Allen Knutson and Terence Tao Receive 2005 AMS Conant Prize

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About the AMS AMS Membership Governance Giving to the AMS Prizes & Awards Contact Us 201 Charles Street Providence, RI 02904 USA Phone: 401-455-4000 or 800-321-4AMS Or email us at ams@ams.org Open Positions	Allen Knutson and Terence Tao Receive 2005 AMS Conant Prize Contact: Mike Breen or Annette Emerson AMS Public Awareness Officers paoffice@ams.org Phone: 401-455-4000 or 404-460-6922 (Joint Math Meetings Press Room) January 6, 2005 Providence, RI: Allen Knutson of the University of California, Berkeley, and Terence Tao of the University of California, Los Angeles, are receiving the 2005 AMS Levi L. Conant Prize. Presented annually by the American Mathematical Society, the Conant Prize recognizes an outstanding expository paper published in either the Notices of the AMS or the Bulletin of the AMS in the preceding five years. The prize will be awarded today at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in Atlanta, Georgia. Knutson and Tao are honored for their stimulating article "Honeycombs and Sums of Hermitian Matrices," NOTICES OF THE AMS 48 (2001), no. 2, 175-186 (available in PDF format at http://www.ams.org/notices/200102/fea-knutson.pdf). The article describes the solution of a mathematical problem that has connections to quantum theory and that was first posed in 1912 by the renowned mathematician Hermann Weyl. "The story that is recounted brushes against symplectic geometry, invariant theory, combinatorics, and computational complexity, but the authors deftly keep the reader from getting overwhelmed by technicalities," the citation states. "By skillfully combining honeycomb diagrams with a high level of exposition, Knutson and Tao make this fascinating subject accessible to a wide mathematical audience." Find out more about AMS prizes at http://www.ams.org/prizes-awards. # # # # # Founded in 1888 to further mathematical research and scholarship, the 29,000-member American Mathematical Society fulfills its mission through programs and services that promote mathematical research and its uses, strengthen mathematical education, and foster awareness and appreciation of mathematics and its connections to other disciplines and to everyday life. 5