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Student prize
The NWO-Research cluster Geometry and Quantum Theory will award a prize of 1000 euro for the best M.Sc.-thesis in a field related to Geometry and Quantum Theory. The objective of this prize is to attract students to this interesting field of mathematics and to stimulate them to produce high level work in preparation for Ph.D. research in Geometry and Quantum Theory within the cluster or elsewhere.
Previous winners of the prize were:
2008-2009: Bas Fagginger-Auer
Title: Spatially Homogeneous Universes
This thesis, written under the supervision of Renate Loll (UU, Theoretical Physics) is a study of cosmological models with spatial homogeneity.
The exposition of spatially homogeneous universes is outstanding by its coherence. The explanations and proofs are of great clarity.
The material is placed in a clear mathematical context and it is carefully explained under which restrictions the cosmological models are studied. Bas explains the purpose of this enterprise in a very convincing manner.
2007-2008: Martijn Caspers
Title: Gelfand spectra of C*-algebras in topos theory
The jury for the GQT-prize for the best M.Sc. thesis for the year 2007-2008 has decided to award the prize to Martijn Caspers for his thesis "Gelfand spectra of C*-algebras in topos theory" written under supervision of Klaas Landsman. In this thesis several subjects such as category theory, topos theory and C*-algebras come together.
Martijn has made an effort to make all this accessible. The explanations are well organized and to the point. The jury is particularly impressed by the fact that Martijn Caspers was able to solve a problem in the interaction of topos theory and C*-algebras that had haunted his supervisor and his research associates. This shows that the originality of the work is very high.
2006-2007: Ronald van der Veen
Title: The Volume Conjecture for Whitehead Chains
The jury was impressed by the nice introduction, the helpful comments throughout, the pictures and the originality of the work. The thesis, written under the supervision of Eric Opdam, will lead to a publication in the proceedings of the International Conference on Quantum Topology, Hanoi 2007.
