Abel rewards contributions to theoretical computational science • Hola News

MATH AWARD

Copenhagen, March 17 (EFE) .- The Hungarian László Lovász and the Israeli-American Avi Wigderson have been distinguished this Wednesday with the Abel Prize, considered the “Nobel of mathematics”, for their studies on computational science.

Their contributions to that science and to discrete mathematics are “essential”, highlighted in its ruling the Norwegian Academy of Sciences and Letters, which recognized their role in turning these disciplines into central fields of modern mathematics.

The theory of computational complexity, linked to the speed and efficiency of algorithms, was in its “infancy” in the 1970s, when a new generation of people understood that discrete mathematics could be applied in computational science.

Computational complexity has become the theoretical basis for internet security, which like algorithms are an integral part of our daily lives, the ruling notes.

ALGORITHMS AND CRYPTOCURRENCIES

Lovász (Budapest, 1948) is part of a generation of brilliant Hungarian mathematicians and the first group of an experiment in which specialized mathematics classes were given to gifted students at an institute in the Hungarian capital.

At the age of 22, he received his doctorate from the Eötvös Loránd University, where he later worked, as well as at the József Attila University in Szeged, during that decade and the next.

Appointed William K. Lanman Professor of Computational Science and Mathematics at Yale University (USA) in 1993, six years later he left academia to take up a position as chief researcher at Microsoft, before returning in 2006 to Eötvös Loránd, where is currently a teacher.

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Lovász has designed powerful algorithms with wide applications such as “LLL”, which is used in number theory, cryptography and mobile computing.

Eight years younger than Lovász, Wigderson was born in Haifa (Israel), studied at the Israel Institute of Technology and graduated in Computer Science in 1980, then did his postgraduate studies at Princeton University (USA), at the one that is linked today, after having returned for a time to his native country.

Wigderson is known for his ability to discover relationships between seemingly unconnected areas, highlights the ruling, which mostly acknowledges his contribution to complexity theory.

Among his contributions are those he made to the so-called zero knowledge test, which is used in cryptocurrency technology.

The two mathematicians succeed in the winners of the prize, endowed with 7.5 million crowns (743,000 euros, 885,000 dollars), the American Hillel Furstenberg and the Russian Gregory Margulis, awarded last year for their pioneering studies on probability methods and dynamics in group and number theories.

The Abel Prize is named in memory of the Norwegian mathematician Niels Henrik Abel (1802-1829), and was established by the Parliament of this Scandinavian country in 2002.

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