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Home , Edward Witten, SASTRA Ramanujan Prize, Terence Tao

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US$10,000 prize will be awarded at the International Con- Bressan Awarded Feltrinelli ference on and Combinatorics, December Prize 19–22, 2006, at SASTRA University in Kumbakonam, India, Ramanujan’s hometown. Alberto Bressan of Pennsylvania State University has The 2006 prize citation is as follows: “ been selected to receive the Antonio Feltrinelli Prize in is awarded the 2006 SASTRA Ramanujan Prize for his Mathematics, Mechanics, and Applications of the Acca- path-breaking contributions in number theory, harmonic demia Nazionale dei Lincei. The prize carries a monetary analysis, representation theory, and partial differential award of 65,000 euros (approximately US$82,000), a cer- equations, which have had a major impact in combinator- tificate, and a gold medal. ics and ergodic theory as well. Among other things, the Bressan has done important research in nonlinear prize recognizes his notable contributions to the famous analysis, differential equations, and control theory. He Kakeya Problem in higher dimensions, which has major is best known for his breakthrough work in hyperbolic applications in and partial differential conservation laws, in which he established the uniqueness equations, especially his joint work with Nets Katz, Iza- and other fundamental properties of solutions and the bella Laba and others, that significantly improves all pre- convergence of vanishing viscosity approximations. viously known estimates for the fractal dimension using The Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, founded in 1603, is new and surprisingly simple combinatorial ideas in an considered to be Italy’s most prestigious scientific society. ingenious way. The prize also recognizes his outstanding One of its first members was Galileo Galilei. The Feltrinelli joint work with Ben Green on long arithmetic progressions Prize is among the highest awards given to Italian citizens of prime numbers, in particular, the resolution of the long- for achievements in the arts, music, literature, history, standing conjecture that there are arbitrarily long arith- philosophy, medicine, and physical and mathematical metic progressions of prime numbers, by brilliantly com- sciences. The prize is awarded in the area of physical and bining methods of ergodic theory with the ideas of Tim mathematical sciences only once every five years. Among Gowers. In addition, the prize recognizes Tao’s joint work the previous winners have been Francesco Tricomi, Guido with and Nets Katz in generalizing a funda- Stampacchia, and . mental problem of Erd˝os and Szemeredi on the sumsets and product sets of integers, by developing a ‘sum-product —From a Pennsylvania State University announcement theory’ that has led to breakthroughs in harmonic analysis and number theory. The prize also makes note of Tao’s fundamental work on wave maps that figure prominently Tao Awarded 2006 SASTRA in Einstein’s general theory of relativity, the new insights Ramanujan Prize that he and his collaborators provided in the study of Schrödinger equations, and the resolution of the satura- The 2006 SASTRA Ramanujan Prize will be awarded to tion conjecture in representation theory in collaboration Terence Tao of the University of California, . with Allen Knutson.” This annual prize, which was launched in 2005, is for Tao was born in , , in 1975 and lived outstanding contributions to areas of mathematics influ- there until 1992. He did his B.Sc. (Honours) and M.Sc. enced by the genius Srinivasa Ramanujan. The age limit for at of . He then went the prize has been set at thirty-two, because Ramanujan to in 1992 for his Ph.D., which he achieved so much in his brief life of thirty-two years. The completed in 1996 under the direction of Elias Stein. He

