Wolf Prize in Mathematics

Last updated

The Wolf Prize in Mathematics is awarded almost annually [a] by the Wolf Foundation in Israel. It is one of the six Wolf Prizes established by the Foundation and awarded since 1978; the others are in Agriculture, Chemistry, Medicine, Physics and Arts. The Wolf Prize includes a monetary award of $100,000. [1]

Contents

According to a reputation survey conducted in 2013 and 2014, the Wolf Prize in Mathematics is the third most prestigious international academic award in mathematics, after the Abel Prize and the Fields Medal. [2] [3]

Laureates

YearNameNationalityCitation
1978 Israel Gelfand Flag of the Soviet Union.svg  Soviet Union for his work in functional analysis, group representation, and for his seminal contributions to many areas of mathematics and its applications.
Carl L. Siegel Flag of Germany.svg  Germany for his contributions to the theory of numbers, theory of several complex variables, and celestial mechanics.
1979 Jean Leray Flag of France.svg  France for pioneering work on the development and application of topological methods to the study of differential equations.
André Weil Flag of France.svg  France for his inspired introduction of algebraic-geometric methods to the theory of numbers.
1980 Henri Cartan Flag of France.svg  France for pioneering work in algebraic topology, complex variables, homological algebra and inspired leadership of a generation of mathematicians.
Andrey Kolmogorov Flag of the Soviet Union.svg  Soviet Union for deep and original discoveries in Fourier analysis, probability theory, ergodic theory and dynamical systems.
1981 Lars Ahlfors Flag of Finland.svg  Finland for seminal discoveries and the creation of powerful new methods in geometric function theory.
Oscar Zariski Flag of the United States (23px).png  United States creator of the modern approach to algebraic geometry, by its fusion with commutative algebra.
1982 Hassler Whitney Flag of the United States (23px).png  United States for his fundamental work in algebraic topology, differential geometry and differential topology.
Mark Krein Flag of the Soviet Union.svg  Soviet Union for his fundamental contributions to functional analysis and its applications.
1983/84 Shiing-Shen Chern Flag of the People's Republic of China.svg  China
Flag of the United States (23px).png  United States
for outstanding contributions to global differential geometry, which have profoundly influenced all mathematics.
Paul Erdős Flag of Hungary.svg  Hungary for his numerous contributions to number theory, combinatorics, probability, set theory and mathematical analysis, and for personally stimulating mathematicians the world over.
1984/85 Kunihiko Kodaira Flag of Japan.svg  Japan for his outstanding contributions to the study of complex manifolds and algebraic varieties.
Hans Lewy Flag of the United States (23px).png  United States for initiating many, now classic and essential, developments in partial differential equations.
1986 Samuel Eilenberg Flag of Poland.svg  Poland
Flag of the United States (23px).png  United States
for his fundamental work in algebraic topology and homological algebra.
Atle Selberg Flag of Norway.svg  Norway for his profound and original work on number theory and on discrete groups and automorphic forms.
1987 Kiyoshi Itō Flag of Japan.svg  Japan for his fundamental contributions to pure and applied probability theory, especially the creation of the stochastic differential and integral calculus.
Peter Lax Flag of Hungary.svg  Hungary
Flag of the United States (23px).png  United States
for his outstanding contributions to many areas of analysis and applied mathematics.
1988 Friedrich Hirzebruch Flag of Germany.svg  Germany for outstanding work combining topology, algebraic geometry and differential geometry, and algebraic number theory; and for his stimulation of mathematical cooperation and research.
Lars Hörmander Flag of Sweden.svg  Sweden for fundamental work in modern analysis, in particular, the application of pseudo-differential operators and Fourier integral operators to linear partial differential equations.
1989 Alberto Calderón Flag of Argentina.svg  Argentina for his groundbreaking work on singular integral operators and their application to important problems in partial differential equations.
John Milnor Flag of the United States (23px).png  United States for ingenious and highly original discoveries in geometry, which have opened important new vistas in topology from the algebraic, combinatorial, and differentiable viewpoint.
1990 Ennio De Giorgi Flag of Italy.svg  Italy for his innovating ideas and fundamental achievements in partial differential equations and calculus of variations.
Ilya Piatetski-Shapiro Flag of the Soviet Union.svg  Soviet Union
Flag of Israel.svg  Israel
for his fundamental contributions in the fields of homogeneous complex domains, discrete groups, representation theory and automorphic forms.
1991No award
1992 Lennart Carleson Flag of Sweden.svg  Sweden for his fundamental contributions to Fourier analysis, complex analysis, quasi-conformal mappings and dynamical systems.
John G. Thompson Flag of the United States (23px).png  United States for his profound contributions to all aspects of finite group theory and connections with other branches of mathematics.
1993 Mikhail Gromov Flag of Russia.svg  Russia
Flag of France.svg  France
for his revolutionary contributions to global Riemannian and symplectic geometry, algebraic topology, geometric group theory and the theory of partial differential equations;
Jacques Tits Flag of Belgium (civil).svg  Belgium
Flag of France.svg  France
for his pioneering and fundamental contributions to the theory of the structure of algebraic and other classes of groups and in particular for the theory of buildings.
1994/95 Jürgen Moser Flag of Switzerland (Pantone).svg  Switzerland
Flag of the United States (23px).png  United States
for his fundamental work on stability in Hamiltonian mechanics and his profound and influential contributions to nonlinear differential equations.
1995/96 Robert Langlands Flag of Canada (Pantone).svg  Canada for his path-blazing work and extraordinary insight in the fields of number theory, automorphic forms and group representation.
Andrew Wiles Flag of the United Kingdom.svg  United Kingdom for spectacular contributions to number theory and related fields, major advances on fundamental conjectures, and for settling Fermat's Last Theorem.
1996/97 Joseph B. Keller Flag of the United States (23px).png  United States for his profound and innovative contributions, in particular to electromagnetic, optical, and acoustic wave propagation and to fluid, solid, quantum and statistical mechanics.
Yakov G. Sinai Flag of Russia.svg  Russia
