Japan’s Kashiwara wins Abel Prize for Mathematicians

Tokyo (Jiji Press)– The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters said Wednesday that this year’s Abel Prize for mathematicians with distinguished achievements will be given to Masaki Kashiwara, making him the first Japanese to win the award.

Kashiwara, 78, a specially appointed professor at Kyoto University’s Research Institute for Mathematical Sciences, won the award for “his fundamental contributions to algebraic analysis and representation theory, in particular the development of the theory of D-modules and the discovery of crystal bases,” the academy said.

“He has proven astonishing theorems with methods no one had imagined. He has been a true mathematical visionary,” it said.

The Abel Prize, often regarded as the Nobel Prize in mathematics, comes with a monetary award of 7.5 million Norwegian kroner. The prize ceremony is scheduled to take place in Oslo on May 20.

Kashiwara contributed to the development of modern mathematics by building from the foundation the theory of D-modules, which is the central concept of algebraic analysis.

In the 1980s, he greatly contributed to the development of various fields of modern mathematics, including solving the Riemann-Hilbert problem, which had been a pending issue among mathematicians since the early 20th century.

He has received various awards, including the Japan Academy Prize in 1988 and the Chern Medal of the International Mathematical Union in 2018.