- Biden in historic Amazon trip as Trump return sparks climate fears
- India hails 'historic' hypersonic missile test flight
- Debt-saddled Laos struggles to tame rampant inflation
- India's vinyl revival finds its groove
- Climate finance can be hard sell, says aide to banks and PMs
- Egypt's middle class cuts costs as IMF-backed reforms take hold
- Dinosaur skeleton fetches 6 million euros in Paris sale
- Trump's Republican allies tread lightly on Paris pact at COP29
- China's Xi urges APEC unity in face of 'protectionism'
- Farmers target PM Starmer in protest against new UK tax rules
- UN climate chief urges G20 to spur tense COP29 negotiations
- Philippines warns of 'potentially catastrophic' Super Typhoon Man-yi
- Tens of thousands flee as Super Typhoon Man-yi nears Philippines
- Gabon votes on new constitution hailed by junta as 'turning point'
- Tens of thousands flee as Typhoon Man-yi nears Philippines
- Is Argentina's Milei on brink of leaving Paris climate accord?
- Fitch upgrades Argentina debt rating amid economic pain
- Trump picks Doug Burgum as energy czar in new administration
- At summit under Trump shadow, Xi and Biden signal turbulence ahead
- Xi warns against 'protectionism' at APEC summit under Trump cloud
- Xi, Biden at Asia-Pacific summit under Trump trade war cloud
- Leftist voices seek to be heard at Rio's G20 summit
- Boeing strike will hurt Ethiopian Airlines growth: CEO
- US retail sales lose steam in October after hurricanes
- Spate of child poisoning deaths sparks S.Africa xenophobia
- Comedian Conan O'Brien to host Oscars
- Gore says 'absurd' to hold UN climate talks in petrostates
- Global stocks struggle after Fed signals slower rate cuts
- China tests building Moon base with lunar soil bricks
- Oil execs work COP29 as NGOs slam lobbyist presence
- Gore says climate progress 'won't slow much' because of Trump
- 'Megaquake' warning hits Japan's growth
- Stiff business: Berlin startup will freeze your corpse for monthly fee
- Dominican Juan Luis Guerra triumphs at 25th annual Latin Grammys
- Tropical Storm Sara pounds Honduras with heavy rain
- TikTok makes AI driven ad tool available globally
- Japan growth slows as new PM readies stimulus
- China retail sales pick up speed, beat forecasts in October
- Pakistan's policies hazy as it fights smog
- Mexico City youth grapple with growing housing crisis
- Cracks deepen in Canada's pro-immigration 'consensus'
- Japan's Princess Mikasa, great aunt to emperor, dies aged 101
- Venezuela opposition activist dies in custody
- Policymakers defend Fed independence amid concerns about Trump era
- Lebanon economic losses top $5 billion in year of clashes: World Bank
- Fed Chair calls US the best-performing major economy in the world
- Brother of late Harrods owner also accused of sexual violence: BBC
- New York to revive driver congestion charge plan, drawing Trump ire
- China's Xi arrives in Peru for APEC summit, Biden meeting
- Spain's Vanguardia daily to stop posting on 'disinformation network' X
'I had such fun!', says winner of top maths prize
For Michel Talagrand, who won the Abel mathematics prize on Wednesday, maths provided a fun life free from all constraints -- and an escape from the eye problems he suffered as a child.
"Maths, the more you do it, the easier it gets," the 72-year-old said in an interview with AFP.
He is the fifth French Abel winner since the award was created by Norway's government in 2003 to compensate for the lack of a Nobel prize in mathematics.
Talagrand's career in functional analysis and probability theory saw him tame some of the incredibly complicated limits of random behaviour.
But the mathematician said he had just been "studying very simple things by understanding them absolutely thoroughly."
Talagrand said he was stunned when told by the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters that he had won the Abel prize.
"I did not react -- I literally didn't think for at least five seconds," he said, adding that he was very happy for his wife and two children.
- Fear of going blind -
When he was young, Talagrand only turned to maths "out of necessity," he said.
By the age of 15, he had endured multiple retinal detachments and "lived in terror of going blind".
Unable to run around with friends in Lyon, Talagrand immersed himself in his studies.
His father had a maths degree and so he followed the same path. He said he was a "mediocre" student in other areas.
Talagrand was particularly poor at spelling, and still lashes out at what he calls its "arbitrary rules".
Especially in comparison to maths, which has "an order in which you do well if you are sensitive to it," he said.
In 1974, Talagrand was recruited by the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), before getting a PhD at Paris VI University.
He spent a decade studying functional analysis before finding his "thing": probability.
It was then that Talagrand developed his influential theory about "Gaussian processes," which made it possible to study some random phenomena.
Australian mathematician Matt Parker said that Talagrand had helped tame these "complicated random processes".
Physicists had previously developed theories on the limits of how randomness behaves, but Talagrand was able to use mathematics to prove these limits, Parker said on the Abel Prize website.
- 'Monstrously complicated' -
"In a sense, things are as simple as could be -- whereas mathematical objects can be monstrously complicated," Talagrand said.
His work deepening the understanding of random phenomena "has become essential in today's world," the CNRS said, citing algorithms which are "the basis of our weather forecasts and our major linguistic models".
Rather than creating a "brutal transformation", Talagrand considers his discoveries as a collective work he compared to "the construction of a cathedral in which everyone lays a stone".
He noted that French mathematics had been doing well an elite level, notching up both Abel prizes and Fields medals -- the other equivalent to a maths Nobel, which is only awarded to mathematicians under 40.
"But the situation is far less brilliant in schools," where young people are increasingly less attracted to the discipline, he lamented.
The new Abel winner admitted that maths can be daunting at first, but re-emphasised his belief that it gets easier the more you do it.
He advised aspiring mathematicians not to worry about failure.
"You can fail to solve a problem 10 times -- but that doesn't matter if you succeed on the 11th try," he said.
It can also be hard work.
"All my life I worked to the point of exhaustion -- but I had such fun!" he said.
"With maths, you have all the resources within yourself. You work without any constraints, free from concerns about money or bosses," he added.
"It's marvellous."
Talagrand will receive his prize, including a 7.5-million-kroner ($705,000) cheque, in Oslo on May 21.
Ng.A.Adebayo--CPN