Plus.Maths.org
fields medal
Martin Grötschel, Secretary of the International Mathematical Union, about maths at school, integrating developing nations, and his dream of putting all maths that's ever been produced online.
Manjul Bhargava is being honoured as a number theorist of "extraordinary creativity," with "a taste for simple problems of timeless beauty."
Artur Avila is being honoured for "formidable technical power, the ingenuity and tenacity of a master problem-solver, and an unerring sense for deep and
significant questions."
Martin Hairer's is being honoured for a major breakthrough that gives a way of attacking problems that had previously been impenetrable.
Maryam Mirzakhani is being honoured for her "rare combination of superb technical ability, bold ambition, far-reaching vision, and deep curiosity".
What's the point of the Fields Medal and other maths prizes? Who decides who gets one? And when will we have the first female medallist? Rachel talks to László Lovász, current president of the International Mathematical Union (IMU), Martin Grötschel, the IMU's secretary, and Ragni Piene, the new chair of the Abel Prize committee about all this and more.
We were lucky enough to interview Stas Smirnov at the ICM in Hyderabad, India. As well as being very pleased at winning the Fields Medal and being recognised by his colleagues, Stas reminded us that mathematicians don't do research to win medals. They do it because of curiosity and he personally can't wait to get back to his theorems.
Here's the full and uncut version of our interview with Fields Medallist Cédric Villani. We'll publish a slightly more polished version when we get the time, with more explanations, but thought you'd like the chance to listen to the whole thing.
What would you think if the nice café latte in your cup suddenly separated itself out into one half containing just milk and the other containing just coffee? Probably that you, or the world, have just gone crazy. There is, perhaps, a theoretical chance that after stirring the coffee all the swirling atoms in your cup just happen to find themselves in the right place for this to occur, but this chance is astronomically small.
The work of Fields Medallist Stanislav Smirnov will take mathematics and physics into a new phase with his mathematical proof of the understanding of phase transitions.