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&The problem was that I wanted to reconcile microeconomics with macroeconomics. The solution was to throw away the textbook of microeconomics.&
-- Professor Edmund S. Phelps
Photo by Diane Bondareff
Watch video from the Oct. 9 press conference:
( required)
Edmund S. Phelps, McVickar Professor of Political Economy at Columbia University and director, Center on Capitalism and Society at the Earth Institute, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics on Monday, October 9 by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
Phelps won the award & officially named the Sviriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences & for his analysis of intertemporal tradeoffs in macroeconomic policy.
&On behalf of everyone at Columbia, I congratulate Edmund Phelps on having been awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics,& Lee C. Bollinger, President of Columbia University, said.
&This is a well-deserved moment of recognition for a man whose pioneering work in macroeconomics has influenced both public policy and ongoing economics research.
His work, which has shaped the education of Columbia students for thirty-five years, illustrates the extraordinary breadth and depth of excellence in economics at Columbia.&
The Academy noted that the work of Edmund Phelps has deepened our understanding of the relation between short-run and long-run effects of economic policy. His contributions have had a decisive impact on economic research as well as policy. Phelps showed how the possibilities of stabilization policy in the future depend on today's policy decisions: low inflation today leads to expectations of low inflation also in the future, thereby facilitating future policy making.
Low unemployment and low inflation are central goals of stabilization policy. During the 1950s and 1960s the view of a stable tradeoff between inflation and unemployment was established, the so-called Phillips curve. According to this, the price for reduced unemployment was a one-time increase of the inflation rate. Phelps challenged this view through a more fundamental analysis of the determination of wages and prices, taking into account problems of information in the economy. Individual agents have incomplete knowledge about the actions of others and must base their decisions on expectations. Phelps formulated the hypothesis of the expectations-augmented Phillips curve, according to which inflation depends on both unemployment and inflation expectations.
Professor Phelps and Columbia University President Lee C. Bollinger listen to Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University (not pictured) speak at the Nobel Prize Press Conference
Photo by Diane Bondareff
As a consequence, the long-run rate of unemployment is not affected by inflation but only determined by the functioning of the labor market. It follows that stabilization policy can only dampen short-term fluctuations in unemployment.
About Edmund S. Phelps
Edmund S. Phelps joined the Department of Economics at Columbia in 1971 after several years at Pennsylvania and earlier Yale. He was named McVickar Professor of Political Economy in 1982 and director of the Earth Institute&s Center on Capitalism and Society in 2001.& Phelps was elected to membership in the National Academy of Sciences in 1981 at age 47. He is also a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the Econometric Society. In 2000 he was named a Distinguished Fellow of the American Economic Association. Besides his B.A. from Amherst College in 1955 and his Ph.D. from Yale in 1959 he has six honorary doctorates: Amherst College (1985), University of Rome 'Tor Vergata' (2001), University of Mannheim (2001), Universidade Nova Lisbon (2003), University of Paris-Dauphine (2004) and, in October, the University of Iceland (2004). In May 2004 he was named an honorary professor at Renmin University, Beijing, and in June 2005 he was named an honorary professor at Beijing Technological and Business University and Beijing&s Mundell University of Entrepeneurship.
Columbia and the Nobel Prizes
Columbia has a distinguished tradition in economics, with its faculty winning four Nobel Prizes in economics
the most recent in 2001 to University Professor Joseph E. Stiglitz, former chief economist at the World Bank and author of Making Globalization Work. Other past faculty members in economics have included the late William S. Vickrey, James Heckman, Robert Mundell, Edwin R.A. Seligman, Robert M. Haig, Carl S. Shoup, among others.
Related Links:
Nobel Prize Announcement and Press Conference:
Professor Phelp&s Webpage
The Center on Capitalism and Society:
Columbia University Economics Department
The Earth Institute at Columbia University
Published: Oct 09, 2006
Last modified:
Nov 14, 2007Why there is no Nobel Prize in Mathematics
Why is there no Nobel Prize in Mathematics?
brought to you by
Six Nobel Prizes are awarded each year, one in each of the following
categories:
Notably absent from this list is an award for Mathematics.
