Oxford Mathematician Sir John Ball FRS has been awarded the King Faisal Prize for Science. Launched by the King Faisal Foundation (KFF) and granted for the first time in 1979, the King Faisal Prize recognises the outstanding works of individuals and institutions in five major categories: Service to Islam, Islamic Studies, Arabic Language and Literature, Medicine, and Science. Its aim is to benefit Muslims in their present and future, inspire them to participate in all aspects of civilisation, as well as enrich human knowledge and develop mankind.
Sir John Ball is Sedleian Professor of Natural Philosophy, Director of the Oxford Centre for Nonlinear Partial Differential Equations and Fellow of the Queen's College. John's main research areas lie in the calculus of variations, nonlinear partial differential equations, infinite-dimensional dynamical systems and their applications to nonlinear mechanics.