ICM

June Huh has been awarded a Fields Medal for work on combinatorics and algebraic geometry.

James Maynard has won a field medal for his work in number theory. He told us how he went from a fascination with numbers as a young child to making spectacular contributions to number theory.

To get us in the mood for next week's International Congress of Mathematicians, let's revisit the 2018 ICM that took place in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil!

Statistics can mislead, and who'd know this better than mathematicians? It's ironic, then, that mathematics itself has fallen victim to the seductive lure of crude numbers. Mathematicians' work is being measured, ranked and judged on the basis of a single measurement: the
number of times research papers are cited by others. And mathematicians are not happy about it.

Why do people become mathematicians? What's it like being one and what are the perks of a job in academia? We talk to young mathematicians at the International Congress of Mathematicians, as well as to established research mathematician Larry Guth to find out.

We talk to Brendan Mackay, who spoke at the ICM, about how he debunked the bible codes.

Simon Singh, the well-known physicist-turned science and maths communicator, has been awarded the Leelavati Prize for outstanding contributions to public outreach in mathematics by an individual.

Here are some pictures from the ICM 2010

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.