The reason for this conspicuous omission has been subject of extensive speculations, some of which are discussed .
We have also included our
and why they believe Mathematics was not included as a Nobel category. If you want to post your opinion, feel free to .
[ Particularly insightful essays may be included on this page. If you do not want your response published, please note so in the feedback form. ]
Afterword:
Not to be left out of the Big Award movement,
mathematicians of the world decided to fight back.
At the 1924 International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) in Toronto,
a resolution was adopted that at each ICM, two gold medals should be awarded
to recognize outstanding mathematical achievement.
A hyperlinked list of all Fields medal laureates is presented
In 2002, the Niels Henrik Abel Memorial Fund was established to award the
for outstanding scientific work in the field of mathematics. The prize amount is 6 million NOK (about 750,000 Euro) and was awarded for the first time on 3 June 2003. It is awarded yearly by the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters in March or April.
The storie continues...
The following information is courtesy the
newsgroup's FAQ list which can be found in its original form .
Nobel prizes were created by the will of Alfred Nobel, a notable Swedish chemist.
One of the most common -and unfounded- reasons as to why Nobel decided
against a Nobel prize in math is that [a woman he proposed to/his
wife/his mistress] [rejected him because of/cheated him with] a famous
mathematician. Gosta Mittag-Leffler is often claimed to be the guilty
There is no historical evidence to support the story.
For one, Mr. Nobel was never married.
There are more credible reasons as to why there is no Nobel prize in
math. Chiefly among them is simply the fact he didn't care much for
mathematics, and that it was not considered a practical science from
which humanity could benefit (a chief purpose for creating the Nobel
Foundation).
Further, at the time there existed already a well known Scandinavian
prize for mathematicians. If Nobel knew about this prize he may have
felt less compelled to add a competing prize for mathematicians in his
[...] As professor ordinarius in Stockholm, Mittag-Leffler began a 30-year career of vigorous mathematical activity. In 1882 he founded the Acta Mathematica, which a century later is still one of the world's leading mathematical journals. Through his influence in Stockholm he persuaded King Oscar II to endow prize competitions and honor various distinguished mathematicians all over Europe. Hermite, Bertrand, Weierstrass, and Poincare were among those honored by the King. [...]
Source: "" by Roger Cooke (Springer-Verlag, New York etc., 1984, II.5.2, p. 90-91:
Here are some relevant facts:
Nobel never married, hence no ``wife''. (He did have a mistress, a Viennese woman named Sophie Hess.)
Gosta Mittag-Leffler was an important mathematician in Sweden in the late 19th-early 20th century. He was the founder of the journal Acta Mathematica, played an important role in helping the career of Sonya Kovalevskaya, and was eventually head of the Stockholm Hogskola, the precursor to Stockholms Universitet. However, it seems highly unlikely that he would have been a leading candidate for an early Nobel Prize in mathematics, had there been one - there were guys like Poincare and Hilbert around, after all.
There is no evidence that Mittag-Leffler had much contact with Alfred Nobel (who resided in Paris during the latter part of his life), still less that there was animosity between them for whatever reason. To the contrary, towards the end of Nobel's life Mittag-Leffler was engaged in ``diplomatic'' negotiations to try to persuade Nobel to designate a substantial part of his fortune to the Hogskola. It seems hardly likely that he would have undertaken this if there was prior bad blood between them. Although initially Nobel seems to have intended to do this, eventually he came up with the Nobel Prize idea - much to the disappointment of the Hogskola, not to mention Nobel's relatives and Fraulein Hess.
