The Rolf Schock Prize Symposium in Mathematics 2024

The 2024 Rolf Schock Prize in Mathematics is awarded to Lai-Sang Young,
Courant Institute, New York University, USA

“for long-lasting and deep contribution to the theory of non-uniformly hyperbolic dynamical systems”.

A dynamical system is defined by a mapping that is iterated and the basic question is what happens over time to a given starting point. Even for very simple mappings it is often only possible to make probabilistic predictions. This is given by invariant measures of fractal type that describe sets of non-integral dimension.

Young is a leader in this theory. Among other contributions, she has shown formulas for the relationship with the fractal dimension, entropy and Lyapunov exponents, which provides the expansion of the systems. Particularly significant is her construction of so-called Young Towers, which makes it possible to prove exponential decay of correlations for several systems.

Lai-Sang Young was born 1952 in Hong Kong. She received her PhD from University of California, Berkeley, in 1978 and is since 1999 professor in mathematics at Courant Institute, New York University, USA. She has previously received several prestigious awards like the Ruth Lyttle Satter Prize in 1993 and the Heinz Hopf Prize in 2023. She is a member of both the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Sciences.