Oslo - Norwegian King Harald on Tuesday presented the Abel Prize to French mathematician Jacques Tits and US mathematician John Griggs Thompson. Thompson, 75, of the University of Florida in the US, and Tits, 77, of College de France shared the prize, sometimes called the Nobel Prize for mathematics, worth 6 million kroner (1.2 million dollars).
The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters cited their "profound achievements in algebra and in particular for shaping modern group theory."
The Abel Prize was first awarded 2003, and created in 2002 to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the birth of Niels Henrik Abel. The Norwegian is acknowledged as one of the great names in mathematics although he died only aged 26.
Group theory is the "science of symmetries," the academy said citing examples like "the relation between reflections and rotations of a icosahedron, to reveal the secrets of (the) Rubik's cube."
Former winners include Srinivasa S R Varadhan, Lennart Carleson, Peter D Lax, Sir Michael Francis Atiyah, Isadore M Singer and Jean- Pierre Serre.
