Noam Elkies Receives 2004 AMS Conant Prize

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January 8, 2004

PROVIDENCE, RI---Noam Elkies of Harvard University is receiving the 2004 Levi L. Conant Prize. Presented annually by the American Mathematical Society, the Conant Prize recognizes an outstanding expository paper published in either the Notices of the AMS or the Bulletin of the AMS in the preceding five years. The prize will be awarded today at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in Phoenix, Arizona.

Elkies is honored for his article "Lattices, Linear Codes, and Invariants," Notices of the AMS, 47, nos. 10-11 (2000). The article was published in two parts, both of which are available in PDF format on the Notices web site: Part I and Part II. The article begins with the problem of finding the densest packing of 24-dimensional marbles whose centers are placed at the points of a lattice and connects this problem with that of constructing error-correcting codes. Along the way, Elkies weaves together different mathematical topics in a surprising way that makes the article hard to put down. "The article leaves the reader with a good feeling about the unity of mathematics, and its underlying beauty," the citation says. "It is a masterful exposition."

Further information about AMS prizes may be found at http://www.ams.org/prizes-awards.

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