Richard Fleming and other faculty members at Central Michigan University have been conducting a poll among mathematicians in the state to determine what the greatest contributions have been during the past 100 years. Nominations were solicited, and a final ballot was sent out to liaisons in October, with votes due by November 15. Results will be posted on the Web (http://www.cst.cmich.edu/units/mth/ttm2k/topten.htm) and will be presented at the annual Section meeting at CMU in May.
Voters had to rank their top five picks among the following: Hilbert's talk at the 1900 Congress, Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem, proof of Fermat's Last Theorem, linear programming, Lebesgue's dissertation, classification of finite simple groups, mathematization of quantum mechanics, development of the digital computer, Ramsey's Theorem, Zorn's Lemma, P = NP question, relativity theory, Fast Fourier Transform, applications of mathematics to cryptology, coding theory, proof of the Four Color Theorem, application of group theory to particle physics, game theory, Riemann Hypothesis over finite fields, proof of Mordell's Conjecture, general Riemann-Roch Theorem, classification of finite-dimensional algebras over the field of real numbers, Radon Transform, fractal geometry, category theory, probabilistic methods, and independence of Continuum Hypothesis.
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