Mathematician Who Tamed Randomness Wins Abel Prize
Michel Talagrand innovative work has allowed others to tackle problems involving random processes
Michel Talagrand, Abel Prize Laureate, 2024.
© Peter Bagde/Typos1/Abel Prize 2024
A mathematician who developed formulas to make random processes more predictable and helped to solve an iconic model of complex phenomena has won the 2024 Abel Prize, one of the field’s most coveted awards. Michel Talagrand received the prize for his “contributions to probability theory and functional analysis, with outstanding applications in mathematical physics and statistics,” the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters in Oslo announced on 20 March.
Assaf Naor, a mathematician at Princeton University in New Jersey, says it is difficult to overestimate the impact of Talagrand’s work. “There are papers posted maybe on a daily basis where the punchline is ‘now we use Talagrand’s inequalities’,” he says.
Talagrand’s reaction on hearing the news was incredulity. “There was a total blank in my mind for at least four seconds,” he says. “If I had been told an alien ship had landed in front of the White House, I would not have been more surprised.”
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The Abel Prize was modelled after the Nobel Prizes — which do not include mathematics — and was first awarded in 2003. The recipient wins a sum of 7.5 million Norwegian kroner (US$700,000).
‘Like a piece of art’
Talagrand specializes in the theory of probability and stochastic processes, which are mathematical models of phenomena governed by randomness. A typical example is a river’s water level, which is highly variable and is affected by many…
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