Chinese Mathematicians Awarded Fields Medal for Solving Century-Old Problems

Two Chinese mathematicians, Hong Wang and Yu Deng, have been awarded the prestigious Fields Medal for their work in solving long-standing mathematical problems. They share the award with John Pardon from the US and Jacon Tsimerman from Canada. The prize, often considered the Nobel equivalent in mathematics, was presented in the US.

Wang, 35, who teaches in both the US and France, is the third woman to receive the honor. She and her colleague Josh Zahl addressed a question posed in 1917 by Japanese mathematician Soichi Kakeya regarding the smallest area swept by a rotating pencil in three-dimensional space. Their findings, published last year, analyzed the problem with the pencil floating in 3D space, a departure from previous considerations of flat surfaces.

Deng, a 37-year-old professor at the University of Chicago, was recognized for his contributions to solving Hilbert's Sixth Problem, a challenge laid out by German mathematician David Hilbert in 1900. This problem seeks to understand how the behavior of a whole system can be predicted from the movements of its individual particles. Deng's work specifically focused on the behavior of gases to address this complex question.

The achievement has garnered significant attention on Chinese social media, with hashtags related to the Fields Medal and the mathematicians' success generating millions of views. Chinese media outlets have provided extensive coverage, detailing the academics' backgrounds and the significance of their accomplishment for the nation's mathematical community.

Shing-Tung Yau, the first ethnic Chinese recipient of the Fields Medal, described the achievement as fulfilling a decades-long dream for the Chinese mathematics community. The Fields Medal is awarded every four years to mathematicians under the age of 40 for outstanding contributions. Wang's research areas include harmonic analysis, the study of wave propagation.