Some mathematicians are immortalised by a theorem. Others by a conjecture.
But of the great mathematicians only Robert P Langlands is immortalised by a program.
Today, Langlands, aged 81, was awarded the 2018 Abel Prize, one of the most prestigious awards in mathematics, for work that has become known as the Langlands program, an ambitious project that is often called a ‘grand unified theory of mathematics.’
The prize is awarded by the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters and is worth 6 million Norwegian krone (about £550,000). It is considered by many to be a maths equivalent of the Nobel Prize, which has no prize for mathematics.
I wrote the following short biography of Langlands, and a short article explaining some of the concepts in the prize citation, for the Norwegian Academy, reprinted below here:https://www.theguardian.com/science/alexs-adventures-in-numberland/2018/mar/20/abel-prize-2018-robert-langlands-wins-for-unified-theory-of-maths