Abel Prize

Noble prize is the most honorable prize given to people for outstanding contribution to Peace, Literature, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, economics and Physics. But there is no Nobel prize award for mathematics(a reason as to why this subject was omitted is still being speculated).

So how can be Mathematicians honoured. Yes there is an international award that is being awarded to mathematicians for contribution to mathematics. It is called the "Abel's Prize".

The Abel Prize is an international prize presented annually by the King of Norway to one or more outstanding mathematicians. The prize is named after Norwegian mathematician Niels Henrik Abel (1802–1829). It has been described as the "mathematician's Nobel" prize and is among the most prestigious awards in mathematics. (Though The Fields Medal is often described as the "Nobel Prize of mathematics", but it differs in being awarded only once every four years to people younger than forty years old)

The prize was first proposed to be part of the 1902 celebration of 100th anniversary of Abel's birth. In 1899, shortly Sophus Lie, the Norwegian mathematician, proposed establishing an Abel Prize when he learnt that Alfred Nobel's plans for annual prizes would not include a prize in mathematics. However, Lie's influence waned after his death, and the dissolution of the Union between Sweden and Norway in 1905 ended the first attempt to create the Abel Prize.

In 2001, after interest in the prize had risen, a working group was formed to develop a proposal, which was presented to the prime minister of Norway in May. In August 2001, the Norwegian government announced that the prize would be awarded beginning in 2002, the two-hundredth anniversary of Abel's birth.


The superior man is satisfied and composed; the mean man is always full of distress
- Confucius