Home
Selmer Center in Secure Communication
Workshop

The Ernst Selmer International Event

This event is dedicated to the 100th anniversary of Prof. Ernst Sejersted Selmer. aims to bring together international collaborators and friends of the Selmer Center to celebrate the event. The workshop is open by invitation only.

Ernst Selmer
Photo:
Ernst Selmer

Main content

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 the honor of Prof. Selmer (see interview with him) on 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 the Selmer Center and Simula UiB, Bergen has one of the largest and more influential crypto research environments in Scandinavia.