Two Chinese mathematicians win world’s top Math prize after solving century-old problems

In a historic milestone, two Chinese academics have won the world’s top prize in mathematics for the first time at the International Congress of Mathematicians.

The both former classmates-Chinese mathematicians Hong Wang and Yu Deng won the prize alongside John Pardon from the US and Jacob Tsimerman from Canada, each receiving 15,000 Canadian dollars.

Both won by overcoming challenges that have stumped mathematicians for more than a century. A 35-year-old Wang who teaches in the US and France is only the third woman to be awarded this distinction.

On Thursday, the Fields Medal regarded as the Nobel Prize of mathematics was formally presented in the US even as human cognitive processing faces growing competition from AI.

This achievement has made a splash on Chinese social media. According to the BBC, the hashtags “Field Medal” and “First Chinese mathematicians to win Fields Medals” garnered millions of cross-platform impressions from Weibo to Rednote.

The remarkable achievement has been extensively covered with articles providing a comprehensive review of their academic history and what their achievements mean for the country.

Shing-Tuang Yau, the first Chinese Fields medalist said: “For the Chinese mathematics community, this is a dream we have been hoping to realize for decades.”

Wang told AFP News: “If this conjecture fascinates people so much it is because this kind of phenomenon shows up naturally in problems from very different fields.”

The remarkable victory was achieved by Deng by analyzing the behavior of gases. According to him, “It is a really great honor to have my name listed after all those great mathematicians I have always admired.”

It is pertinent to mention here that the Fields Medal is given every four years to exceptional mathematicians under the age of 40.