Abel to win

Many of you will have seen the happy news today that Avi Wigderson and László Lovász share this year’s Abel Prize (which now contends with the Fields Medal for the highest award in pure math). This is only the second time that the Abel Prize has been given wholly or partly for work in theoretical computer science, after Szemerédi in 2012. See also the articles in Quanta or the NYT, which actually say most of what I would’ve said for a lay audience about Wigderson’s and Lovász’s most famous research results and their importance (except, no, Avi hasn’t yet proved P=BPP, just taken some major steps toward it…).

On a personal note, Avi was both my and my wife Dana’s postdoctoral advisor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. He’s been an unbelievably important mentor to both of us, as he’s been for dozens of others in the CS theory community. Back in 2007, I also had the privilege of working closely with Avi for months on our Algebrization paper. Now would be a fine time to revisit Avi’s Permanent Impact on Me (or watch the YouTube video), which is the talk I gave at IAS in 2016 on the occasion of Avi’s 60th birthday.

Huge congratulations to both Avi and László!