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It was almost a year ago, in this space, that you might have learned the astounding news that a team of two researchers from Yale University and one from Microsoft Research had announced a proof of a riddle that had eluded mathematicians for more than half a century.
The Kadison-Singer conjecture, first proposed by Richard Kadison and Isadore Singer in 1959, pertains to the mathematical foundations of quantum mechanics. At the time, experts suggested that the implications could be significant. That, says Nikhil Srivastava of Microsoft Research India, is starting to come true.
Now, during the 2014 annual meeting of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM), being held in Chicago from July 7 to 11, the breakthrough is earning a more immediate reward. The 2014 George Pólya Prize will be presented to Srivastava and colleagues Adam W. Marcus and Daniel A. Spielman by Irene Fonseca, professor of mathematics at Carnegie Mellon University and current SIAM president.
