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Witten Awarded 2014 Kyoto Prize Witten Awarded 2014 Kyoto Prize Edward Witten of the Institute for Advanced portant motivation for these Study has been awarded the 2014 Kyoto Prize in scientists. Meanwhile, Witten’s Basic Sciences for “outstanding contributions to study of the compactifica- the development of mathematical sciences through tion of strings illuminated a the exploration of superstring theory.” According way toward the mathemati- to the prize citation, he “has made significant cal elucidation of the rela- contributions to theoretical physics for more than tionship between superstring thirty years as a leader in the dramatic evolution theory and the standard of superstring theory. Moreover, by applying his model of particle physics. physical intuition and mathematical skills, he has In 1995 Witten proposed M- the of courtesy Komoda, Dan by Photo advanced mathematics, and prompted the cutting- theory, which united all five Institute for Advanced Study. edge research of many mathematicians.” different 10-dimensional Edward Witten The Kyoto Prize is an international award to superstring theories, until honor those who have contributed significantly to then separately constructed, into one 11– the scientific, cultural, and spiritual betterment of dimensional superstring theory. This placed him mankind. The prize is presented annually in each at the forefront of a new wave of research called of the following three categories: Advanced Tech- the “second superstring revolution.” nology, Basic Sciences, and Arts and Philosophy. Witten has made significant contributions not Each prize carries a monetary award of 50 million only to the fields of theoretical physics but also yen (about US$490,000). The prize in Advanced to the cutting-edge field of pure mathematics. His Technology was awarded to biomedical engineer penetrating physical intuition and advanced math- Robert S. Langer and the prize in Arts and Philoso- ematical skills have prompted many mathemati- phy to dyeing and weaving artist Fukumi Shimura. cians to tackle new research topics. He has inspired The Work of Edward Witten new research themes in algebraic geometry, such as the reconstruction of the Morse theory of dif- A look into the progress of quantum field theory ferential geometry based on superstring theory’s and string theory since the last century reveals a concept of supersymmetry and the compactifica- spectacular drama featuring a large cast of tal- tion of strings using the Calabi-Yau manifolds of ented scientists. Beginning with the problem of complex analytic geometry. He has shed light on reconciling the theory of general relativity with how Chern-Simons theory relates to topological quantum mechanics, these scientists dreamed of quantum field theory, and his extension of the a theory that would unify the entire spectrum of Jones polynomial of knot theory offered a fun- mechanics, from the theory of elementary particles damentally new perspective. His other important to macroscopic cosmology. Highlighting this story contributions include the supersymmetric gauge are the discovery of new elementary particles and the pursuit of new and innovative mechanical field in Seiberg-Witten theory and duality in Vafa- theories. In this continuing drama, particularly Witten theory. Furthermore, he has clarified the over the past three decades, Edward Witten has relationship between the Langlands program and assumed a leading role. the AdS/CFT correspondence of quantum field A breakthrough in superstring theory by Mi- theory; inspired new theories with the Gromov- chael Green and John Schwarz in 1984 ignited the Witten invariant, which has found a broad range interest of many physicists and resulted in the of applications and remains especially significant “first superstring revolution.” As the revolution ex- with regard to the enumerative problems of alge- panded, Witten’s geometric analysis of anomalies braic geometry; and initiated new research tasks in gauge fields and gravity fields served as an im- involving mirror symmetry. Today each of these achievements is highly regarded among mathema- DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1090/noti1180 ticians worldwide. NOVEMBER 2014 NOTICES OF THE AMS 1239 In the 1970s, Freeman Dyson lamented what he Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Acad- saw as the high degree of alienation between theo- emy of Sciences, and the Royal Society. retical physicists and mathematicians. After 1980, however, it was internationally recognized that a About the Prize renaissance had begun in the exchange of knowl- The Kyoto Prize is Japan’s highest private award edge between pure mathematics and theoretical for global achievement, honoring significant physics. Edward Witten has played a remarkable contributions to the betterment of society. The role in sparking that renaissance. Inamori Foundation is a nonprofit organization established in 1984 by Kazuo Inamori, founder Biographical Sketch and chairman emeritus of Kyocera and KDDI Edward Witten was born in Baltimore, Maryland, Corporation. The activities of the Inamori Founda- in 1951. He