"Princeton Professor Elon Lindenstrauss Wins the 'Nobel Prize of Math' " (news item)

<p>Elon</a> Lindenstrauss - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia</p>

<p>Fields</a> Medal Recognizes Mathematical Achievement : NPR </p>

<p>Often called the "Nobel Prize of Math" the Fields Medal is considered among, if not the, most important international prize in mathematics. It is awarded only once every four years and began in 1936.</p>

<p>Princeton has had nine alumni and faculty members win the Fields Medal, more than any other U.S. Institution. The next closest U.S. Institution is Berkeley with eight alumni and faculty members, followed by Harvard and the U. of Chicago with six each. </p>

<p>Internationally, Princeton is tied with the Ecole Normale Superieure in France.</p>

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<p>"Elon Lindenstrauss is being awarded the 2010 Fields Medal for his results on measure rigidity in ergodic theory, and their applications to number theory.</p>

<p>Lindenstrauss has made far-reaching advances in ergodic theory, the study of measure preserving transformations. His work on a conjecture of Furstenberg and Margulis concerning the measure rigidity of higher rank diagonal actions in homogeneous spaces has led to striking applications. Specifically, jointly with Einsiedler and Katok, he established the conjecture under a further hypothesis of positive entropy. It has impressive applications to the classical Littlewood Conjecture in the theory of diophantine approximation. Developing these as well other powerful ergodic theoretic and arithmetical ideas, Lindenstrauss resolved the arithmetic quantum unique ergodicity conjecture of Rudnick and Sarnak in the theory of modular forms. He and his collaborators have found many other unexpected applications of these ergodic theoretic techniques in problems in classical number theory. His work is exceptionally deep and its impact goes far beyond ergodic theory. </p>

<p>International</a> Congress of Mathematicians 2010, Hyderabad Fields Medal – Elon Lindenstrauss</p>

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<p>"The Fields Medal is a prize awarded to two, three, or four mathematicians not over 40 years of age at each International Congress of the International Mathematical Union (IMU), a meeting that takes place every four years. The Fields Medal is often viewed as the top honor a mathematician can receive.[1][2] It comes with a monetary award, which in 2006 was C$15,000 (US$15,000 or €10,000).[3] Founded at the behest of Canadian mathematician John Charles Fields,[4] the medal was first awarded in 1936, to Finnish mathematician Lars Ahlfors and American mathematician Jesse Douglas, and has been awarded quadrennially since 1950. Its purpose is to give recognition and support to younger mathematical researchers who have made major contributions."</p>

<p>Fields</a> Medal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia</p>

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<p>It appears that Prof. Lindenstrauss will be leaving Princeton and returning to Israel, his home. At the beginning of the next school year he will be taking up his new position as a professor at his undergraduate Alma Mater, Hebrew University--a sad loss for Princeton but a happy return for Hebrew University!</p>

<p>For more information about math at Princeton, see the following:</p>

<p>Mathematics</a> Department - Princeton University
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<p>Great accomplishments. once every 4 years.</p>

<p>“I had MAT333 and MAT574 and he was my JP advisor. I really like him. He’s sometimes a bit unprepared for classes in that he often only goes over the ideas of the proofs he’s presenting, and tries to handwave the details. But he knows what he’s talking about and generally there’s no problem. He is funny but has a somewhat inscrutable sense of humor.”</p>

<p>[Elon</a> Lindenstrauss - Princeton University - RateMyProfessors.com](<a href=“http://ratemyprofessors.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=1098382]Elon”>http://ratemyprofessors.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=1098382)</p>

<p>Woah! Just adding to Princeton’s math all-star team. </p>

<p>@kwu</p>

<p>Unprepared? Inscrutable sense of humor?
Sounds a lot like my ap physics teacher who was AMAZING but eccentric and really absent minded. Might be the trademark of geniuses :D</p>

<p>^ Agreed. You should hear the stories about John Conway… I’ve heard some involving chairs thrown at walls to demonstrate a mathematical concept, exams being written 10min before the exam, exams being forgotten about altogether, etc…</p>

<p>Exams written 10 min before administration and tests pushed back a week on the day we’re supposed to have them is exactly what one of my math teachers does. He’s the most lenient teacher I’ve had in terms of work and everything but his class is one that I’ve learned the most from. </p>

<p>Go figure.</p>

<p>Does anybody know how Prof. Wiles, Nash, or Krugman are by any chance? Could you PM me with some info or feedback so as not to put the thread on a tangent?</p>

<p>Nash doesn’t teach.</p>

<p>Don’t Wiles and Krugman only teach grad classes?</p>

<p>^ Wiles left for Oxford.</p>

<p>WHAAAT?!
And Krugman only teaches grad? Are students allowed to sit into Grad classes to audit or get credit from them?</p>

<p>Krugman definitely teaches undergrads. One of my roommates took his seminar. According to him, it was really fascinating to hear Krugman discuss whatever the topic-of-the-day was, but that he wasn’t great with the administrative stuff (handing papers back on time, for example).</p>

<p>^ From the looks of it, most of the best ones are like that.</p>