Fefferman and Le Gall win Frontiers of Knowledge award for solving fundamental mathematical problems – BBVA

The awardees, says the committee, have opened new perspectives in mathematical analysis and probability theory, which have had a great influence on a generation of mathematicians. They have also introduced powerful analysis techniques to solve longstanding math problems, some of them arising from fundamental questions in theoretical physics.

Charles Fefferman, a professor at Princeton University in the United States, is considered one of todays most versatile mathematicians, who has brought new insights to such seemingly disparate fields as the mathematical description of fluid dynamics, analysis of the laws of quantum mechanics or the properties of graphene and other two-dimensional materials.

The BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Information and Communication Technologies has gone in this fourteenth edition to Judea Pearl for bringing a modern foundation to artificial intelligence. The Professor of Computer Science at the University of California (UCLA), has made contributions that enable AI programs to use two of the key resources we humans use to interpret the world and arrive at decisions: probability and causality.

Le Gall, a professor at Universit Paris-Saclay, works in probability theory, and much of his research draws on physics models that attempt to explain the quantum world at the atomic scale and in the early universe, with the construction of a quantum theory of gravity.

Fefferman entered the University of Maryland, United States, at just 14 years of age and published his first mathematical paper the following year. In 1971, at the age of 22, he became Americas youngest full professor. In his long career, he has maintained strong links with Spain, particularly with the mathematics school of the Universidad Autnoma de Madrid.

Fefferman reckons that over his career he must have solved several dozen problems. Asked about his favorites, he picks the duality theorem, which connects problems from fields far removed from math, providing a functional tool that opens up new vistas in harmonic analysis. He likes it partly because it took the least time to resolve, just a couple of weeks, compared to others he has worked on for up to twenty years.

In an interview after hearing of the award, Fefferman explained that, for him, jumping between fields is second nature: I have the feeling that I dont pick the problems, they pick me. I hear about a problem and it is so fascinating that I cannot stop thinking about it. If it happens to be in a field I have not worked in before but I think I have a chance to get involved and maybe do something, then I try.

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Fefferman and Le Gall win Frontiers of Knowledge award for solving fundamental mathematical problems - BBVA