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2005 Abel Prize and Lectures Honor Peter D. Lax

Peter D. Lax, 2005 Abel Prizewinner

Photo: Knut Falch/Scanpix

HRH the Crown Prince Regent of Norway presented the 2005 Abel Prize to Peter D. Lax. Lax received the US$980,000 Abel Prize "for his groundbreaking contributions to the theory and application of partial differential equations and to the computation of their solutions."

The award ceremony was held at the University Aula. The procession was led by Jan Fridthjof Bernt, the president of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters and Erling Størmer, the chairman of the Abel Committee. Lax was accompanied by Ragnar Winther, the chairman of the Abel board. Before the Abel Prize Award Ceremony Peter D. Lax was received in audience at the Royal Palace by HM the Queen and HRH the Crown Prince Regent.

Lax thanked the Norwegian people for creating the Abel Prize, "which gives visibility to mathematics that the subject sorely needs...Occasions like this are a window of opportunity to give the public a glimpse of the power, importance, and sweep of mathematics." Read Lax's acceptance speech to the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. In the evening the Norwegian government gave a banquet at Akershus Castle to honor the Abel Laureate.

The following day the University of Oslo hosted the 2005 Abel Lectures by 2005 Abel Laureate Peter Lax and Sebastian Noelle (introduced by Abel Committee Chair Professor Ingrid Daubichies, Princeton University), Peter Sarnak and Stephanos Venakides (introduced by Abel Commitee member Professor Don Zagier, Max Planck Institute for Mathematics). See the streaming videos, best viewed with QuickTime:

Welcome by Professor Knut Faegri, Dean, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, University of Oslo (320.mp4)

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Peter Lax received the 2005 Abel Prize
Lecture by Peter D. Lax, Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, New York University: "Phragmen-Lindelöf Theorem and Saint-Venant's Principle" (320.mp4)

Lecture by Professor Sebastian Noelle, CMA Oslo/RWTH Aachen: "Systems of Concervation Laws" (320.mp4)

Lecture by Professor Peter Sarnak, Princeton University: "Hyperbolic Equations and Spectral Geometry" (320.mp4)

Lecture by Professor Stephanos Venakides, Duke University: "Rigorous Semiclassical Asymtotics for Integrable Systems: the KvD and Focusing NLS Cases" (320.mp4)

See the Abel Prize website for details about the international prize ceremony, all the festivities, and the 2005 Abel Symposium.

Read Highlights of the 2004 Abel Prize Ceremony honoring Sir Michael Atiyah and Isadore Singer.