48 Notices of the AMS Volume 54, Number 1 Mathematics People received a Sloan Dissertation Fellowship for the final year Friedrich Pillichshammer, University of Linz; Joseph F. of his Ph.D. work. He is currently professor at the Univer- Traub, Columbia University; and Henryk Wozniakowski, sity of California in Los Angeles. He received the Salem Columbia University and University of Warsaw. Prize (2000), the AMS Bôcher Prize (2002), and the AMS Conant Prize (2005). In 2006 he received a —Joseph F. Traub as well as a MacArthur Fellowship. The 2006 SASTRA Ramanujan Prize Committee con- sisted of: Krishnaswami Alladi (chair), George Andrews, DMV Prizes , James Lepowsky, Tom Koornwinder, The Deutsche Mathematiker-Vereinigung (DMV, German , and Michel Waldschmidt. Mathematical Society) awarded prizes at a meeting in Bonn in September 2006. —From a SASTRA Ramanujan Prize announcement Hans Föllmer of the Humboldt-Universität Berlin received the DMV Cantor Medal. Föllmer is the leading Faddeev, Ruelle, and Witten German probability theorist of his generation. He has had a decisive influence on the development of the field Awarded Poincaré Prizes of stochastics, especially stochastic analysis and appli- cations to financial markets. Previous recipients of the The International Association of Mathematical Cantor Medal are Friedrich Hirzebruch, Yuri Manin, Volker (IAMP) has awarded the 2006 Henri Poincaré Prizes for Strassen, Jacques Tits, Erhard Heinz, Jürgen Moser, and to Ludvig D. Faddeev of the Stek- Karl Stein. lov Institute of Mathematics, St. Petersburg, and the Euler George Szpiro received the DMV Media Prize of 4,000 International Mathematical Institute; David Ruelle of the euros (approximately US$5,000) for his monthly column Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques, Bures-sur-Yvette; in the Swiss newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung. The col- and of the Institute for Advanced Study, umn presents a wide range of mathematical themes that Princeton. Faddeev was honored for his contributions to Szpiro has carefully researched and written up. He regu- the theory of quantum fields, quantization of noncom- larly succeeds in making complex mathematical ideas mutative gauge theories, scattering in accessible and enjoyable to a wide public. His columns and , and the theory of integrable have been collected into two books, Mathematics for Sun- systems. Ruelle was cited for his contributions to quan- day Morning (2005) and Mathematics for Sunday Afternoon tum field theory, to both classical and quantum statistical (2006), both available in English. mechanics, and to dynamical systems theory. Witten was Ulf von Rauchhaupt received the DMV Journalism honored for his work on theory, which has also in- Prize for his article “Professor Gödel und der Wahrheit fluenced geometry and . Each prize carries a cash (Professor Gödel and Truth)”, which appeared in the Frank- award of 10,000 euros (approximately US$12,000). furter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung on April 23, 2006. The The Poincaré Prize, which is sponsored by the Daniel article, written on the occasion of the 100th anniversary Iagolnitzer Foundation, recognizes outstanding contribu- of the birth of Kurt Gödel, describes how his ideas shook tions that set the foundation for novel developments in the foundations of mathematics. mathematical physics. The prize is awarded every three The DMV also recognized the contributions of Hans years. The 2006 prizes were presented at the International Magnus Enzensberger to mathematical popularization. Congress on Mathematical Physics in Rio de Janeiro. Enzensberger, a prominent German poet and essayist, presented a much-admired lecture at the International —From an IAMP announcement Congress of Mathematicians in Berlin in 1998 about the role of mathematics in culture. The lecture, Zugbrücke Ausser Betrieb, was published as a booklet in German with 2006 Information-Based facing English translation by A K Peters. Enzensberger has Complexity Young also written a children’s book, The Number Devil (1999), which has appeared in both German and English. Researcher Award —Allyn Jackson Jakob Creutzig of Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany, and Dirk Nuyens of Katholieke Universiteit, Leu- ven, Belgium, have been awarded the Information-Based Complexity (IBC) Young Researcher Award for 2006. The award is given for significant contributions to informa- tion-based complexity by a young researcher who has not reached his or her thirty-fifth birthday by September 30 in the year of the award. The award carries a cash prize of US$1,000 and a plaque. The award committee consisted of Josef Dick, Univer- sity of New South Wales; Frances Kuo, University of New South Wales; Christiane Lemieux, University of Calgary;

January 2007 Notices of the AMS 49