Flag of the United States (23px).png  United States
for his fundamental contributions to mathematically rigorous methods in statistical mechanics and the ergodic theory of dynamical systems and their applications in physics.
1998No award
1999 László Lovász Flag of Hungary.svg  Hungary
Flag of the United States (23px).png  United States
for his outstanding contributions to combinatorics, theoretical computer science and combinatorial optimization.
Elias M. Stein Flag of the United States (23px).png  United States for his contributions to classical and Euclidean Fourier analysis and for his exceptional impact on a new generation of analysts through his eloquent teaching and writing.
2000 Raoul Bott Flag of Hungary.svg  Hungary
Flag of the United States (23px).png  United States
for his deep discoveries in topology and differential geometry and their applications to Lie groups, differential operators and mathematical physics.
Jean-Pierre Serre Flag of France.svg  France for his many fundamental contributions to topology, algebraic geometry, algebra, and number theory and for his inspirational lectures and writing.
2001 Vladimir Arnold Flag of Russia.svg  Russia for his deep and influential work in a multitude of areas of mathematics, including dynamical systems, differential equations, and singularity theory.
Saharon Shelah Flag of Israel.svg  Israel for his many fundamental contributions to mathematical logic and set theory, and their applications within other parts of mathematics.
2002/03 Mikio Sato Flag of Japan.svg  Japan for his creation of algebraic analysis, including hyperfunction theory and microfunction theory, holonomic quantum field theory, and a unified theory of soliton equations.
John Tate Flag of the United States (23px).png  United States for his creation of fundamental concepts in algebraic number theory.
2004No award
2005 Gregory Margulis Flag of Russia.svg  Russia
Flag of the United States (23px).png  United States
for his monumental contributions to algebra, in particular to the theory of lattices in semi-simple Lie groups, and striking applications of this to ergodic theory, representation theory, number theory, combinatorics, and measure theory.
Sergei Novikov Flag of Russia.svg  Russia for his fundamental and pioneering contributions to algebraic and differential topology, and to mathematical physics, notably the introduction of algebraic-geometric methods.
2006/07 Stephen Smale Flag of the United States (23px).png  United States for his groundbreaking contributions that have played a fundamental role in shaping differential topology, dynamical systems, mathematical economics, and other subjects in mathematics.
Hillel Furstenberg Flag of the United States (23px).png  United States
Flag of Israel.svg  Israel
for his profound contributions to ergodic theory, probability, topological dynamics, analysis on symmetric spaces and homogeneous flows.
2008 Pierre Deligne Flag of Belgium (civil).svg  Belgium for his work on mixed Hodge theory; the Weil conjectures; the Riemann-Hilbert correspondence; and for his contributions to arithmetic.
Phillip A. Griffiths Flag of the United States (23px).png  United States for his work on variations of Hodge structures; the theory of periods of abelian integrals; and for his contributions to complex differential geometry.
David B. Mumford Flag of the United States (23px).png  United States for his work on algebraic surfaces; on geometric invariant theory; and for laying the foundations of the modern algebraic theory of moduli of curves and theta functions.
2009No award
2010 Shing-Tung Yau Flag of the United States (23px).png  United States for his work in geometric analysis that has had a profound and dramatic impact on many areas of geometry and physics.
Dennis P. Sullivan Flag of the United States (23px).png  United States for his innovative contributions to algebraic topology and conformal dynamics.
2011No award
2012 Michael Aschbacher Flag of the United States (23px).png  United States for his work on the theory of finite groups.
Luis Caffarelli Flag of Argentina.svg  Argentina for his work on partial differential equations.
2013 George D. Mostow Flag of the United States (23px).png  United States for his fundamental and pioneering contribution to geometry and Lie group theory.
Michael Artin Flag of the United States (23px).png  United States for his fundamental contributions to algebraic geometry, both in commutative and noncommutative.
2014 Peter Sarnak Flag of South Africa.svg  South Africa
Flag of the United States (23px).png  United States
for his deep contributions in analysis, number theory, geometry, and combinatorics.
2015 James G. Arthur Flag of Canada (Pantone).svg  Canada for his monumental work on the trace formula and his fundamental contributions to the theory of automorphic representations of reductive groups.
2016No award
2017 Richard Schoen Flag of the United States (23px).png  United States for his contributions to geometric analysis and the understanding of the interconnectedness of partial differential equations and differential geometry.
Charles Fefferman Flag of the United States (23px).png  United States for his contributions in a number of mathematical areas including complex multivariate analysis, partial differential equations and sub-elliptical problems.
2018 Alexander Beilinson Flag of Russia.svg  Russia
Flag of the United States (23px).png  United States
for their work that has made significant progress at the interface of geometry and mathematical physics.
Vladimir Drinfeld Flag of Ukraine.svg  Ukraine
Flag of the United States (23px).png  United States
2019 Jean-Francois Le Gall Flag of France.svg  France for his several deep and elegant contributions to the theory of stochastic processes.
Gregory Lawler Flag of the United States (23px).png  United States for his comprehensive and pioneering research on erased loops and random walks. [4]
2020 Simon K. Donaldson Flag of the United Kingdom.svg  United Kingdom for their contributions to differential geometry and topology. [5]
Yakov Eliashberg Flag of the United States (23px).png  United States
2021No award
2022 George Lusztig Flag of Romania.svg  Romania
Flag of the United States (23px).png  United States
Flag of Hungary.svg  Hungary
for his groundbreaking contributions to representation theory and related areas. [6]
2023 Ingrid Daubechies Flag of Belgium (civil).svg  Belgium
Flag of the United States (23px).png  United States
for her work in wavelet theory and applied harmonic analysis. [7]
2024 Adi Shamir Flag of Israel.svg  Israel for his fundamental contributions to Mathematical Cryptography. [8]
Noga Alon Flag of Israel.svg  Israel for his fundamental contributions to Combinatorics and Theoretical Computer Science. [9]
2025No award

