Cox, Little, and O’Shea to receive 2016 AMS Steele Prize for Exposition
EurekAlert, November 12, 2015
The AMS Leroy P. Steele Prize for Exposition will be awarded to three mathematicians: David Cox (Amherst College), John Little (College of the Holy Cross), and Donal O’Shea (New College of Florida). They are honored “for their book Ideals, Varieties, and Algorithms, which has made algebraic geometry and computational commutative algebra accessible not just to mathematicians but to students and researchers in many fields.”
Algebraic geometry has a reputation for being impenetrably technical and abstract. By requiring only linear algebra as a prerequisite, the book by Cox, Little, and O’Shea invites a broad audience of readers into this central branch of mathematics. Using geometry to introduce core topics and appealing to computational theory to prove fundamental results, they complement the development of theoretical results with applications to such topics as automated theorem proving and robotics. All of this is delivered with crystal-clear exposition and top-quality writing.
“Even more impressive than [the book’s] clarity of exposition is the impact it has had on mathematics,” the prize citation states. “CLO, as it is fondly known, has not only introduced many to algebraic geometry, it has actually broadened how the subject could be taught and who could use it.”