In logic and philosophy to Professor Dana S. Scott, Pittsburgh, USA, for his conceptually oriented logical works, especially the creation of domain theory, which has made it possible to extend Tarski’s semantical paradigm to programming languages as well as to construct models of Curry’s combinatory logic and Church’s calculus of lambda conversion.
In mathematics to Professor Mikio Sato, Kyoto, Japan, for his creation of the theory of hyperfunctions. Professor Sato has been the driving force behind a world-leading group of researchers in algebraic analysis. His work in theoretical physics has increased our understanding of the divergences in quantum field theory.
For the visual arts to Torsten Andersson, Hörby, Sweden, for unusually artistic integrity and a strong poetic expression.
In music to Jorma Panula, Helsinki, Finland, for a unique, productive fostering of orchestra conductors more than two decades, based on his own artistry as an orchestra conductor and composer of extraordinary breadth and independence.
The prize in logic and philosophy
Contemporary logic has been diversified in a number of branches. Dana S. Scott has made fundamental contributions to several of these, notably automata theory, axiomatic set theory, model theory and modal logic. An especially general interest, however, attaches to his creation of domain theory, which has made it possible to provide programming languages with a compositional semantics of the same kind as was given by the Polish logician Alfred Tarski for more traditional logical languages, like predicate logic and simple type theory, in the thirties. The introduction of the notion of domain also enabled Scott to construct models of Curry’s combinatory logic and Church’s calculus of lambda conversion, two closely related formal calculi which had previously resisted all attempts at semantic interpretation, and which had therefore only been studied by purely syntactic means. The theory of Scott domains, as they are now called, constitutes the mathematical basis of the branch of computer science which is now generally referred to as “semantics of programming languages”, and it has been pivotal in establishing “logic and computer science” as a new branch of logic. Scott’s works are marked throughout by their conceptual clarity and formal elegance.
Dana S. Scott was born on 11 October 1932 in Berkeley, California. He studied as a pupil of Alfred Tarski at the University of California, Berkeley, where he obtained his bachelor’s degree in 1954. He took his doctor’s degree at Princeton University in 1958 with Alonzo Church as supervisor. Scott has taught at many different universities, among others the University of California 1960-63 and Stanford University 1963-69. He served as Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University 1969-72 and as Professor of Mathematical Logic at Oxford University 1972-81. In 1981, he moved from Oxford to Pittsburgh, USA, where he is now Professor of Computer Science, Mathematical Logic and Philosophy at Carnegie Mellon University. He is honorary doctor at several European universities and member of several scientific academies, among others the US Academy of Sciences.
The prize in mathematics
Professor Mikio Sato receives the Schock Prize for a theory which allows much freer calculations than classical calculus. A function may not have a derivative which is a function, but it does have a derivative which is a hyperfunction. Every function is regarded as a sum of limit values of holomorphic functions, which means that one uses the fact that immediately outside the real numbers there are complex numbers – this is said to reflect an old idea that phenomena in the real world are limits of complex (imaginary, fictitious!) events that lie very close but are still outside our reach. A rich theory for differential equations has been the result.
The theory of hyperfunctions is competing with the so called theory of distributions, and often gives analogous results but along a different path. In some sense the two theories are equivalent but there are important differences in the modes of attack. One theory is best known in Europe and the Americas, the other in Japan.
Professor Sato is deeply interested in – and has been motivated by – problems in theoretical physics. His important contributions concern Feynman integrals and integrable systems.
Mikio Sato was born in 1928. He graduated from Tokyo University in 1952. In 1970 he became professor at RIMS, Research Institute for Mathematical Sciences, a very well-known research institution at Kyoto University. He is now Emeritus Professor there.
The prize for the visual arts
In the field of modern Swedish art, painter and illustrator Torsten Andersson from Hörby is an almost mystical figure. Sometimes known as the painters’ painter, he is always respected for his immense integrity and independence. He made his artistic breakthrough as early as the 1950s, made acclaimed contributions in the 60s, stopped painting for a number of years, began again in 1972 and returned to a significant extent in 1987 with exhibitions in Stockholm’s Museum of Modern Art and the Malmö Art Museum. During the 1990s, he has been developing in new areas and is thus in the middle of a creative stage.
The 1960s were a time of opportunities. For Torsten Andersson, this meant a challenge to find his own personal style. This he achieved through a severe economy of form; his earlier paintings were almost abstract and tended towards concretism. In contrast, a new trend of humanising concrete forms gradually developed. His works became more expressionist but still retained monumental forms. The result was a synthesis of the artist’s strong feelings for Swedish nature and its light. It was characteristic that his exhibition at Galerie Burén in 1962 had the title “Pictures from Frosta County”, the place where he grew up in Skåne, southern Sweden. At this exhibition, he showed many of his now most well-known works such as “The Gull”, an ascetic white painted canvas with a sewn-in bird-like form, and “The Source”. These paintings consisted of two parts, a motive painted on a surface under which there was a black board symbolising the black water. This was a reinforcement of the introspective element.
