Argentine Luis Caffarelli was awarded the Abel Prize, considered the Nobel Prize in mathematics

The Argentinian Luis A. Caffarelli was awarded this Wednesday by the Norwegian Academy of Sciences and Letters with the Abel Prize, considered the “Nobel Prize in Mathematics”, for his studies on differential equations.

The ruling highlights and magnifies Caffarelli’s “fundamental” contributions to “the regularity theory of nonlinear partial differential equations, including free boundary problems and the Monge-Ampère equation”.

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Differential equations play a role of “first order” in numerous disciplines such as physics, economics and biology; but the fundamental questions regarding the existence, uniqueness, regularity, and stability of the solutions of some of them have not been resolved.

The jury noted that:Few other living mathematicians have contributed as much to our understanding of partial differential equations as Luis Caffarelli.. He has introduced ingenious new techniques, has given evidence of brilliant geometrical knowledge, and has contributed many fundamental results.”

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In addition, according to the ruling, Caffarelli’s theorems “radically” changed our understanding of those equations and its results are “technically virtuoso and cover many different areas of mathematics and its applications.”

Who is Luis A. Caffarelli

Luis A. Caffarelli was born in Buenos Aires in 1948. He studied mathematics at the University of Buenos Aireswhere he received his doctorate in 1972 with a thesis on polynomials, and a year later, he moved to Minnesota (USA) to do postgraduate studies.

Since then, his research career has been spent at American universities, where he developed “extraordinarily prolific” work, with more than 320 articles published. His numerous awards include the Leroy Steele Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Mathematical Society, the Wolf Prize, and the Shaw Prize.

President Alberto Fernandez congratulated the mathematician via Twitter and stressed that it is about “another example of infinite Argentine talent”.