Indian origin mathematician, Venkatesh wins Field’s medal
Akshay Venkatesh, an Australian mathematician of Indian origin, was one of four winners of the Fields medal this year. Field’s medal is considered the equivalent of the Nobel prize in Mathematics. This year award was announced on 1st August, Wednesday. The other three winners were mathematicians Caucher Birkar, Peter Scholze and Alessio Figalli. Birkar is […]
Akshay Venkatesh, an Australian mathematician of Indian origin, was one of four winners of the Fields medal this year. Field’s medal is considered the equivalent of the Nobel prize in Mathematics.
This year award was announced on 1st August, Wednesday. The other three winners were mathematicians Caucher Birkar, Peter Scholze and Alessio Figalli. Birkar is a Cambridge University professor of Iranian origin, Scholze teaches at the University of Bonn in Germany, and Figalli is an Italian mathematician at ETH Zurich.
Each winner receives a cash prize of 15,000 Canadian dollars. The winners received the medal at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Venkatesh, 36, was born in Delhi and his family moved to Australia when he was only 2 years old. He is the second Australian to win the medal. He got the award for his use of dynamics theory, which studies the equations of moving objects to solve problems in number theory. He is at present teaching in Stanford university.
“A lot of the time when you do math, you’re stuck, but at the same time there are all these moments where you feel privileged that you get to work with it. You have this sensation of transcendence, you feel like you’ve been part of something really meaningful,” Venkatesh was quoted as saying.
