Ernst Selmer National Event
Published:
Simula UiB, together with the Selmer Center, is hosting a one-day event on Tuesday, February 11th, to celebrate the birth of Professor Ernst Selmer on that day in 1920. The event will take place from 08:00 to 16:00 at the auditorium at Vilvite in Bergen.
Sign up before February 4th at noon by clicking here.
Ernst Sejersted Selmer was a Norwegian mathematician and cryptologist. His work encompasses a variety of topics in pure and applied mathematics, ranging from Diophantine equations and number theory to linear recursion and periodic sequences. He was a professor at the University of Bergen from 1957 to his retirement in 1990, during which period he significantly contributed not only to the scientific but also administrative and pedagogical activities of the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, serving as dean of the faculty from 1960 to 1968. It is during this period that he used his expertise to lay the theoretical foundation behind the Norwegian social security number, which was introduced in 1964 and remains in use to this day. Selmer was a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters and the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters. For his achievements on a national and academic level, Selmer was awarded the Order of St. Olav, first-class, in 1983.
On Selmer’s birthday, February 11, 2003,the Selmer center was established in honor of prof. Selmeron the foundation of the coding and cryptography group at the University of Bergen, and it conducts research in cryptology, data security, and discrete mathematics. With the co-location of theSelmer CenterandSimula UiB, Bergen has one of the larger and more influential crypto research environments in Scandinavia.