Lars Valerian Ahlfors (18 April 1907 – 11 October 1996) was a world renown mathematician, theoretician, teacher, and textbook writer. He was a pioneer in the Outer Reaches of Higher Math. He's known for his conformal geometry, complex function theory, meromorphic curves, quasiconformal mappings, Riemann surface theory, theory of Kleinian groups, and value distribution theory. His father, Axel Ahlfors, was a professor of mechanical engineering in the Polytechnic Institute of Helsinki. His mother, Sievä Helander Ahlfors, died giving birth to him. In 1934 he married Erna Lehnert. Their marriage was a happy one and ended only with his death. They had three daughters, and one son that died in infancy. Lars died of pneumonia. He was 89.

Honours awarded:

* Speaker at International Congress in 1936.
* Fields Medal (1936), the mathematics equivalent of the Nobel Prize, by the International Mathematics Society.
* SIAM John von Neumann Lecture in 1960
* Speaker at International Congress 1962
* Wihuri Prize (1968)
* Speaker at International Congress 1978
* Wolf Prize in Mathematics (1981)
* AMS Steele Prize 1982

He Published:

* Conformal Invariants Topics In Geometric Function
Theory (1953), has applications ranging from number theory to modern physics.
* Contributions to the Theory of Riemann Surfaces: Annals of Mathematics Studies (1953)
* Complex Analysis (1953)(reprinted 1979)
* Riemann surfaces (1960)(with L Sario)
* Ahlfors finiteness theorem (1964)
* Fundamental Polyhedrons and Limit Point Sets of Kleinian Groups (1966)
* Lectures on quasi-conformal mappings (1966)
* Conformal Invariants: Topics in Geometric Function Theory (1973)
* He published new editions in 1966 and 1979
* Advances In The Theory Of Riemann Surfaces
* He published almost 100 papers
* and three other mathematical books