this month. We’ve got two new facts about primes, the best way of packing spheres in lots of dimensions, and the ongoing debate about the place of maths in society, as well as the place of society in maths.
Kannan Soundararajan and Robert Lemke Oliver have noticed that the last digits of adjacent prime numbers aren’t uniformly distributed – if one prime ends in a 1, for example, the next prime number is less likely to end in a 1 than another odd digit. Top maths journos Evelyn Lamb and Erica Klarreich have both written very accessible pieces about this, in the Nature blog and Quanta magazine, respectively.
Oliver and Soundararajan’s paper on the discovery is titled “Unexpected biases in the distribution of consecutive primes”.
Here’s a round-up of some mathematical news from last month.
Yakov Sinai. Photo © Mathematisches Forschungsinstitut Oberwolfach, CC-BY-SA 2.0
The Abel Prize for 2014 has gone to Yakov Sinai of Princeton University, “for his fundamental contributions to dynamical systems, ergodic theory, and mathematical physics”.