OSLO, Norway (AP) _ A Kansas native and a Frenchman have won the
$1.2 million Abel Prize for mathematics at a ceremony in Norway.

Norway's King Harald V presented the award to 75-year-old John Griggs Thompson, who teaches at the University of Florida. Thompson
is a native of Ottawa, Kansas, and graduated from Yale University in 1955.

He shares the prize with Jacques Tits, who teaches at a college in Paris.

The Abel committee cited their achievements in algebra and especially for their shaping of modern group theory. Also called the science of symmetries, the theory can solve such every-day challenges such as a Rubik's Cube, or be used in physics, computer science and geometry.

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)