Endre Szemeredi wins the 2012 Abel Prize

If you were looking for a clue about this year’s winner, you could perhaps have paid attention to the curious incident of my recent Mathoverflow question.

“But you haven’t asked any Mathoverflow questions recently.”

That was the curious incident.

Anyhow, it was wonderful to be told that Endre Szemerédi was to be this year’s winner. I won’t say any more in this post, but instead refer you to the Abel Prize website and to the written version of the talk I gave, which was intended for non-mathematicians.

It’s that time of year again

This time a year ago, I had the privilege of attending the announcement of the 2011 Abel Prize, which was awarded to John Milnor. I also had the daunting task of presenting his work to a non-mathematical audience in twenty minutes or so. The same privilege/task has befallen me this year: I leave for Norway tomorrow and the announcement ceremony for the 2012 Abel Prize is on Wednesday at midday Norwegian time (11am GMT). If you are keen to know at the earliest possible opportunity which particular mereological sum of mathematicians has won the prize this year, then you can watch the event streamed live. For instructions, go to the Abel Prize website.