Ma Zhiming, chairman of the Chinese Mathematics Society and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, was elected to the committee in Shanghai as the nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting international mathematical cooperation finished its 14th general assembly.

The closed-door meeting is a prelude to the nine-day International Congress of Mathematicians 2002, which begins tomorrow in Beijing.

Ma is the chairman of the local organizing committee of the congress.

The mathematical gathering, held every four years and considered the most influential one of its kind, will attract more than 4,000 specialists, eager to discuss new advances.

John F. Nash of Princeton University in the United States, winner of the 1994 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, and Stephen Hawking, author of A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes, will deliver lectures.

At the Shanghai assembly, John M. Ball, Sedleian Professor of Natural Philosophy and Fellow of Queen's College, University of Oxford, was elected the union's new chairman.

According to the assembly, a new award for mathematicians -- the Abel Award -- will be established this year.

Professor E. Stormer, of Oslo University, one of the five members of the Abel Committee, said the prize, worth nearly US$800,000, will be awarded each June in Oslo, capital of Norway, and he expects the International Mathematical Union to nominate a candidate for the new prize.

The Abel prize is worth far more than the Fields Award, currently the highest mathematical honor.

(eastday.com August 19, 2002)