Clay Mathematics Institute facts for kids
Motto: Dedicated to increasing and disseminating mathematical knowledge
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| Formation | 1998 |
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| Type | Non-profit |
| Headquarters | Denver, Colorado, United States |
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President
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Martin R. Bridson |
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Key people
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Landon T. Clay Lavinia D. Clay Thomas Clay |
The Clay Mathematics Institute (CMI) is a private group that helps spread mathematical knowledge. It is a non-profit foundation, meaning it doesn't aim to make money.
The CMI was started in 1998 by Boston businessman Landon T. Clay. It gives out awards and supports talented mathematicians. The institute is now based in Denver, Colorado, USA. Its main math activities are managed from Oxford, United Kingdom.
The CMI is most famous for its Millennium Prize Problems. But it also does many other things. These include holding conferences, workshops, and summer schools. It also has programs to support young mathematicians.
Contents
How the Institute Works
The Clay Mathematics Institute has two main groups that help it run. One is a scientific committee. This group decides who gets grants and which research projects to support. The other group is a board of directors. They check and approve the decisions made by the scientific committee.
As of September 2024, the board is made up of members of the Clay family. The scientific committee includes famous mathematicians like Simon Donaldson and Andrew Wiles. Martin R. Bridson is the current president of the CMI.
Recent News and Events
New Clay Research Fellows
The Clay Mathematics Institute announced its 2024 Clay Research Fellows. Ishan Levy and Mehtaab Sawhney received these special fellowships. Both were finishing their PhDs at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. They started their five-year fellowships on July 1, 2024.
2024 Clay Research Conference
The 2024 Clay Research Conference took place on October 2, 2024. It was held at the Mathematical Institute at the University of Oxford. Workshops were also held from September 30 to October 4, 2024. These workshops covered new ideas in different areas of math.
Awards and Recognitions
Daniel Graham from the University of Surrey won a Gold Medal in 2024. He received it at the STEM for Britain competition. His award was for his work on quantum authentication methods.
The Millennium Prize Problems
The Clay Mathematics Institute is best known for creating the Millennium Prize Problems. These seven math problems were announced on May 24, 2000. The CMI calls them "important classic questions that have resisted solution over the years."
For each problem, the first person to solve it will win US$1,000,000 from the CMI. The institute compared these problems to Hilbert's problems. Those problems were suggested in 1900 and greatly influenced math in the 20th century.
Only one of Hilbert's original 23 problems is also a Millennium Prize Problem. This is the Riemann hypothesis, which was first thought of in 1859.
For each problem, a math expert wrote an official description. This description is used to check if a solution is correct. The seven problems are:
- P versus NP
- The Hodge conjecture
- The Poincaré conjecture – This one has been solved by Grigori Perelman.
- The Riemann hypothesis
- Yang–Mills existence and mass gap
- Navier–Stokes existence and smoothness
- The Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture
Many famous mathematicians helped choose these seven problems. Some of them were Michael Atiyah, Pierre Deligne, and Andrew Wiles.
Other Awards from CMI
The Clay Research Award
The Clay Mathematics Institute gives out an annual prize called the Clay Research Award. This award recognizes big breakthroughs in math research. Many talented mathematicians have received this award. Some past winners include Ian Agol, Manjul Bhargava, Ben Green, Maryam Mirzakhani, Peter Scholze, Terence Tao, and Maryna Viazovska.
More CMI Activities
Besides the Millennium Prize Problems, the Clay Mathematics Institute supports math in other ways. It offers research fellowships for two to five years. These are for younger mathematicians. It also gives shorter scholarships for special programs, individual research, and writing math books.
The institute also holds summer schools, conferences, and workshops. They also have public lectures and outreach activities. These are mostly for young mathematicians, from high school students to those who have finished their PhDs. The CMI also makes its publications available online for free.
See also
In Spanish: Instituto Clay de Matemáticas para niños
