News Release

ELLIOTT H. LIEB AND
JAKOB YNGVASON RECEIVE  
AMS CONANT PRIZE

January 7, 2002

PROVIDENCE, RI---Elliott H. Lieb of Princeton University and Jakob Yngvason of the University of Vienna will receive the the 2002 Levi L. Conant Prize. Presented annually by the American Mathematical Society, the prize is awarded for an outstanding expository article in the Notices of the AMS or the Bulletin of the AMS in the past five years. The prize will be awarded today at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in San Diego, California.

Lieb and Yngvason are being honored for their expository article "A Guide to Entropy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics," Notices of the AMS 45, no. 5 (1998), 571-581 (click here for a PDF file of the article). According to the prize citation, the article adopts a friendly and conversational tone while taking the reader "on a tour of the second law of thermodynamics as seen through an axiomatic-mathematical lens... [The authors] illuminate a fascinating trail between the `pure' world of mathematical abstraction and the `real' world of physics, chemistry, and engineering."

Further information about AMS prizes may be found at http://www.ams.org/prizes-awards.

Founded in 1888 to further mathematical research and scholarship, the 30,000-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.