Clay Mathematics Institute on the Navier-Stokes Problem

The Millennium Prize Problems were unveiled by the Clay Mathematics Institute (CMI) at a meeting in Paris in 2000 to celebrate “ The Universality of Mathematical Thought ”.

These problems encapsulate some of the most difficult challenges that mathematicians were grappling with at the turn of the millennium. CMI’s purpose in articulating these problems and attaching a $1M prize to each of them was threefold: to elevate in the consciousness of the general public the fact that in mathematics the frontier is open, close at hand, and abounds with important unsolved problems; to emphasize the abiding value of working towards a solution of the deepest, most difficult problems; and to recognize achievements in mathematics of historic magnitude.