Prized Science | Understanding autoimmune disorders; computer’s solution-finding

Dipyaman Ganguly, principal scientist at CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical Biology, has won this year’s Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Medical Sciences. Neeraj Kayal, principal researcher with Microsoft Research Institute in Bengaluru The power and limits of computation Neeraj Kayal, principal researcher with Microsoft Research Institute in Bengaluru, is one of the two winners of this year’s Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for mathematical sciences, sharing it with Apoorva Khare of IISc. After the advent of computers, both mathematicians and computer scientists began asking questions such as whether a computer can “quickly” determine if a large number given to it is prime or not. I have worked on some computational problems related to number theory, algebra and geometry but there is one problem that is dear to my heart and remains unsolved to this day. Once again, after the advent of computers, mathematicians and computer scientists started wondering if there is a computer program to which one can give any set of equations and it quickly find a solution and/or can quickly count how many solutions there are.