This coin was struck to commemorate the bicentennial of Niels Henrik Abel's birth. Abel was born in 1802 and died in 1829 at twenty-six, leaving behind work on elliptic functions and his proof of the impossibility of solving the general quintic equation by radicals — a problem that had occupied mathematicians for over two centuries. The Norwegian government had previously honored him on the 500-krone note.
In 2002, Norway also inaugurated the Abel Prize, an international mathematics award modeled on the Nobel, funded in part through the bicentennial anniversary push.
This coin was struck to commemorate the bicentennial of Niels Henrik Abel's birth. Abel was born in 1802 and died in 1829 at twenty-six, leaving behind work on elliptic functions and his proof of the impossibility of solving the general quintic equation by radicals — a problem that had occupied mathematicians for over two centuries. The Norwegian government had previously honored him on the 500-krone note.
In 2002, Norway also inaugurated the Abel Prize, an international mathematics award modeled on the Nobel, funded in part through the bicentennial anniversary push.