Chinese Mathematicians Win Fields Medal for Solving Century-Old Problems

Chinese mathematicians Hong Wang and Yu Deng have become the first citizens of China to receive the Fields Medal, often described as the Nobel Prize of mathematics. Their awards were granted for solving mathematical problems that have remained unanswered for over a century.

Hong Wang, affiliated with New York University and the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques (IHES) in France, earned the accolade by cracking a problem first posed by Japanese mathematician Soichi Kakeya in 1917. The Kakeya conjecture asks for the smallest possible area needed to rotate a pencil through 360 degrees. In a study published last year, Wang and fellow researcher Josh Zahl demonstrated the solution for a pencil floating in three-dimensional space, rather than on a flat surface.

Yu Deng of the University of Chicago solved a challenge set by German mathematician David Hilbert in 1900. Known as Hilbert’s Sixth Problem, it questions whether the overall behaviour of a system can be calculated from the movement of its individual particles. Deng resolved this by observing the behaviour of gases. He expressed deep honour at having his name listed alongside the great mathematicians he admires.

The achievements were met with widespread celebration across China, with related hashtags garnering millions of views on platforms such as Weibo and Redmine. Shing-Tung Yau, the first ethnic Chinese Fields Medal winner, commented that the success was a dream the Chinese mathematical community had hoped to realise for decades. The Fields Medal is awarded every four years by the International Mathematical Union to researchers under the age of 40.