The Abel Prize 2007
Their Majesties The King and Queen were both in attendance when Professor Srinivasa S. R. Varadhan was presented with the Abel Prize in the University Aula in Oslo Tuesday. Earlier the same morning, Their Majesties granted the Abel Laureate an audience at the Royal Palace.
Professor Varadhan was awarded the prize “for his fundamental contributions to probability theory and in particular for creating a unified theory of large deviation”. Kristian Seip, the chairman of the Abel Committee, read the committee’s grounds for awarding the prize.
His Majesty The King presented the prize.
The music during the ceremony was performed by the Oslo String Quartet, which played George Gershwin’s Summertime (with Isa Katharina Gericke) and Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story.
The Abel Prize
The Abel Prize is an international prize for outstanding scientific work in the field of mathematics. The prize seeks to contribute towards raising the status of mathematics in society and promoting greater interest in mathematics among children and young people in mathematics.
The Niels Henrik Abel Memorial Fund was established 2002 and the prize was awarded for the fist time in 2003.
The prize commemorates the Norwegian mathematician Niels Henrik Abel, who during his short life developed several groundbreaking theories that were to become normative for the development of modern mathematics. Abel died of tuberculosis in 1829, just a few months shy of his 27th birthday.
Banquet at Akershus Castle
In the evening, The King and Queen attended the government banquet honouring the Abel Laureate at Akershus Castle. Both Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg and Professor László Lovász, President of the International Mathematical Union, spoke during the banquet, and entertainment was provided by the baroque orchestra Barokkanerne.
-
The Abel Prize 2007
King Harald presented the Abel Prize to Professor Srinivasa S. R. Varadhan (Photo: Terje Bendiksby, Scanpix)Photo 1 of 3 -
The Abel Prize 2007: Audience
Their Majesties The King and Queen granted Srinivasa S. R. Varadhan audience (Photo: Terje Bendiksby, Scanpix)Photo 2 of 3 -
The Abel Prize 2007: Wreath-laying
Srinivasa S. R. Varadhan placed a wreath at the statue of Niels Henrik Abel in The Palace Park (Photo: Heiko Junge, Scanpix)Photo 3 of 3
Enlarge
Enlarge
EnlargeCurrent news
Welcoming the Restauration to the US
His Royal Highness Crown Prince Haakon, along with a couple of thousand attendees, welcomed the sloop Restauration to New York, exactly 200 years after the vessel carrying Norwegian emigrants arrived in the United States. In 1825, they crossed the Atlantic in search of a new and better life. This voyage is regarded as the beginning of organised emigration from Norway.
Met with Governor Walz in Minnesota
Minnesota is one of the states in the United States where a large proportion of the population has Norwegian ancestry. His Royal Highness Crown Prince Haakon is therefore also visiting this state and its largest metropolitan area, Minneapolis–Saint Paul, during his trip to the United States to mark the 200th anniversary of Norwegian emigration to the US.