Michel Taragran awarded 2024 Abel Prize for breakthroughs in understanding randomness in mathematics

Michel Taragran won the 2024 Abel Prize, also known as the Nobel Prize of mathematics, for his work on probability theory and the description of randomness. The news came as a surprise to Taragrand. He learned what he thought was his Zoom call within the department. He said: “My brain completely shut down for five seconds. It was an amazing experience. I never expected anything like this.”

Tara GrandBased at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), he has spent much of his 40-year career on extreme characterization of random or stochastic systems. These problems are common in the real world. For example, a bridge builder may need to know the maximum wind strength expected from the local weather.

Such random systems are often very complex and may contain many random variables, but Talagrand’s method of converting these systems into geometric problems allows us to extract useful values. can. “He is a master at getting accurate estimates, and he knows exactly what to add or subtract to get an accurate estimate,” he says. Helge HoldenChairman of the Abel Prize Committee.

Taragrand also developed mathematical tools and equations for systems that are random but exhibit some degree of predictability within that randomness, a statistical principle called concentration of measurements. His equation, known as the Taragrand inequality, can be used for many systems that exhibit concentration of measurements. Asaf Naor At Princeton University, he developed famous algorithmic puzzles such as the Traveling Salesman Problem. “Not only is he a great discoverer in his own right, but he is also an influence. He has provided the world with an amazing collection of insights and tools,” Naor says.

Perhaps inspired by his own work, Taragrand says he views his career as a random process. “It’s really scary when you look at your life and the important things that happened. They were determined by small random influences and there was no plan at all,” he says.

Although many of his works were general, he also had a particular interest in the mathematical basis of spin glasses. Spin glass is an unusual magnetic arrangement in which the atoms of a material can act like tiny magnets, pointing in random directions and exhibiting no apparent order. Repeating crystal structure in ordinary glass.

“This award is definitely well-deserved,” he says Giorgio Parisi from Sapienza University in Rome, Italy, won the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on spin glasses. Parisi and his colleagues first proposed a formula to describe these materials, named after Parisi, but it was not proven mathematically until the work of Taragrand and Italian physicist Francesco Guerra. . “It’s one thing to believe that a guess is correct, but it’s another to prove it. I believed it was a very difficult problem to prove,” Parisi says.

It also helped draw the field to the attention of other mathematicians, Parisi said. “This was a great proof and completely changed the game, because it was the starting point for a deeper understanding of the theory.”

For Taragrand, one of the keys to success was persistence. “You can’t learn mathematics easily. You have to work. It takes a lot of time and you have bad memories. You forget things. So despite these handicaps, I have to work. My way of working has always been to try to understand simple things really well.”