Awarded to Joseph Keller (Stanford University, USA).
The Lagrange Prize was established to provide international recognition to individual mathematicians who have made an exceptional contribution to applied mathematics throughout their careers. It was created on the initiative of SMAI, and first awarded in 1999. The Lagrange Prize is presently funded by SMAI, SEMA and SIMAI.
Professor J.B. Keller is an internationally renowned applied mathematician of the highest quality, a scientist who has deeply influenced the course of modern applied mathematics. In the last 50 years he has made many original and profound contributions that span the most varied areas of modern science. His contributions to applied mathematics have had great impact in science and engineering as well as in pure mathematics. He developed the Geometrical Theory of Diffraction that provided the first systematic description of wave propagation around edges and corners of an obstacle. It has been widely used for radar reflection from targets, elastic wave scattering from defects in solids, acoustic wave on in the ocean radar and many other fields. It also served as a starting point for development of the modern theory of linear partial differential equations. Keller developed the Einstein-Brillouin-Keller (EBK) method to determine energy levels of atoms and molecules in quantum mechanics and to solve characteristic value problems in other fields. As part of this work, he derived the Keller-Maslov index for the change in a wave as it passes along a caustic. He has also made important and often seminal contributions to many other fields, including singular perturbation theory, bifurcation studies in partial differential equations, nonlinear geometrical optics and acoustics, inverse scattering, effective equations for composite media, biophysics, biomechanics, carcinogenesis, optimal design, hydrodynamic surface waves, transport theory and waves in random media.
Keller combines a very special creativity in the development of mathematical techniques with deep physical insight. He has the ability to describe real-world problems by simple yet realistic mathematical models, to create the sophisticated techniques to solve these problems and to explain the results and their consequences in simple terms. He has greatly influenced several generations of applied mathematicians, including more than 50 PhD students, many postdoctoral researchers, and a large number of co-workers.
Subcommittee for the ICIAM 2007 Lagrange Prize
- Juan Luis Vazquez (Madrid), chair;
- Li Da-Qian (Fudan University, Shanghai);
- Irene Fonseca (Mellon);
- Peter Markowitch (Vienna);
- George Papanicolaou (Stanford);
- Pierre-Arnaud Raviart (CNRS Jussieu).