New Horizons Prizes in Mathematics

Overview

About

Knowledge is humanity’s greatest asset. It defines our nature, and it will shape our future.

The body of knowledge is assembled over centuries. Yet a single mind can extend it immensely. Einstein reimagined space and time. Darwin distilled the chaos of life to a single idea. Turing figured out what it means to think.

Great scientists enrich us all. They enable technologies that ease our lives, but they also show us what’s beyond our horizons.

Science is revealing worlds far beyond the everyday scale, from the subatomic and cellular to the stellar and galactic. Increasingly we can think at these levels and trace the connections between them. And as we do, we are making progress on the truly big questions. Questions like:

* Why is there something rather than nothing?
* What is the Universe made of?
* How did life begin?
* How can matter think?
* How much is knowable?

The disciplines that ask the biggest questions and find the deepest explanations are the fundamental sciences. The Breakthrough Prizes honor important, primarily recent, achievements in the categories of Fundamental Physics, Life Sciences and Mathematics. The prizes are sponsored by Sergey Brin, Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg, Pony Ma, Yuri and Julia Milner, and Anne Wojcicki. Committees of previous laureates choose the winners from candidates nominated in a process that’s online and open to the public.

New Horizons Prize

Mathematics

“All is number,” taught Pythagoras. Though modern mathematics encompasses far more than numbers alone, the principle remains true. Mathematics is the universal language of nature.

Mathematics is also fundamental to the growth of knowledge, as it is the scaffolding that supports all the sciences. Its relationship to physics is particularly intimate. From imaginary numbers to Hilbert spaces, what once seemed pure abstractions have turned out to underlie real physical processes. In addition, all fields in the life sciences today utilize the power of statistical and computational approaches to research.

Eligibility

_You can learn more about this opportunity by visiting the funder's website._

* The New Horizons in Mathematics Prize is awarded to early-career researchers who have already produced important work.
* Candidates for the New Horizons Prize should have not held a PhD for more than 10 years at the start of the calendar year in which nominations close. This requirement may be relaxed in exceptional circumstances.
* Candidate citations (up to 10) from a specified academic publishing database are required.
* The prize can be split among two or more winners.
* There are no age restrictions.
* Up to three prizes per year will be awarded.

Ineligibility

* Self-nominations are not allowed.