László Lovász received the Abel Prize

László Lovász shared the award, also known as the "Nobel Prize in Mathematics" with Avi Wigderson of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, which was awarded by the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters in March. The award ceremony is traditionally held at the University of Oslo, where the scholars receive the recognition in person. The ceremony is usually accompanied by a reception, a royal audience, and a government banquet. This year, however, due to the coronavirus epidemic, the ceremony was held online, during which the footage was shown in which the scholars received the award at the Norwegian embassies in their home countries.

In his acceptance speech at the award ceremony, László Lovász recalled the most important milestones of his more than fifty-year professional career. He remembered the mathematician Pál Erdős, from whom he first heard about graph theory in high school and recalled the period when his research focused on building a bridge between the classical fields of graph theory and mathematics, between topology, geometry, algebra, probability and functional analysis.

Most systems and structures that we wish to understand are based on networks, namely, graphs.

Whatever the network, from computers to the Internet, from ecological associations to the brain, from networks to epidemics, the new paradigm of network science is based on graph theory, the mathematician pointed out. In his English speech, László Lovász thanked his children and his wife, the mathematician Katalin Vesztergombi and the professional community that supported him throughout his career.

In honour of the laureates, a two-day series of online events began, ending Wednesday at 3:00 PM with presentations held by the Abel Prize laureates