BREAKING NEWS: Argentine Mathematician Luis Caffarelli wins 2023 Abel Prize

Argentinian-born mathematician Luis Caffarelli has won the 2023 Abel Prize — one of the most coveted awards in mathematics.

Caffarelli won the prize for the recognition of his work on equations that are significant for describing physical phenomena, such as how ice melts and fluids flow.

The 74-year-old has become the first person born in South America to win the award that was presented by the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, according to the New York Times.

Caffarelli’s results “are technically virtuous, covering many different areas of mathematics and its applications,” said a statement by Helge Holden, a mathematician at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim who chaired the Abel Committee.

The winner said receiving the news was an emotional moment, because “it shows that people have some appreciation for me and for my science”.

Caffarelli was born in Buenos Aires in 1948. After earning his PhD, he moved to the United States in 1973 and spent the rest of his career at various institutions there, including the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. He is now at the University of Texas at Austin.

In his first big breakthrough, Caffarelli generated proof for the regularity of melting ice1 — showing that the surface of a piece of ice remains mostly smooth as it turns into water.

His result was refined in 2021 by Fields medallist Alessio Figalli, at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, and his collaborators2.

For another celebrated paper, Caffarelli joined forces in 1982 with the late Louis Nirenberg, the 2015 Abel laureate, and Robert Kohn, who is at New York University, to attack one of the most notorious problems in mathematical physics — the regularity of the motion of fluids, as described by the standard theory of fluid dynamics, known as the Navier–Stokes equations.

In a 2002 interview, Nirenberg said that Caffarelli had a “fantastic intuition”, which made it hard for collaborators to keep up with him.

“He somehow immediately sees things that other people don’t see, but he has trouble explaining them,” Nirenberg said. Nirenberg also begged Caffarelli to publish more, because Caffarelli had a habit of putting into writing only a fraction of the ideas he would discuss with his peers.

“People say, ‘How did he come up with that one?’ He can come up with results that people didn’t anticipate,” says Holden.

Caffarelli describes his style of doing maths as “joyful”. “I enjoy collaborations, creativity, long-lasting friendship,” he says.

The fact that Caffarelli was raised and educated in Argentina gives the prize special significance, Holden adds. “I think this will have a great impact in the region,” he says. “It shows that talent comes from everywhere.”

Caffarelli will receive a medal and 7.5 million Norwegian kroner ($700,000) on 23 May at a ceremony in Oslo.

Although it is modelled in part after the Nobel Prizes, which cite specific discoveries, the Abel Prize is seen by many as a ‘career award’. Of the 26 laureates so far, only one, Karen Keskulla Uhlenbeck, is a woman.