Norway’s King Harald V once again handed over the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters’ annual Abel Prize on Tuesday, this time to renowned mathematician Masaki Kashiwara from Kyoto University in Japan. Kashiwara was honored for his contribution to algebraic analysis and representation theory.
The Abel Prize, which is billed as recognizing “pioneering scientific achievements in mathematics,” is widely viewed as mathematics’ Nobel. It’s a coveted international prize named after Norwegian math genius Niels Henrik Abel (1802-1829), who made his own pioneering contributions that even led to the development of the Internet centuries later, but died from tuberculosis when he was only 26 years old.
The prize, which includes a cash award of NOK 7.5 million, is funded through the academy and the Norwegian government. Kashiwara, described as “an exceptionally prolific mathematician” was lauded for building bridges between different fields of mathematics for the past 50 years, and inspiring generations of researchers.
NewsinEnglish.no staff
