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STOCKHOLM — Theoretical physicist Edward Witten of the United States and Russians Maxim Kontsevich and Rashid Alievich Sunyaev have won the annual $500,000 Crafoord Prize on Thursday.
Dr. Kontsevich, a mathematics professor at Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques in France, will share the mathematics prize of US$250,000 with Dr. Witten, a professor at the School of Natural Sciences in Princeton, New Jersey.
The two received the prize “for their important contributions to mathematics inspired by modern theoretical physics,” The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which awards the prize, said in a statement.
The other part of the prize, covering astronomy, was awarded to Dr. Alievich Sunyaev, the head of the Department of High Energy Astrophysics at the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow.
“For his decisive contributions to high-energy astrophysics and cosmology, in particular processes and dynamics around black holes and neutron stars and demonstration of the diagnostic power of structures in the background radiation,” the prize citation read.
A prize-awarding ceremony will take place at the academy in Stockholm on April 23, in the presence of Sweden's King Carl XVI Gustaf.
The award is named after Holger Crafoord, the Swede who designed the first artificial kidney. It has been given annually since 1982 for scientific research in areas not covered by the Nobel Prizes, including mathematics, astronomy and biosciences.
