Årbok 2013

for university and college mathematics students who want to spend an extended period

abroad.

In our endeavour to stimulate an interest in mathematics among the young, we have been

very fortunate to be sponsored by

Petroleum Geo-Services

(PGS). The support from PGS

has also allowed us to enter into a promising collaboration with the National Institute for

Mathematical Sciences in Kumasi, Ghana.

A very promising recent development is the Heidelberg Laureate Forum, a weeklong meeting

between talented young master students, PhD students, and postdodoral fellows on the one

hand, and all the winners of the Fields Medal, the Abel Prize and the Turing Prize. This

event is generously funded by the German philanthropist Klaus Tschira.

Conclusion

We can return now to the question of whether Niels Henrik Abel would have been awarded

the Abel Prize. His mathematics has stood the test of time exceptionally well; concepts like

"Abelian variety", "Abel's equation", "Abel's equation of the first kind", "abelian group'"",

"Abel's identity", "the Abei-Piana formula", · Abelian mean", "Abelian summation", "Abel's

theorem" (several) and "Abel's transformation· are household words in today's mathematics.

However, the decision to award the prize to him would have to be made by his

contemporaries. The quotations cited above clearly indicate their admiration for Niels Henrik

Abel and support my daim that Niels Henrik Abel would have first been awarded the Fields

Meda!, the most prominent prize in mathematics for mathematicians younger than 40 years

of age, for his proof of the impossibility of solving the quintic equation. Then at a mature age,

he would have been awarded the Abel Prize for his addition theorem and his work on elliptic

functions.

Postscript

This presentation is admittedly brief. For further literature in English and Norwegian. the

reader is referred to the bibliography below. l.ilore material can be found at the Abel web site

www.abelprize.no

Bibliography

Helsvig, Kim (2013): Ti år med Abelprisen- den manglende Nobelprisen i matematikk.

Historisk tidsskrift,

nr.

pp.

261-289.

Helsvig, Kim (2014): The Abel Prize- the missing Nobel in mathematics.

Centaurus,

001

10.111111600-0498.12038.

Holden, Helge (2014): Ville Abel fått Abelprisen? Om Abel og prisen hans.

Arbok, Det Norske

Videnskaps-Akademi

Holden, Helge and Ragni Piene (2010):

The Abel Prize 2003-2007. The First Five

Years.

Berlin: Springer.

Holden, Helge and Ragni Piene (2014):

The Abel Prize 2008-2012.

Berlin: Springer.

Houzel, Christian (2004):

The Worl< ofNiels Henrik Abel.

In Laudal and Piene 2004, pp. 21-

176.

Laudal, Olav Arnfinn and Ragni Piene (editors) (2004):

The Legacy ofNiels Henrik Abel. The

Abel Bicentennial, Oslo, 2002.

Berlin: Springer.

Stubhaug, Arild (1996):

Et foranskutt lyn.

Nie/s

Henrik Abel og hans tid.

(Niels Henrik Abel

and his Times. Called Too Soon by Flames Afar) Oslo: Aschehoug. [Translated into English,

German, French and Japanese)

Sylow, Ludwig and Sophus Lie (1881):

Oevres completes de Niels Henrik Abel.

Christiania:

Grøndahl

Søn.

Most otten written with a lower-case A.