John Nash and Louis Nirenberg share 2015 Abel Prize

In a press release, earlier today the Norwegian Academy of Sciences and Letters have decided to award the 2015 Abel Prize to John Forbes Nash, Jr. and Louis Nirenberg “for striking and seminal contributions to the theory of nonlinear partial differential equations and its applications to geometric analysis.”

 

The full citation of the prize can be read here. This honour to both these outstanding American mathematicians comes after many honours for each of them, including the 1994 Nobel Prize in Economics for John Nash. It must be mentioned that Nash has become the first person to win both a Nobel Prize and an Abel Prize, which is also sometimes considered to be the Nobel Prize for mathematics.

 

A biography of Nash can be read here and of Nirenberg can be read here. This year’s prize committee included among others, the 2010 Fields Medalist Cedric Villani.

 

In the coming few days, we promise to bring out separate articles highlighting some of their work.