Dennis P. Sullivan of Stony Brook University and the City University Graduate Center won an award that is the equivalent of the Nobel Prize for math.
Dennis P. Sullivan, a professor of mathematics at Stony Brook University and the City University of New York Graduate Center, is the winner of this year’s Abel Prize — the equivalent of a Nobel in mathematics.
In its citation, the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, the organization that administers the Abel, said Dr. Sullivan was honored “for his groundbreaking contributions to topology in its broadest sense, and in particular its algebraic, geometric and dynamical aspects.”
Topology is the study of space and shapes, and most of Dr. Sullivan’s work involves what mathematicians call manifolds — the higher-dimensional versions of two-dimensional surfaces. While that work is abstract, some of his recent research in fluid flows and turbulence could add to the understanding of the paths of hurricanes, the dispersions of air pollutants and the whorls of vortices behind airplane wings.
There is no Nobel Prize in mathematics, and for decades, the most prestigious awards in math were the Fields Medals, awarded in small batches every four years to the most accomplished mathematicians who are 40 or younger.
