Ukrainian Mathematician Becomes Second Woman To Receive Prestigious Fields Medal

Maryna Viazovska (Lehtikuva via AP) was awarded for her work in sphere packing -- a problem first posed by German astronomer and mathematician Johannes Kepler nearly 400 years ago.

Four mathematicians have been awarded prestigious Fields medals, including Ukrainian Maryna Viazovska, the International Mathematical Union jury said on July 5.

Viazovska is only the second woman to win the prize, considered the equivalent of a Nobel Prize for mathematics.

She accepted the award at a ceremony in Helsinki as war raged in her home country.

The other winners were French mathematician Hugo Duminil-Copin of the University of Geneva; Korean-American mathematician June Huh of Princeton; and British mathematician James Maynard of the University of Oxford.

The Fields Medal is awarded every four years to mathematicians under 40.

Maryam Mirzakhani , an Iranian-born professor at Stanford University, was the first woman to receive the prize for her work in 2014. She died of breast cancer in 2017.

Viazovska has been a professor at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland since 2017.


Maryna Viazovska (left)

She was awarded for her work in sphere packing -- a problem first posed by German astronomer and mathematician Johannes Kepler nearly 400 years ago.

The International Congress of Mathematicians, where the prize is awarded, was initially scheduled to be held in the Russian city of St. Petersburg -- and opened by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Earlier this year, hundreds of mathematicians signed an open letter protesting the choice of the host city. After Moscow invaded Ukraine in late February, the event was moved to the Finnish capital.

With reporting by AFP, AP and The New York Times

British mathematician awarded prestigious Fields Medal

James Maynard (Lehtikuva via AP)

TUE, 05 JUL, 2022 -
AP REPORTERS

British academic James Maynard and Ukrainian expert Maryna Viazovska have been named as two of the four recipients of the prestigious Fields Medal – often described as the Nobel Prize in mathematics.

The International Mathematical Union said Ms Viazovska, who holds the chair in number theory at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne, was honoured for her work on the densest packing of identical spheres in eight dimensions.

Alongside the University of Oxford’s Mr Maynard, who is an expert in analytic number theory, with a particular focus on prime numbers, the other winners were French mathematician Hugo Duminil-Copin of the University of Geneva and Korean-American mathematician June Huh of Princeton.

The Fields Medal is awarded every four years to mathematicians under the age of 40.


Maryna Vjazovska, James Maynard, June Huh and Hugo Duminil-Copin (Lehtikuva via AP)

The recipients are normally announced at the International Congress of Mathematicians, which was originally due to be held in Russia this year but was moved to Helsinki instead.

The president of the International Mathematical Union, Carlos E Kenig, said: “The ongoing barbaric war that Russia still continues to wage against Ukraine clearly shows that no other alternative was feasible.”