The Fields Medal, awarded every four years by the International Mathematical Union (Source: Stefan Zachow) © ANSA / Ansa
One of the 4 Fields medals awarded to Ukrainian mathematician Maryna Viazovska from the Polytechnic University of Lausanne the world’s largest recognition for mathematics, similar to the Nobel Prize. Viazovska is the second woman to win the coveted prize, awarded every 4 years since 1936 and awarded by the International Mathematical Union, with her also being recognized by Hugo Duminil-Copin of the University of Geneva, James Maynard of the University of Oxford and June Huh from Princeton.
The 38-year-old Ukrainian mathematician Viazovska was honored in particular for her important work on the so-called “sphere packing problem”, d wants to put a series of round objects in a box.
“However, a problem that is solved with 8-dimensional spheres and that also has important implications in cryptography,” explained Roberto Natalini, Roberto Natalini, Director of the “M. Picone” Institute for Computational Applications of the National Research Council (Iac Cnr) and Coordinator of the math dissemination website “MaddMaths!”. “Very important contributions – continued Natalini – which had led to Viazovska winning many other awards. It would have been incredible if he hadn’t also won the Fields Medal.”
Unlike other years, the Fields2022 medals were not awarded during the International Mathematics Congress starting tomorrow, but at a special event in Helsinki, Finland. “The congress was supposed to be held in St. Petersburg, but then it was decided to hold it online for the first time. A very big political decision because of the war,” commented Natalini.
The other winners were Frenchman Duminil-Copin for studies in the field of probabilities and properties of complex networks, Korean Huh, a combinatorics expert who only became interested in mathematics during his student days, and finally Maynard for his important work in demonstration the conjecture of twin primes, the mathematical “pairs” that became known to the general public thanks to Paolo Giordano’s successful novel “The Solitude of the Primes”.
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