After a long absence between 1972 and 1982, a period that Torsten Andersson called his working process, his reunion with the public in Stockholm and Malmö was characterized not least by the magical attraction of his simultaneously heavy monumental and dream-like paintings. These included pictures showing gates with wings, openings into the unknown.
He is currently working on paintings depicting imagined sculptures of different colours. They bleed, are on fire or are sick. The method means that he uses the language of realism for visualising the abstract, which is also the unknown.
Torsten Andersson has never made it easy for himself. Intensive search and experimentation has characterized his relationship with the language of painting. An unusually artistic integrity and a strong poetic expression are synthesised in his work. It is these properties which resulted in the choice of Torsten Andersson as this year’s recipient of the Schock Prize in the visual arts.
Torsten Andersson was born in Östra Sallerup, Sweden in 1926. Following education in the Stockholm School of Art under teachers including Ragnar Sandberg and subsequently in the Academy of Art in Copenhagen, he had his debut exhibition at Galerie Blanche in Stockholm in 1954. In 1960, at the age of 34, he was appointed professor at the Stockholm School of Art. At the same time, he was appointed member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. In 1965, he resigned his professorship and returned to his childhood home in Skåne where he has lived ever since.
The prize in music
The prerequisites for a successful and enduring teaching contribution, not least in the arts, are in most cases considerable. They can be found in everything from one’s own mastery and artistic credibility to pedagogic insight, organisational clarity and long sightedness in the teaching environment to the ability to create understanding in the world around and enthusiasm for one’s subject and thereby securing resources and good conditions, not to mention what the personal example and capacity for friendship and empathy mean for good results. Jorma Panula meets, to an outstanding degree, the high demands for many of these prerequisites. This is evidenced by a more than twenty years at the centre of what has become known as the Finnish conductor wonder – a flow of eminent young conductors and with them a new and vitalising self-esteem with far reaching influence for all orchestra life in our northern region of Europe.
With his background also as a composer and with a style and genre versatility which in 1973 was unusual, Jorma Panula’s shouldering of the responsibility for Finnish composer education at the Sibelius academy resulted in a considerable reshaping of the traditional study methods, even by international standards. A characteristic of the new way of working was to accept younger applicants than previously and particularly to recruit among musicians with orchestra experience. Orchestra trainee periods held a central and increasingly important place in the education. This lead rapidly to the establishment of a special practice orchestra for pupil conductors – a long desired “own instrument” and an idea which was subsequently adopted by many other colleges. In addition, as far as possible, theory was integrated into the practical work. Seminars replaced the traditional individual teaching methods and were developed by using video techniques. Finally, a national trainee network was created among the country’s orchestras. This provided students with a further “instrument to play on” and at the same time established a critical close contact between education and professionals.
Due to Jorma Panula’s high standards and educational ambitions, linked without compromise to professional reality and permeated by an inspired artistry full of intensity, virtuosity, naturalness, clarity in understanding and totally lacking in artificiality, his influence will be felt by many generations of Nordic conductors in the form of a significant father role characterized simultaneously by artistic responsibility and a genuine we-feeling. It is for this contribution that he is being awarded the prize.
Jorma Panula was born on 10 August 1930 and began his studies at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki at the end of the 1940s. In 1950, he was awarded his organist and cantor degree followed in 1953 by his conductor’s degree. Further studies abroad brought him into contact with conductors such as Dean Dixon and Albert Wolff. From 1953 to 1963, he worked within the field of musical theatre as the conductor at Lahtis City Theatre, Tampere Theatre and Finland’s National Opera. At the same time, from 1958, he was associated with the Helsinki City Orchestra and thereafter with other symphony orchestras including Turku City Orchestra from 1965 to 1972 and Århus City Orchestra from 1973 to 1976.
In 1973, Jorma Panula was appointed as the professor in conducting at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki. He held this position until 1993. In the meantime, he received permission to combine this with a part-time professorship at Stockholm’s College of Music from 1982 to 1987, and at the Conservatory of Music in Copenhagen from 1987 to 1989. Since 1993, he has been working on a freelance basis.
Jorma Panula’s work includes a violin concerto from 1954, a Jazz Capriccio for piano and orchestra from 1965, the musicals “The Knife Pullers” from 1972, “The Fire-Red Flower” from 1974 and the opera “The Flood Opera” from 1982.
In 1995, Jorma Panula was elected as a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music.
The prizewinners receive their prizes at a ceremony in Stockholm on 23 October 1997. The prizes amounts to SEK 400 000 (at present about 50 000 USD) in each field.