Two Chinese Mathematicians Win Fields Medal

Beijing. The world's most prestigious mathematics award, the 'Fields Medal', has been won by two Chinese mathematicians for the first time. According to Chinese state media, mathematicians Hong Wang and Yu Deng, along with America's John Pardon and Canada's Jacon Zimmerman, received this honor. They each received 15,000 Canadian dollars (approximately 1.16 million Nepali rupees) in prize money. They were honored for solving complex problems that have challenged mathematicians for over a century. 35-year-old Hong Wang has also become the third woman in history to receive the Fields Medal. The Fields Medal, considered the 'Nobel Prize' of mathematics, was awarded at a ceremony held in the United States on Thursday. This honor is considered particularly significant as it is being awarded at a time when artificial intelligence (AI) is challenging human computational abilities.

• Excitement across China

There has been widespread excitement on Chinese social media following this achievement. Hashtags like 'Fields Medal' and 'First Chinese Mathematicians to Win Fields Medal' have been viewed millions of times on platforms from Weibo to Rednet. One Weibo user wrote, 'This is the pride of all Chinese people.' Another commented, 'We are witnessing a moment of history being made.' Chinese media outlets have also published detailed news about the academic journeys, personal interests, and the impact of their achievements on China's mathematics community. Shiing-Shen Chern, the first Chinese-born Fields Medal winner, said, 'This was a dream that the Chinese mathematics community had hoped to fulfill for decades.'

• Solution to a 108-year-old problem

Hong Wang, along with her colleague Josh Zahl, presented the solution to a famous mathematical question posed by Japanese mathematician Seiichi Kakeya in 1917. The question was, if a pencil is rotated a full turn, what is the minimum area it occupies? Wang and Zahl analyzed the problem assuming the pencil was in three-dimensional space, not on a flat surface. Their research was published last year. Talking to AFP, Wang said, 'The reason this conjecture has attracted so many people is that similar phenomena occur naturally not only in mathematics but also in many different scientific fields.'

• Solution to another century-old problem

37-year-old Yu Deng, a mathematics professor at the University of Chicago in the United States, was honored for solving another historical mathematical problem. The question, posed by German mathematician David Hilbert in 1900 (later famous as 'Hilbert's Sixth Problem'), explored how the behavior of a system could be explained based on the motion of its microscopic particles. Deng presented the solution by studying the behavior of gases. He said, 'It is a great honor for me to have my name included in the list of great mathematicians whom I have always admired.' Hong Wang has made significant contributions to harmonic analysis, the mathematical study of the motion and behavior of waves.

• What is the Fields Medal?

The Fields Medal is awarded every four years to outstanding mathematicians under the age of 40. It is considered the most prestigious international honor in the field of mathematics.

• Born in China, Higher Education Abroad

Born in 1991 in the tourist city of Guilin in China's southern Guangxi region, Hong Wang skipped two grades in primary school. She enrolled in China's prestigious Peking University at the age of 16 in 2007. Initially, she studied earth sciences but transferred to the mathematics department after a year. After graduating, she studied at Paris-Sud University and École Polytechnique in France and completed her doctorate (PhD) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States. She is currently a permanent professor at New York University in the United States and the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques (IHÉS) in France. After receiving the medal, French President Emmanuel Macron called her to congratulate her. Macron wrote on social media X, 'She is a symbol of our research and higher education excellence. Choose France for science.' Yu Deng, on the other hand, began participating in mathematics competitions from primary school. He also enrolled at Peking University in 2007 but transferred to MIT in 2009. After completing his doctorate at Princeton University, he has been teaching at the University of Chicago since 2024.

BBC