|
 Andrew Granville is this year’s recipient of the Lamar Dodd Award, which recognizes an outstanding body of scholarly or creative activities in the sciences that has already gained national and international recognition.
Granville was honored for his outstanding mathematical research in number theory, his leadership in explaining the subject to wider audiences, his role in developing the graduate number-theory program at UGA, and the international recognition he has brought to the university as a center for research in number theory.
Granville’s research encompasses computer science, harmonic analysis, combinatorics and algebraic geometry, of interest both for theoretical reasons and for possible applications.
For example, since ancient times, mathematicians have wanted to tell quickly whether a number is prime--that is, whether the number can be divided only by itself and one. Recently this question has become of practical concern as the RSA method of encryption, used for Internet credit-card purchases, relies on prime numbers to safeguard confidential information transmitted electronically. In January 1992 Granville, along with Carl Pomerance and William Alford, showed that there are infinitely many “Carmichael numbers,” composite numbers that masquerade as primes.
One of Granville’s more recent papers, dealing with solutions to equations, gave a new twist to research funding--it contained a question of such popular interest that a Dallas banker has offered a $75,000 prize for its resolution.
Granville has won several national and international awards for research, among them an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, the Canadian Number Theory Association’s inaugural Ribenboim Medal for contributions to research, the Mathematical Association of America’s Merten M. Hasse prize for expository writing, and the Presidential Faculty Fellowship from President Clinton. |
