His Majesty King Harald of Norway participated in the award ceremony for the prestigious Abel Prize on Tuesday. The Abel Prize 2019 was awarded to Karen Keskulla Uhlenbeck for her recent breakthrough in geometric partial differential equations, gauging theory and integrable systems, and for the fundamental influence of her work in analysis, geometry and mathematical physics. This is the first time a woman has won this award.
His Majesty the King received the prize winner in an audience at the Royal Palace before handing out the award in the official ceremony. The ceremony was held in the hall of one of the University of Oslo’s oldest buildings near the Royal Palace in the Oslo city centre.
The Abel Prize is essential within the Norwegian Academy, and there will be a number of events in the coming weeks related to the prize. The celebration of the Abel Prize began on Sunday when flowers were laid down on the monument dedicated to Abel in the Palace Park around the Royal Palace in Oslo.
One of the University of Oslo’s oldest buildings. Photo: Wolfmann via Wikimedia Commons.
Before the award winner met His Majesty in an audience, a lunch was held on the University of Oslo’s campus at Blindern, and by Tuesday evening, it was time to celebrate the award. His Majesty the King participated in a dinner held in Oslo Town Hall to celebrate Karen Keskulla Uhlenbeck. At the University of Oslo, there were separate celebrations that were open to the public.
Abel Prize Winner Karen Keskulla Uhlenbeck held a lecture at the University of Oslo on Wednesday.
The Abel Prize is awarded annually to international researchers who have excelled in the field of mathematics. The prize is awarded by the Norwegian Academy of Sciences, and the award ceremony is always attended with at least one member of the Royal House in a ceremony at the University of Oslo. The price is six million crowns (roughly 542,205 GBP or around one million USD).
Niels Henrik Abel. Illustration by Johan Gørbitz / University of Oslo via Wikimedia Commons.
The award winner is elected by the Abel Committee, which consists of internationally renowned mathematicians. The Abel Prize is named after Norwegian mathematician Niels Henrik Abel. Niels Abel solved different mathematical problems that others had been struggling with for hundreds of years.
The Abel monument is a sculpture created by Gustav Vigeland and built in 1908 at Abelhaugen, a hill located in the southwest of the Palace Park in Oslo, in memory of the Norwegian mathematician Niels Henrik Abel (1802-1829).
