2021 Abel Prize awarded to László Lovász #

The Academia Europaea are proud to announce that our distinguished member Professor László Lovász MAE, the Academic Director of the AE Budapest Knowledge Hub and a member of the Mathematics section of Academia Europaea has been awarded the 2021 Abel prize (shared with Avi Wigderson).

The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters has decided to award the Abel Prize for 2021 to László Lovász of Alfréd Rényi Institute of Mathematics (ELKH, MTA Institute of Excellence) and Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, Hungary and Avi Wigderson of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, USA for “for their foundational contributions to theoretical computer science and discrete mathematics, and their leading role in shaping them into central fields of modern mathematics”.

Hans Munthe-Kaas, chair of the Abel committee says:

"The theory of ‘computational complexity’ – which concerns itself with the speed and efficiency of algorithms – was in its infancy in the 1970s, and is now an established field of both mathematics and theoretical computer science. Computational complexity has become important, providing the theoretical basis for internet security. Also in the 1970s a new generation of mathematicians realised that discrete mathematics had, in computer science, a new area of application. Today algorithms and internet security aspects are an integral part of everyday life for all of us. The work of László Lovász and Avi Wigderson has played an important part of this development. “Lovász and Wigderson have been leading forces in this development over the last decades. Their work interlaces in many ways, and, in particular, they have both made fundamental contributions to understanding randomness in computation and in exploring the boundaries of efficient computation”.

He continues: “Thanks to the leadership of these two, discrete mathematics and the relatively young field of theoretical computer science are now established as central areas of modern mathematics.”

About the Abel Prize:#

• The honoring of the Abel Prize laureates will be announced later
• The Abel Prize is funded by the Norwegian Government and consists of MNOK 7.5
• The prize is awarded by the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters
• The choice of the Abel laureates is based on the recommendation of the Abel Committee, which is composed of five internationally recognized mathematicians
• For more information, please visit https://www.abelprize.no

Press#

• 2 Win Abel Prize for Work That Bridged Math and Computer Science, The New York Times
• Abel Prize celebrates union of mathematics and computer science, Nature
• Cybersecurity pioneers win mathematics Abel Prize, Phys.org
• Pioneers Linking Math and Computer Science Win the Abel Prize, Quantamagazine