According to the very interesting study by Elisabeth Crawford, ``The
Beginnings of the Nobel Institution'', Cambridge Univ. Press, 1984,
pages 52-53:
Although it is not known how those in responsible positions at the Hogskola came to believe that a large bequest was forthcoming, this indeed was the expectation, and the disappointment was keen when it was announced early in 1897 that the Hogskola had been left out of Nobel's final will in 1895. Recriminations followed, with both Pettersson and Arrhenius [academic rivals of Mittag-Leffler in the administration of the Hogskola] letting it be known that Nobel's dislike for Mittag-Leffler had brought about what Pettersson termed the `Nobel Flop'. This is only of interest because it may have contributed to the myth that Nobel had planned to institute a prize in mathematics but had refrained because of his antipathy to Mittag-Leffler or -in another version of the same story- because of their rivalry for the affections of a woman....
However, Sister Mary Thomas a Kempis discovered a letter by R. C. Archibald in the archives of Brown University and discussed its contents in "The Mathematics Teacher" (1966, pp.667-668). Archibald had visited Mittag-Leffler and, on his report, it would seem that M-L *believed* that the absence of a Nobel Prize in mathematics was due to an estrangement between the two men. (This at least is the natural reading, but not the only possible one.)
A final speculation concerning the psychological element. Would Nobel, sitting down to draw up his testament, presumably in a mood of great benevolence to mankind, have allowed a mere personal grudge to distort his idealistic plans for the monument he would leave behind?
Nobel, an inventor and industrialist, did not create a prize in mathematics simply because he was not particularly interested in mathematics or theoretical science. His will speaks of prizes for those ``inventions or discoveries'' of greatest practical benefit to mankind. (Probably as a result of this language, the physics prize has been awarded for experimental work much more often than for advances in theory.)
However, the story of some rivalry over a woman is obviously much more amusing, and that's why it will probably continue to be repeated.
References:
USENET newsgroup's FAQ list.
Mathematical Intelligencer, vol. 7 (3), 1985, p. 74.
The Beginnings of the Nobel Institution. Elisabeth Crawford. Cambridge Univ. Press, 1984.
Vox Populi
What's your opinion?
[ Particularly insightful essays may be included on this page. If you do not want your response published, please note so in the feedback form. ]
On Oct 10 09:15:56 EDT 2007 Mary wrote:
The explanations offered here and on the linked Urban Legends Reference
Pages for why there is no Nobel prize in mathematics are a good
demonstration of the practical importance of mathematics. In fact, they are
excellent examples of circular logic and inadequate reasoning.
They take the line from Nobel's bequest, that the prizes should be
given "to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the
greatest benefit on mankind", to indicate that Nobel's interest lay in
practical developments, and so mathematics would not qualify. Yet all this
boils down to is the circular thesis that there is no Nobel prize in
mathematics because Nobel constructed his will in such a way that there
should be no Nobel prize in mathematics. The contention that any sort of
dispute with Mittag-Leffler would be an unlikely reason to leave mathematics
out, simply because there were other mathematicians who might win the prize
before him, is also inadequate in its reasoning: even if other
mathematicians would get it first, that doesn't mean that Mittag-Leffler
would not have eventually gotten it, and perhaps in short order.
As for the speculation that Nobel would not want to taint such an
idealistic endeavour with a personal grudge: from the subjective perspective
of the person making the bequest, that is just as good a reason for leaving
the mathematics prize out, as it would be, from the external perspective,
for putting it in. So, apart from the partisan complaints of Arrhenius and
Pettersson at the time, the only historical evidence bearing on the matter
that seems to have been found thus far is the written testimony of
Archibald, that Mittag-Leffler at least believed that he and Nobel were
estranged.
For the time being then, the truth still lies buried with Nobel. The
real mystery is not why there is no Nobel prize in mathematics, but why
there is one- or at least, one administered by the Nobel Foundation- in
economics.
On Tue Jul
1 05:00:17 2003 S.Maheswaran wrote:
My opinion is that the subject "Mathematics" may be the Assisting tool for
Science and Technology that is for the banches of Science subjects like Physics
and Chemistry, the maths can "help" in calculation for findings or inventions
or discoveries. The maths alone, as per the wills of Nobel, may not discovering
anything new for the society. The ancillary part of maths like statistics or probabily are helped in Economical analysis only, there also mathematics is acting as a calculating tool only.
