Scientific Method —

The 2006 Fields Prizes

The results are in for the world's most prestigious mathematics prize, but not …

Massive profits and a guilty conscience led Alfred Nobel to create a number of annual prizes to be given out for the very best contributions to chemistry, literature, medicine or physiology, peace, and physics. If you don't fit into one of those categories, then sadly your chances of a trip to the Karolinska Institute are slim, but other disciplines have their awards too.

Mathematicians might not be able to claim SEK 10 million, but every four years the Fields Medals are awarded, along with a check for CAN$ 15,000. Four Fields Medals are awarded every four years, each to a mathematician under the age of forty, for an outstanding body of work. Well, it's been four years since the last awards, so it's time for a prize-giving. This crop of Fields Medals has not been without controversy, though. Only three of the winners have accepted their prize, the fourth, a Russian mathematician, has rejected his.

The three winners are Andrei Okounkov from Princeton, Terence Tao from UCLA, and Wendelin Werner from the University of Paris-Sud, France:

"It's quite an honour - very different to anything that's happened to me before. This prize is the highest in mathematics," Terence Tao told the BBC News website.

"Most prizes are specific to a single field, but this recognises achievement across the whole of mathematics."

Dr Tao received the award for a diverse body of work that amongst other things has shed light on the properties of prime numbers.

Fellow winner Wendelin Werner, whose work straddles the intersection between maths and physics, commented: "We are all around 40 years old - so still relatively young.

"It's a big honour but also quite a lot of pressure for the future."

Andrei Okounkov, who works on probability theory, commented: "I suppose we will have to exhibit exemplary behaviour from now on, because a lot of people will be watching."

The lone dissenter is Grigory Perelman, who recently solved the Poincare Conjecture, a problem that concerns multidimensional topology. Should his proof withstand scrutiny, Perelman would also win a prize, along with a check for $1 million, from the Clay Mathematics Institute, Mass.

It is thought that Perelman would also refuse this honor. Perelman's exact reasons for refusing the award is unknown, although he is known to dislike self-promotion. In a world where people queue up to Be a Millionaire, or live on a desert island for a large sum of cash, Mr Perelman's attitude is rather refreshing, if a little unsual.

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