Category: News from Academies in the Nordics and the Baltics

The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters has decided to award the Abel Prize for 2024 to Michel Talagrand of the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), Paris, France.

Michel Talagrand receives the prize for his work in probability theory and stochastic processes. From the outset, the development of probability theory was motivated by problems that arose in the context of gambling or assessing risks. The common theme in Michel Talagrand’s groundbreaking discoveries is working with and understanding the random processes we see all around us. It has now become apparent that a thorough understanding of random phenomena is essential in today’s world. For example, random algorithms underpin our weather forecasting and large language models.

The modern world is a constant flow of random events, and understanding that randomness has impacts on everything from business logistics to condensed-matter physics. Much of Talagrand’s work involves understanding and utilising the “Gaussian distribution”, often better known as the “normal distribution” or – thanks to its shape – the “bell curve”. Our whole life is guided by the Gaussian distribution: the weight of babies at birth, the test results students get at school and the ages athletes retire at are all seemingly random events that neatly follow the Gaussian distribution.

Three specific areas

The Abel Prize is given for three specific areas of Talagrand’s work:

Suprema of stochastic processes – A stochastic process produces a sequence of random values, and the “supremum” is the largest value to be expected from a collection of those values. If the height of waves crashing on a beach is a stochastic process, it is useful to know what the largest wave to hit the beach next year is likely to be.

Concentration of measures – Counterintuitively, when a process depends on a range of different sources of randomness, instead of getting more complicated, it is possible for the different random factors to compensate for each other and produce more predictable results. Talagrand has given sharp quantitative estimates for this.

Spin glass – Leaving abstract probability theory behind, a “spin glass” is a special form of matter that atoms can arrange themselves in, much to the initial surprise of physicists. Talagrand used his knowledge of statistics and probability to prove limits on how spin glass matter can behave, and thereby completed the proof of Giorgio Parisi’s Nobel Prize winning work (2021).

“Talagrand is an exceptional mathematician, and a formidable problem solver. He has made profound contributions to our understanding of random, and in particular, Gaussian, processes. His work has reshaped several areas of probability theory. Furthermore, his proof of the celebrated Parisi formula for free energy of spin glasses is an amazing accomplishment,” says Professor Helge Holden, chair of the Abel Prize Committee.

The Abel Prize is awarded by The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.

Read more at the website of the academy. 

 

Professor Lise Øvreås has been elected new president of The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. She will be the third woman to hold this top position.

Lise Øvreås is Professor of Geomicrobiology and Director of the Center for Sustainable Seas at the University of Bergen (UiB), and Professor II at UNIS. She has broad management experience and a strong national and international career.

– I greatly appreciate being elected president of the Academy, and I look forward to taking part in its further development, says Øvreås.

In her election speech, she mentioned sustainable change, scientific advice, and the promotion of free and independent research as some of her flagship issues for the Academy in the future.

Sustainability, the sea, and academia

Øvreås is educated at UiB and has, among other things, been vice dean for research at the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences. As director of Ocean Sustainability Bergen, scientific advice and the UN’s sustainability goals are two of her fields of experience.

She has been a member of the Academy of Sciences since 2013 and has previously been a board member and vice president. She represents Norway in the European Academy Science Advisory Council (EASAC) and is a member of the National Committee for the Year of Marine Research.

UiB Rector Margareth Hagen congratulates Lise Øvreås on an important position:

– The Academy of Sciences plays an important role in promoting science both in Norway and internationally, and Lise Øvreås, with her background in ocean and sustainability, is the right person to lead the academy further, says Hagen.

Third woman since 1857

Øvreås joins the leadership position in January 2022 and is elected for three years. She takes over from Hans-Petter Graver, UiO, who has been president since 2019. The president is also chairman of the board.

Øvreås is the third woman among 48 leaders in the Academy of Sciences since 1857. Her predecessors have been Professor Inger Moen (1998-2003) and Professor Kirsti Strøm Bull (2012-2015), both from the University of Oslo.

You can read this article, written by Åshild Nylund, in Norwegian here.