When the Swedish scientist and philanthropist Alfred Nobel established the ‘Nobel Prize’ for outstanding achievements in various fields, he did omit mathematics: he did not appreciate its abstractness and its lack of practical benefits. The Norwegians set out to correct the omission and created the ‘Abel Prize’ for mathematics: modelled after the Nobel Prize, it is awarded yearly by the ‘Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters’. The Abel Prize committee is also dedicated to stimulating the interest in mathematics among children and youths, and in that respect it has created a ‘Mathematics Teacher Prize’ as well as yearly mathematics competitions for children and teenagers. The Abel Prize was created as a homage to Niels Henrik Abel (1802 – 1829), the greatest Norwegian mathematician of all time that pioneered several disciplines in modern mathematics. Read more on Abelprize.no