Why does the Nevalina Prize (now Abacus) got to Algorithms/Complexity people
Computational Complexity 2019-08-20
In my post about the Nevanlinna prize name change (see here) one of my readers raised a different question about the prize:
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So there's one of my main questions about the prize answered (or at least resolved). The second remains. The IMU's website(which still refers to the Nevanlinna Prize) says that it is awarded "for outstanding contributions in Mathematical Aspects of Information Sciences including:"
1)All mathematical aspects of computer science, including complexity theory, logic of programming languages, analysis of algorithms, cryptography, computer vision, pattern recognition, information processing and modelling of intelligence.
2)Scientific computing and numerical analysis. Computational aspects of optimization and control theory. Computer algebra.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems that the recognized work of the ten winners of the award all fits into two or three of the possible research areas for which the prize may be rewarded. Why do people think that this is the case?
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First off, lets see if this is true. Here is a list of all the winners:
Tarjan, Valiant, Razborov, Wigderson, Shor, Sudan, Kleinberg, Spielman, Khot, Daskalakis
Yup, they all seem to be in Algorithms or Complexity.
Speculation as to why:
1) Algorithms and Complexity have problems with short descriptions that can easily be understood: Tarjan proved Planarity was in O(n) time. Valiant defined Sharp-P and showed the Permanent was Sharp-P complete. Hence it is easy to see what they have done. In many of the fields listed, while people have done great work, it may be harder to tell since the questions are not as clean. If my way to do Vision is better than your way to do Vision, that may be hard to prove. And the proof may need to be non-rigorous.
2) If someone does great work in (for example) Logic of Programming Languages, it may not be recognized until she is past 40 years old.
3) This one I am less sure of (frankly I'm not that sure of any of these and invite polite commentary): areas that are more practical may take longer to build and get to work.
But there is still a problem with this. Numerical Analysis and Cryptography would seem to not have these problems.
I invite the reader to speculate