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| Hillel Furstenberg (left) and Gregory Margulis were jointly awarded the 2020 Abel Prize. Photo: Yosef Adest, Dan Renzetti |
Israeli Hillel Furstenberg and Russian-American Gregory Margulis won “for pioneering the use of methods from probability and dynamics in group theory, number theory and combinatorics”, the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters announced on 18 March. Each of them bridged gaps between diverse areas of maths, solving problems that had seemed beyond reach...
Chaotic systems
A common thread in the work of both mathematicians has been the use of techniques from ergodic theory, a field of maths that originated in the study of physics problems such as the motion of billiard balls or planetary systems. Ergodic theory studies systems that evolve in time, eventually exploring virtually all their possible configurations. These systems are typically chaotic, meaning that their future behaviour can only be guessed using probability.
But that randomness can be a strength when applied to other mathematical problems...
The Abel Prize is named after Norwegian mathematician Niels Henrik Abel (1802–29) and was established in 2003. The two winners will share 7.5 million Norwegian kroner, or about US$ 834,000.
Because of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, the academy decided to postpone the award ceremony, which normally would have taken place in Oslo in June. Instead, the 2021 ceremony will celebrate winners for both the 2020 and 2021 prizes. “It’s extraordinary times, so we have to do things a little bit differently this year,” Munthe-Kaas says.
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Additional resources
Mathematics pioneers who found order in chaos win Abel prize
doi: 10.1038/d41586-020-00799-7
Source: Nature.com
