Mathematicians John Nash and Louis Nirenberg win the 2015 Abel Prize

Founded in 2002, the Abel Prize is considered by some to be ‘the Nobel of mathematics.’ It is awarded to researchers for their outstanding scientific work in the field of mathematics. The 2015 Abel Prize was awarded by the Norwegian Academy of Sciences and Letters to two prominent mathematicians: John Nash, the well-known Princeton University senior research mathematician, and his longtime colleague Louis Nirenberg, a professor emeritus at New York University's Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences for their contribution to the field of geometric analysis. The two mathematicians will share a US$765,000 prize.

The Abel committee heralded the prizewinners as “two mathematical giants of the twentieth century.” The pair’s most influential area of work is geometric analysis in which partial differential equations are applied to the study of the shapes of surfaces and their higher-dimensional analogues, called manifolds. The announcement post adds that “Their breakthroughs have developed into versatile and robust techniques that have become essential tools for the study of nonlinear partial differential equations. Their impact can be felt in all branches of the theory.”

Nash, now aged 86, and Nirenberg, 90, have won other notable awards in the past for their achievements. Nash was honored with the Nobel Prize (1994) and John von Neumann Theory Prize (1978) among others, while Nirenberg was awarded the American Mathematical Society’s Bôcher Memorial Prize (1959) and the Steele Prize for Lifetime Achievement from the American Mathematical Society (1994).

The awardees will receive the Abel Prize on May 19 from His Majesty King Harald at a ceremony in Oslo.