received his Ph.D. in physics from tion reflect the lifelong belief of its founder that a Princeton University in 1976. Between 1976 and human being has no higher calling than to strive 1980 he was first a postdoctoral fellow and then for the greater good of society and that the future a junior fellow of the Society of Fellows at Harvard of humanity can be assured only when there is a University. In 1980 he became professor at Prince- balance between scientific progress and spiritual ton University. He has been a professor at the depth. The Kyoto Prize is presented not only in Institute for Advanced Study since 1987 and has recognition of outstanding achievements but also been Charles Simonyi Professor there since 1997. in honor of the excellent personal characteristics He received the Dirac Medal of the Abdus Salam that have shaped those achievements. International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Previous Kyoto Prize winners who have made 1985 and was awarded the Fields Medal in 1990. He contributions to the mathematical sciences received the Dannie Heineman Prize of the Ameri- are: Rudolf E. Kalman (1985), Claude E. Shan- can Physical Society in 1998, the Crafoord Prize of non (1985), John McCarthy (1988), I. M. Gel- the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 2008, fand (1989), Edward Lorenz (1991), André Weil and the Lorentz Medal of the Royal Netherlands (1994), Donald E. Knuth (1996), Kyosi Itˆo (1998), Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2010. In 2002 he Mikhael Gromov (2002), Simon A. Levin (2005), was awarded the National Medal of Science, and in Hirotugu Akaike (2006), and László Lovász (2010). 2012 he received the Breakthrough Prize in Funda- mental Physics. He is a member of the American — From Inamori Foundation announcements 2014 Nevanlinna Prize Awarded On August 13, 2014, the 2014 Rolf Nevanlinna Peter Shor (1998), Madhu Sudan (2002), Jon Klein- Prize was awarded at the opening ceremonies berg (2006), and Daniel Spielman (2010). of the International Congress of Mathematicians Khot was honored “for his prescient definition (ICM) in Seoul, Korea. The prizewinner was Sub- of the ‘Unique Games’ problem and leading the hash Khot of the Courant Institute of Sciences, effort to understand its complexity and its piv- otal role in the study of efficient approximation New York University. of optimization problems; his work has led to In 1982 the University of Helsinki granted funds breakthroughs in algorithmic design and approxi- to award the Nevanlinna Prize, which honors the mation hardness, and to new exciting interactions work of a young mathematician (less than forty between computational complexity, analysis and years of age) in the mathematical aspects of in- geometry.” formation science. The prize is presented every Typically, major math prizes are given for major four years by the International Mathematical Union results. But in this case, Subhash Khot received (IMU). Previous recipients of the Nevanlinna Prize the Nevanlinna Prize in large part for a conjec- are: Robert Tarjan (1982), Leslie Valiant (1986), ture—and even more surprisingly, one whose truth Alexander Razborov (1990), Avi Wigderson (1994), experts can’t yet decide on. But Khot’s Unique Games Conjecture has al- DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1090/noti1182 ready amply proven its value, even should it ulti- 1240 NOTICES OF THE AMS VOLUME 61, NUMBER 10 mately be disproven. It has cast a bright light on Start with an arbitrary bubble and color it yellow. previously dim areas of computational complexity Since all the bubbles connected to it now have to and provided critical insight—and, yes, Khot has be purple, color them in. Continue this way until also used it to prove major results, ones that stand you’ve either managed to color in the whole net- regardless of its truth. work or you’ve found a bubble that’s connected to The conjecture has opened up a particularly both yellow and purple bubbles, fruitful way of addressing the central question of making the project impossible. the field of computational complexity: How hard If you add just one more are problems to solve? More precisely, if you found crayon, though, this method the cleverest possible way to solve a particular fails, because when you color problem, how quickly could a computer find the the first bubble yellow, you don’t answer using it? know what color the connected Computer scientists are nearly certain that ones have to be. So if you get some problems are so difficult that computers to a bubble you can’t color in can’t reliably find the answer at all, at least not without breaking the rules, you in any reasonable amount of time (such as before don’t know if a different selec- the universe ends). That’s the famous conjecture tion earlier would have solved Photo courtesy of IUM. known as P ≠ NP, and it has resisted proof for the problem. The difficulty isn’t Subhash Khot four decades—though computer scientists have just with that method; no other only become more convinced that it must be true method will reliably and efficiently solve the prob- over time.
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