Tale på Abelprisbanketten

Your Majesties,
Professor Varadhan,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is a great honour to welcome you to this Banquet in celebration of this year’s Abel Prize.

Again, we are honoured by the presence of Their Majesties the King and Queen.  We highly value the Royal Family’s support of the Prize and their participation in celebrating the prize winners.

I am personally very pleased to be here tonight,
And there are at least three reasons for this.

Firstly, in August 2001 I had the pleasure, as Prime Minister,  of announcing that the Government had decided to establish the Abel Fund and the Prize.
Shortly after, the Government lost the election, and I had to follow the first prize award ceremonies from the role as leader of an opposition party.

So I would like initially to say to you today what I would have said, had we not lost that election back in 2001:
We may wonder why there is a Nobel Prize for chemistry,
one for physics, and medicine, now also for economy,  but none for mathematics.

The Government felt back in 2001 that it was necessary to stimulate interest among young people to study science, to strengthen the status of research in mathematics, and to emphasis the need for knowledge, study and learning.

Yes, already Pythagoras may have filled the word mathêmatikê , with that meaning: knowledge that free individuals may acquire through studies.

So in 2001 we decided to fill the apparent lacuna in the field of prestigious prizes by establishing the equivalent of a Nobel Prize in mathematics.

 

Secondly, I want to emphasis how mathematics is the basis of all exactitudes.  Before I became a student of economics, my relationship and appraisal of mathematics was troubled, and had a great room for improvement. 

But that changed once I experienced how economics is inconceivable without mathematics. And thus, of how economics and mathematics are a foundation for social progress.

Take the petroleum reserves of Norway. They have been available for ages, but it is the knowledge society based on mathematics that has allowed us to recover and produce it. Mathematics is a basis of modern society.

 

And thirdly, mathematics, the study of it, and the acquisition of skills in it,  are inherently rewarding and highly stimulating. It is an art – therefore the latin term ars mathematica. Old German literature speaks of  “die Rechenkunst” –  the Norwegian old phrase “Regnekunsten” is also illustrative.

The ability to shed new light on old wisdom, or even better, to discover new mathematical laws and principles are a gift that few possess, and those who dedicate their life to research in this field are therefore highly valued.

Once again, the Abel committee’s choice of the winner of the Abel Prize has been met with worldwide recognition.

With the award of the fifth Abel Prize, we also celebrate that a new continent enters into the Abel Prize history.

In one respect Professor Varadhan represents the United States of America, a country which already has two representatives among the distinguished company of Abel Laureates.

In another respect, Professor Varadhan represents India, his country of origin and the place where he received his education before he travelled to the United States to continue his academic career.

India is a country of long and proud mathematical traditions. India is the origin of remarkable contributions, for example on negative numbers and of that extremely useful number called zero!

 

Your own work, Professor Varadhan, as described in the Abel committee’s statement, is impressing.  

Your fundamental contribution to probability theory and in particular for creating a unified theory of large deviations has become a cornerstone of modern probability.

Your own story, professor Varadhan, also underlines the importance of international cooperation in research.

For all your contributions to the advance of human knowledge, we admire you and  we are grateful to have you as our guest tonight.

Please join me in a toast for this year’s Abel Laureate, Professor Srinivasa Varadhan!