Two Chinese, an American and a Canadian received the Fields Medal, one of the most prestigious international awards in mathematics, on Thursday in Philadelphia.
Awarded every four years in a different city, this distinction is considered the equivalent of a “Nobel in mathematics”.
Awarded by the International Mathematical Union, the Fields Medal consists of a gold medallion bearing the face of Archimedes and a reward of 15,000 Canadian dollars.
It celebrates the “exceptional discoveries” of researchers under 40, including a new woman on Thursday, Hong Wang.
At 35, this Chinese mathematician who teaches in France at the Institute of Advanced Scientific Studies (IHES) and in the United States at New York University NYU becomes the third woman crowned since the creation of the prize in 1936, the discipline still remaining largely dominated by men.
Succeeding Iranian mathematicians Maryam Mirzakhani (2014) and Ukrainian mathematician Maryna Viazovska (2022), Hong Wang is honored for her work which notably made it possible to resolve a mathematical enigma more than a century old last year.
Apparently simple, this problem presented by the Japanese mathematician Soichi Kakeya consisted of determining the smallest surface within which it is possible to turn a needle, but turned out to have numerous ramifications, exhausting many researchers.
Another of his compatriots, Yu Deng, who teaches at the American University of Chicago, also received the Fields medal this year, confirming China’s rise in recent decades in the field of mathematics.
AI turning point
The United States, which holds the record for winners, is not left out, the American John Pardon, also aged 37, also being crowned on Thursday.
Canadian Jacob Tsimerman, 38, completes the quartet.
This specialist in complex algebraic geometry and analytical number theory returned in a video to the origins of his passion for mathematical problems.
According to him, it all started with a “little riddle” asked in his childhood by his grandfather.
“If you have a toaster, but it is broken, so that the two slots only toast one side of the bread, and you have three slices of bread that you want to toast completely on both sides, how many times should you use it? “, he said, confiding his amazement at discovering the answer.
The presentation of the Fields medals took place during the opening ceremony of the International Congress of Mathematicians, which is being held this year in a particular context for the discipline, increasingly shaken up by advances in artificial intelligence (AI).
In recent months, certain AI models have shown themselves capable of performing high-level mathematical demonstrations, impressing several experts.
Promising feats, but which present risks, warned a group of mathematicians in June.
In a text called the “Leiden Declaration”, the latter listed “serious ethical concerns”, but also scientific concerns linked to this technology capable of “generating plausible, but unreliable (or even erroneous) reasoning” and called for the establishment of a framework and safeguards.
