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Mathematical Prizes Won for Work in Concurrency Theory
When and to Whom?

12 December 2003

The mathematical community awards several prizes for outstanding research or expository work. Amongst them, the Rolf Nevanlinna Prize, established by the Executive Committee of the International Mathematical Union in April 1981, specifically addresses research work in mathematical aspects of information science.

The official description says that this prize is to be awarded for outstanding contributions in Mathematical Aspects of Information Sciences, including:

1. All mathematical aspects of computer science, e.g. complexity theory, logic of programming languages, machine models, cryptography.
2. Scientific computing, numerical analysis and optimization.
3. Information theory, signal processing, control theory and the modeling of intelligence.

So far the Rolf Nevanlinna Prize has been awarded to

• Robert Tarjan (1982),
• Leslie Valiant (1986),
• A.A. Razborov (1990),
• Avi Widgerson (1994),
• Peter W. Shor (1998) and
• Madhu Sudan (2002).

The above list only contains truly outstanding scientists with stellar achievements. However, I was struck by the observation that all of them have received their award mostly for work done in algorithms and computational complexity theory! Even though the prize statement explicitly mentions "logic of programming languages" and " machine models", nobody has won a Rolf Nevanlinna Prize for work done in these areas. Why? Is our field devoid of results that have the mathematical depth or appeal that some results in computational complexity undoubtedly possess? Or are we just not good enough at publicizing our results to the mathematical community at large?

For an example of a well written, heartfelt, scientific exposition of work done in complexity and coding theory that led to the award of the prize to Madhu Sudan, and its mathematical significance, look no further than the piece On the Work of Madhu Sudan (Notices of the AMS, volume 1, January 2003) written by Avi Widgerson (former prize winner himself, and professor of Mathematics (yes!) at the famous Institute of Advanced Studies). Maybe we should write articles of that type to make more people in the TCS and mathematical communities aware of the work in our beautiful research area. Feel free to contact me if you'd like to contribute such a piece. I might have a publication outlet to offer you!