Vladimir Rokhlin awarded Benter Prize by City University of Hong Kong

Vladimir Rokhlin, the Arthur K. Watson Professor of Computer Science, was awarded the William Benter Prize in Applied Mathematics by the City University of Hong Kong.

Rokhlin has earned acclaim for his contributions to numerical analysis and applied mathematics, in particular his invention, with Leslie Greengard at New York University, of the Fast Multipole Method (FMM) which has revolutionized the way engineers and scientists solve problems.

The William Benter Prize in Applied Mathematics, a biennial award that carries a cash prize of $100,000, was established by the Liu Bie Ju Centre for Mathematical Sciences at City University “to recognise outstanding mathematical contributions that have a direct and fundamental impact on scientific, business, and engineering applications.”

Since its inception in the 1980s, FMM has been applied extensively in a wide spectrum of fields. It is a highly regarded computational tool in electromagnetics, and microwave and radio frequency applications. It has had a significant impact on chip design, antenna characterization, and printed circuit boards. In addition, it has been used in astronomy for simulating the evolution of galaxies and other cosmological structures, in computer-aided drug design, which involves calculations in quantum chemistry, and in the modeling of computers and cell phones to make them more efficient.

The significance of FMM has led the American Institute of Physics and the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers Computer Society to name it as one of the top 10 algorithms created in the 20th century.