Medal for maths innovator

Edinburgh Honorary Professor, Sir Michael Atiyah, has been awarded the Grande Médaille of the Institut de France Académie des Sciences.

The award is given to a scholar who has contributed to the development of science in an influential way.

Annual honour

Institut de France Académie des Sciences is a society of leading French scholars, founded in 1666.

It has been awarding prizes since the 18th century and the distinction of the Grande Médaille was created in 1997.

It is given annually, in rotation, in the relevant disciplines of the Academy of Sciences.

Previous recipients of the accolade include American atmospheric chemist Susan Solomon, NASA astronaut Ronald Evans, and cancer researcher Robert Weinberg.

Professor Sir Michael Atiyah

Professor Sir Michael Atiyah is one of the most influential mathematicians of the 20th century.

Throughout his career he has been the recipient of multiple awards including two of the most important prizes in his field.

He won the Fields Medal in 1966, and was jointly awarded the Abel Prize in 2004 with his collaborator Professor Isadore Singer.

Their Atiyah-Singer index theorem is one of the landmark discoveries in mathematics.