Jean-Pierre Serre, first prize Abel

2003/05/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Matematika

The Norwegian Academy of Science and Literature wanted to reward the professional career of mathematician Serre. To do this, this year the French mathematician will be awarded the Abel prize they have recently created. With this award, somehow, Norwegian scientists want to fill the gap generated by the lack of Nobel prizes in mathematics.

Jean Pierre Ser has made his main contributions in three major areas of mathematics. In the field of topology he has studied the transformations between hyperspheres. The hyperspheres are spheres of more than three dimensions, for example, in a space of four dimensions, a hypersphere is the ^figure corresponding to the expression ^{x2 +y2} +z2 +w2 =r2, where ^r is the radius of the hypersphere.

The theorems developed by Being help to analyze the successive transformations of these bodies (homotomies). What lasts constant in the geometry of a body when lengths change? In short, these theorems serve to answer this basic question. Serra's work is based on spectral sequences invented by mathematician Jean Leray.

For his work, Ander received the Fieldsdomina medal in 1954 at the International Congress of Mathematicians. The Fields medal has so far been Mathematical Novel. On the other hand, Ser has also worked with the theory of numbers, work that used the English Andrew Wiles to demonstrate the last theorem of Fermat. According to Fermat's last theorem, in xn ^{+yn = zn,} when ^{the variable} n is greater than 2, x, and y z, all three at once, cannot be integers.

But that in Serra's work is nothing more than a smallness. As they have written on the website of the Abel Prize, "Serra's contribution is so great that it is difficult to determine how far it reaches". He has also studied prime numbers, factorization, powers, solutions of polynomial equations, etc.

Finally, Ser has also worked on algebraic geometry. This field of mathematics solves polynomial equations by geometry. In turn, this field analyzes the algebra corresponding to geometry.

The 2003 Abel award, therefore, for the French Jean Pierre Serre, a scientist who has dedicated his life to research many fields of mathematics.