The above reasons may be thought for NOT including in the Nobel Prize category.
On Tue Jun
3 00:46:44 2003 Norman Blakley West II wrote:
Forget the gossip
I feel that Math is the universal language, and contributes to all the fields for which nobel prizes are awarded. Math is pure, even in it's highest forms. It is either right or wrong and applies correctly for only some applications. Math unlike literature doesn't evoke emotions, but a useful general tool for solving problems. As long as people push and challenge themselves as well as others to be inventive for the greater of mankind may the world grow together.
On Tue Apr
8 15:01:28 2003 James Barclay wrote:
The past arguments against a Nobel in Math have already been outstripped due to the very nature of advances in mathematics themselves. I don't think Nobel particularly hated math, though he despised statisticians and accountants.
To me, Wiles' solution to the Fermat deserved a Nobel as did Witten and Greenburg's application of Conformal and Lie Algebras. Tanayama and Shimura should have gotten one, Venn should have, too. New mathematical models for use in a whole range of applications should be recognized. Pure mathematics is a thing all its own and may even be thought of as an art. Mandelbrot sets are an example.
It may be right to note that Symbolic Logic, once a part of Philosophy, is now a branch of mathematics all its own.
Then, there are people like Douglas Hofstadter and Martin Gardner that have opened the universe of the love of pure mathematics to millions.
Lets just give the entire Princeton University Dept. of Theoretical Math a couple of Nobels.
On Sat Feb 15 10:17:30 2003 Tariq wrote:
Well, I just want to say that Mathematics is the mother of all sciences.I am just a boy of 16 years old.I want the world to know that Mathematics is the science that is with us 24 hours aday.I myself believe in numbers.I don't know why I always feel that Mathematics is everything.I always believe that one's honour is in one's self.It doesn't mean that if a person has not win a Nobel prize, although he has done alot in mathematics,he should be embrarassed.I want to be a mathematician and I don't care to win a Nobel prize.I want to inform the world that " whatever a person is .... he is himself ".A person doesn't need to show himself infront of the world that he has won a Nobel prize.I want people to feel their existence.I want them to think just how do they feel themselves being alive,their sensations,their existence ? I believe in what I believe....and as Einstein said "Imagination is more important than knowlegde".I don't know why sometimes I feel myself to be ....I can't explain it.Thank you very much for reading all this.
On Wed Dec 18 17:30:41 2002 George Petts wrote:
Assuming that it was not a simple oversight I believe that Nobel did not include a prize for mathematics for possibly two reasons: a)He did not understand the importance of mathematics in the developement of useful technology. b)He realized that the mathematics required for most technological developement, rarely more complex than elementary calculus, is trivial and not worthy of recognition.
Andrew Wiles, having proved Fermats "last theorem," is obviously a remarkable number theorist. Fermats theorem, and the math used in Wiles proof will probably never prove beneficial in any practical application.
Today, if technology requires a mathematical solution that doesn't yield quickly to analytic methods, numerical methods and fast computers are employed.
On Mon, 9 Oct 2000 Karl Hao wrote:
This more of an editorial concering the article 'Why no math?'. This
article supposes that Nobel didn't include Mathematics as a winnable
category for reasons including bad relationships or maybe Nobel just
didn't like mathematics. It seems that this article is missing the most
reasonable, if not obvious, excuse for not including 'good ol'
arithmetic': because mathematics is the base field. It is a gateway to
understanding in each of the 6 fields a prize is given. Math is
inherently present in Physics, Chemistry, Economics, and Medicine. Maybe
not as seeable, but included if you take a closer look, is Mathematics in
Literature and definitely a degree of math in the business of Peace as
well. I hope that in the future a broader band of opinion and speculation
is given. For simple logic, as this is, tends to be the most viable and
in actuality is more often, mathematically speaking, the truth.
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Ona Wu. All rights reserved.