11 Facts About Atle Selberg

Atle Selberg was a Norwegian mathematician known for his work in analytic number theory and the theory of automorphic forms, and in particular for bringing them into relation with spectral theory.

Atle Selberg was awarded the Fields Medal in 1950 and an honorary Abel Prize in 2002.

Atle Selberg's other brother, Arne, was a professor of engineering.

Atle Selberg studied at the University of Oslo and completed his doctorate in 1943.

In 1948 Atle Selberg submitted two papers in Annals of Mathematics in which he proved by elementary means the theorems for primes in arithmetic progression and the density of primes.

Atle Selberg established this result by elementary means in March 1948, and by July of that year, Selberg and Paul Erdos each obtained elementary proofs of the prime number theorem, both using the asymptotic formula above as a starting point.

Atle Selberg moved to the United States and worked as an associate professor at Syracuse University and later settled at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey in the 1950s, where he remained until his death.

Atle Selberg was awarded an honorary Abel Prize in 2002, its founding year, before the awarding of the regular prizes began.

Atle Selberg received many distinctions for his work, in addition to the Fields Medal, the Wolf Prize and the Gunnerus Medal.

Atle Selberg was elected to the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Atle Selberg died at home in Princeton, New Jersey on 6 August 2007 of heart failure.