数学科学奖
2015

2015年度邵逸夫数学科学奖颁予格尔德・法尔廷斯 (Gerd Faltings)及亨里克・伊万尼克(Henryk Iwaniec)，以表彰他们对数论基本工具的推行及发展，让他们及其他人能够解决存在已久的经典问题。格尔德・法尔廷斯是德国马克斯普朗克数学研究所所长。亨里克・伊万尼克是美国罗格斯大学数学系New Jersey讲座教授。

数论的研究对象是整数、素数以及与它们相关的多项方程式。其核心问题通常易於陈述，但非常难以解答。成功解答的例子亦有赖很多不同数学领域的工具。这种情况并非巧合，因为其中一些数学领域正是为了要解决经典数论问题而开发的。格尔德・法尔廷斯及亨里克・伊万尼克在代数、分析学、代数及算术几何学、自守式及ζ 函数理论等领域中发展了很多最具效力的现代数学工具。他们及其他人利用这些工具，解答了许多存在已久的经典问题。

The theory of numbers is one of the oldest branches of mathematics, going back more than two thousand years in China, Greece, and India. It is concerned with the study of whole numbers, prime numbers, and polynomial equations involving them. The third of these goes by the name Diophantine equations after the Alexandrian/Greek mathematician Diophantus. Gauss, who laid many of the foundations of modern number theory, called it the “Queen of Mathematics”. At the time, and for many years after, it was considered as very much on the theoretical and pure side of mathematics. However, in our modern digital/discrete world the deeper truths and techniques that have been developed to study whole numbers play an increasingly significant role in applications.

Many of the central problems in the theory of numbers are elementary and easy to state; but the experience of generations of mathematicians shows that they can be extraordinarily difficult to resolve. Success, when it is achieved, often relies on sophisticated tools from many fields of mathematics. This is no coincidence, since aspects of these fields were introduced and developed in efforts to resolve classical problems in number theory.