Wolf Prize in mathematics The Wolf Prize in mathematics has been awarded since 1978. The books [1] and [2] contain details of the life and work of the winners between 1978 and 2000. We quote from the Preface of the books:- There is no Nobel prize in mathematics. Perhaps this is a good thing. Nobel prizes create so much public attention that mathematicians would lose their concentration to work. There are several other prizes for mathematicians. There is the Fields Medal (only for mathematicians); it honours outstanding work and encourages further efforts. Then there is the Wolf Prize. The Wolf Foundation began its activities in 1976. Since 1978, five or six annual prizes have been awarded to outstanding scientists and artists, irrespective of nationality, race, colour, religion, sex or political view, for achievements in the interest of mankind and friendly relations among people. In science, the fields are agriculture, chemistry, mathematics, medicine, and physics; in the arts, the prize rotates annually among music, painting, sculpture and architecture. The Fields Medal goes to young people, and indeed many mathematicians do their best work in the early years of their life. The Wolf Prize often honours the achievements of a whole life. But it may also honour the work of young people. The first Wolf Prize winners in mathematics were Izrail M Gelfand and Carl L Siegel (1978). Siegel was born in 1896 and Gel'fand in 1913. Gelfand is still active at Rutgers University. Several prize winners were born before 1910. Thus the achievements of the prize winners cover much of the twentieth century. The documents collected in these two volumes characterize the Wolf Prize winners in a form not available up to now: bibliographies and curricula vitae, autobiographical accounts, reprints of early papers or especially important papers, lectures and speeches, for example at International Congresses, as well as reports on the work of the prize winners by others. Since the work of the Wolf laureates covers a wide spectrum, a large part of contemporary mathematics comes to life in these books. Wolf Prize winners in mathematics: 1978 - Izrail M Gelfand and Carl L Siegel 1979 - Jean Leray and André Weil 1980 - Henri Cartan and Andrei N Kolmogorov 1981 - Lars V Ahlfors and Oscar Zariski 1982 - Hassler Whitney and Mark Grigor'evich Krein 1983/4 - Shiing-Shen Chern and Paul Erdös 1984/5 - Kunihiko Kodaira and Hans Lewy 1986 - Samuel Eilenberg and Atle Selberg 1987 - Kiyosi Itô and Peter D Lax 1988 - Friedrich Hirzebruch and Lars Hörmander 1989 - Alberto P Calderon and John W Milnor 1990 - Ennio De Giorgi and Ilya Piatetski-Shapiro 1992 - Lennart A E Carleson and John G Thompson 1993 - Mikhael Gromov and Jacques Tits 1994/5 - Jürgen K Moser 1995/6 - Robert Langlands and Andrew J Wiles 1996/7 - Joseph B Keller and Yakov G Sinai 1999 - László Lovász and Elias M Stein 2000 - Raoul Bott and Jean-Pierre Serre

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