Florin Diacu awarded prestigious JD Crawford Prize
UVic’s Florin Diacu is using mathematics to explore the outer reaches of the universe.
Dr. Diacu studies the motion of celestial orbits and is helping to determine the geometrical nature of physical space. This research has earned him the 2015 J.D. Crawford Prize from the Society for Industrial and Applied Mechanics (SIAM).
The award is given every two years to one individual for recent outstanding work on a topic in nonlinear science. Dr. Diacu is the first Canadian ever to win the prize.
Dr. Diacu was nominated for his paper, “Relative equilibria in the 3-dimensional curved n-body problem,” which explores the dynamics of celestial objects whose distances remain constant in time while moving in non-flat spaces, such as 3D spheres. His research laid bridges between several branches of mathematics, a feat highly regarded among mathematicians.
Dr. Diacu will receive the award at the SIAM Conference on Applications of Dynamical Systems to be held in Snowbird, Utah, in May.