Institute math scholar wins national award

Robert P. Langlands receives American Mathematical Society Steele Prize.

By: David Campbell
   Institute for Advanced Study mathematician Robert P. Langlands has been awarded the American Mathematical Society’s 2005 Leroy P. Steele Prize for a Seminal Contribution to Research, the institute has announced.
   The Steele Prize is one of the highest distinctions in mathematics, according to the AMS. Three are awarded annually to mathematicians working in the United States in recognition of lifetime achievement, mathematical exposition and seminal contribution to research, for which Dr. Langlands, who is Hermann Weyl Professor of Mathematics at the institute, was honored.
   In granting its award, the AMS cited Dr. Langlands’ groundbreaking 1970 paper, "Problems in the theory of automorphic forms."
   This paper launched what has become known as the Langlands Program, a series of conjectures that posit relations among seemingly unrelated concepts in number theory, algebraic geometry and the theory of automorphic forms, the institute said. According to the AMS, the Langlands conjectures provide a unifying principle for investigations in different areas.
   Mathematicians have been working on these conjectures for the past three decades, the institute said.
   "As a result of this paper, the systematic relation between global and local theory and the systematic use of adele groups became fixtures in the subject," the AMS award citation states. "It’s hard to think of any other instance in the history of mathematics where conjectures gave so accurate a road map of what would turn out to be true in so many different situations. And few other conjectures have generated so much research of such high quality."
   Dr. Langlands is a graduate of the University of British Columbia and received his doctorate from Yale University. He taught at Princeton and Yale universities before joining the institute faculty in 1972.
   His previous honors include the AMS’s Cole Prize in 1982, the Common Wealth Award in 1984 and the first National Academy of Sciences Award in Mathematics in 1988. He also received the Wolf Prize in Mathematics in 1996, jointly with Andrew Wiles, and the Grande Médaille d’Or of the Paris Academy of Sciences in 2000, the institute said.
   Past recipients of the Steele Prize include current institute faculty members Phillip A. Griffiths in 1971, and Robert MacPherson in 2002, jointly with institute member Mark Goresky. Former faculty members Armand Borel, John W. Milnor, André Weil and Hassler Whitney, as well as numerous institute members, have also been recipients, the institute said.
   The AMS was founded in 1888 to further mathematical research and scholarship. The 29,000-member society’s programs and services seek to promote mathematical research, strengthen mathematical education, and foster awareness and appreciation of mathematics and its connections to other disciplines and to everyday life, according to the AMS Web site.