Mikhail Gromov won the 6-million-Norwegian-kroner (US$900,000) Abel Prize last week for his work on advanced forms of geometry. The Russian expatriate holds appointments at the Institute of Advanced Scientific Studies outside Paris and the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University. The Abel committee cited Gromov for his contributions to the study of Riemannian geometry, symplectic geometry and group theory.

Gromov is "renowned among mathematicians for his original approach", says Ian Stewart, a mathematician at the University of Warwick, UK, and his work has guided many other mathematicians and physicists. The Abel Prize was founded in 2003 by the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters to complement the Nobel prizes, which do not reward work in pure mathematics.