5.12 million prize money!The 2024 "Nobel Prize" in mathematics has been announced

Text | "China Science Daily" reporter Han raised eyebrows

On March 20, the Abel Prize, known as the "Nobel Prize" in mathematics, was announced.

The Norwegian Academy of Sciences and Letters has decided to award the 2024 Abel Prize to French probability theorist Michel Talagrand for "his pioneering contributions to probability theory and functional analysis, as well as outstanding applications in mathematical physics and statistics".

"Tara Grande was a brilliant mathematician and a brilliant problem solver. He has made profound contributions to our understanding of stochastic processes, especially Gaussian processes. His work has reshaped several areas of probability theory. In addition, he proved the famous free energy of the spin glass state of the Parisi formula, which is an amazing achievement. Professor Helge Holden, Chairman of the Abel Prize Committee, said.

米歇尔·塔拉格兰德。 图源：Peter Badge/Typos1/ Abel Prize 2024

The journal Nature reported that Tara Grande reacted in disbelief when he heard the news. "My mind went blank for at least 4 seconds. "I wouldn't have been more surprised if I had been told that an alien spacecraft had landed in front of the White House." ”

The Abel Prize was established in January 2002 and was first awarded on June 3, 2003, with one of the original intentions of making up for the lack of a Nobel Prize in mathematics. The prize is funded by the Norwegian government and the prize money is 7.5 million Norwegian kroner (about 5.12 million yuan). Together with the Fields Medal and the Wolf Prize in Mathematics, this award is known as the "three awards" of the international mathematical community.

"Optimist" mathematician

Michelle Tara Grande is 72 years old and an "optimist". He is a mathematician and a marathon runner who has traveled with his family to more than a hundred countries.

Tara Grande was born in France on February 15, 1952. His father was a mathematics professor and his mother was a French teacher. His wife, Wansoo Rhee, a retired professor of management at The Ohio State University, has two sons.

Due to the genetic predisposition to retinal detachment, at the age of 5, Tara Grande lost his right eye due to a genetic disease. At the age of 15, he received emergency treatment for another retinal detachment, this time in his left eye. For this, he had to miss almost an entire year of school. The horrific experience of nearly losing his sight caused Tara Grande to refocus on his studies. After his recovery, he became an enterprising student, discovering his talent in mathematics and physics and began to excel in national math competitions.

After graduating from the University of Lyon in 1974, Tara Grande was employed by the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), the largest research institute in Europe, until his retirement in 2017. During this time, he earned his Ph.D., developed an interest in probability, published hundreds of papers on the subject, met his future wife and fell in love at first sight – Taragland reportedly proposed to her three days after meeting.

Tara Grande has been Director of Research at the CNRS since 1985. However, he has also experienced a long "detour" – he began his career studying high-dimensional geometry and spent more than a decade working at the entry level. "For 10 years, I haven't found out what I'm good at. He said. But he doesn't regret the detour. Eventually, he turned to probability theory, saying, "I have another point of view...... It made me look at things differently. This allows him to study stochastic processes through the lens of high-dimensional geometry.

Don't mind starting by researching the "little issues".

In contrast to most mathematicians who pursue "big problems", Michel Tara Grande is an "atypical" mathematician who always solves his favorite problems to his liking. He doesn't mind studying small problems as a "stepping stone" to further major discoveries.

He himself once described his approach this way: "It is helpful to be humble and start with a good understanding of simple situations. When researching a conjecture, I also find it helpful to try to prove it and try to refute it. This progress comes from jumping, like putting two pieces of a puzzle together. It's almost instantaneous. Now you see it, and you didn't see it before. After such progress, you may have a clearer understanding of the issue. ”

In 2004, he was elected a member of the French Academy of Sciences, and in 2011 he was awarded a knight of the French Legion of Honor. He has received several awards, including the Leuif Prize for Probability (1995), the Fermat Prize (1997) and the Shaw Prize (2019).

After winning the Shaw Prize, he invited the mathematical community to solve the puzzle with the goal of "make you rich with my reward". A reward of $5,000~$1,000 will be offered to those who solve questions such as Bernoulli's conjecture and "an exercise on convolution". Of course, there are some conditions for the prize: "As long as I am not too old to understand the proof I received, I will award the prize below." If I don't understand, I won't pay.

The first sentence on his personal homepage fully reflects his "optimistic" attitude towards life and science: "Mathematics gives you wings". Tara Grande's mathematical wisdom took him very far.

About "Probability" vs. "Random"

Tara Grande was awarded for his work in probability theory. Probability theory is the branch of mathematics that deals with solving "random" phenomena. A typical example is stock trends. The size of the stock win rate is related to many factors such as the company's performance, macroeconomic environment, and policy environment.

This "random" phenomenon also happened to Tara Grande, who had no idea that he would win one of the highest prizes in mathematics this year, the Abel Prize.

His proudest achievement is his inequalities, a set of formulas that limit fluctuations in stochastic processes. His formula expresses how the contributions of many factors often cancel each other out – making the overall outcome vary less, not more.

The development of probability theory was initially driven by problems that arise in gambling or assessing risk. The modern world is made up of a constant flow of random events, and a thorough understanding of random phenomena is essential in today's world. Tara Grande's breakthrough discoveries can help us understand and study the random processes we see around us.

Much of Tara Grande's work involves understanding and utilizing the "Gaussian distribution", which is often referred to as the "normal distribution" or "bell curve". Our entire lives are guided by Gaussian distributions – such as the weight of babies at birth, students' test scores in school, and the retirement age of athletes are all random events that follow a Gaussian distribution exactly.

According to the official website of the Abel Prize, Tara Grande won the award in three specific areas of his work:

Upper Bound of Stochastic Process – Stochastic process produces a series of random values, and the "upper bound bound" is the expected maximum value in the set of these values. If the height of the waves hitting the beach is a random process, it's useful to know what the biggest wave hitting the beach is likely to be next year.

Centralization of measurement – Contrary to intuition, when a process relies on a series of different random sources, the different random factors not only do not become more complex, but have the potential to compensate each other and produce more predictable results. In this regard, Tara Grande gives a precise quantitative estimate.

Spin glass state – Leaving aside abstract probability theories, the "spin glass state" is a special form of matter in which atoms can arrange themselves, much to the initial surprise of physicists. Tara Grande used his knowledge of statistics and probability theory to prove the behavioral limits of spin glass matter, thus completing the proof of George Parisi's Nobel Prize (2021).

According to the Abel Prize's website, Tara Grande was a prolific mathematician whose work changed probability theory, functional analysis, and statistics. His research is characterized by a desire to understand interesting problems at the most basic level, and to build new mathematical theories in the process. His research monographs were very influential – disseminating many of his insights. Combining technical mastery with deep analytical and geometric insights, he has built new powerful tools and answered long-standing puzzles that will continue to have a tremendous impact on mathematics and its applications.

Bibliography:

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00839-6

https://abelprize.no/abel-prize-laureates/2024