Laureates per country

Below is a chart of all laureates per country (updated to 2024 laureates). Some laureates are counted more than once if they have multiple citizenships.

CountryNumber of laureates
Flag of the United States.svg United States 34
Flag of the Soviet Union.svg  Soviet Union / Flag of Russia.svg Russia 10
Flag of France.svg France 7
Flag of Israel.svg Israel 5
Flag of Hungary.svg Hungary 5
Flag of Japan.svg Japan 3
Flag of Belgium (civil).svg Belgium 3
Flag of Germany.svg Germany 2
Flag of the United Kingdom.svg United Kingdom 2
Flag of Canada (Pantone).svg Canada 2
Flag of Argentina.svg Argentina 2
Flag of Sweden.svg Sweden 2
Flag of Ukraine.svg Ukraine 2
Flag of South Africa.svg South Africa 1
Flag of Poland.svg Poland 1
Flag of Italy.svg Italy 1
Flag of the People's Republic of China.svg China 1
Flag of Norway.svg Norway 1
Flag of Finland.svg Finland 1
Flag of Romania.svg Romania 1

Notes

  1. The Wolf Foundation describes the prize as annual; however, some prizes are split across years, while in some years no prize is awarded.

See also

References

  1. "The Wolf Prize". Wolf Foundation . Retrieved 6 June 2024.
  2. IREG Observatory on Academic Ranking and Excellence. IREG List of International Academic Awards (PDF). Brussels: IREG Observatory on Academic Ranking and Excellence . Retrieved 3 March 2018.
  3. Zheng, Juntao; Liu, Niancai (2015). "Mapping of important international academic awards". Scientometrics. 104 (3): 763–791. doi:10.1007/s11192-015-1613-7.
  4. Wolf Prize 2019 - Mathematics
  5. Wolf Prize 2020 - Mathematics
  6. Wolf Prize 2022 - Mathematics
  7. Wolf Prize 2023 - Mathematics
  8. Wolf Prize 2024 - Mathematics
  9. Wolf Prize 2024 - Mathematics