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Fields Medals awarded

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the hemos-medal-still-in-the-offing dept.

prostoalex writes "Every four years the Fields Medals are awarded to top mathematicians for outstanding research. This year's winners, as this San Francisco Chronicle article reports are Vladimir Voevodsky from Institute for Advanced Study and Laurent Lafforgue from Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques. 'True to form, Lafforgue and Voevodsky's mathematical research has no known practical applications', notes SF Chronicle."

6 of 132 comments (clear)

  1. Madhu Sudan's homepage by jukal · · Score: 5, Informative

    the "error-correcting-guy" has his homepage here, his papers are here. Really interesting stuff. But what can you expect from a guy whose hairstyle has similarities to Einstein's :)

  2. here's a link with ACTUAL INFORMATION by khuber · · Score: 5, Informative
    That SFC article is crap.

    fields 2002

    -Kevin

  3. No practical applications? by jfedor · · Score: 5, Informative

    Yeah, that's what G. H. Hardy said about number theory back in 1940 (in A Mathematician's Apology). :)

    -jfedor

  4. Arrrgh by platypus · · Score: 5, Informative

    As a (former) mathematician, I sometimes wish people wouldn't try to explain mathematical things in laymans terms:

    "His study is related to topology, the mathematical science of shapes. Among other things, topologists study how one shape can be changed into another shape -- say, a doughnut into a coffee cup -- without removing the one feature they have in common -- the hole in the doughnut and the hole in the cup's handle"

    First, this sounds soo cheesy, and second, this is _not_ what topology is about (the "how" doesn't normally matter, the question is "if").
    I can see people imagining mathematicians sitting in the offices with a big pile of knead and trying to form proper coffee cup handles out of doughnuts.

    1. Re:Arrrgh by mill · · Score: 5, Funny

      Turning a doughnut into a coffee cup and vice versa would have serious practical applications for our people in law enforcement though. /mill

  5. No Practical Applications? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny
    Dammit, I'm sick of the Langlands Program getting dumped on in the media. A man proves global correspondence for function fields and all the media can say are there are 'no practical applications'!

    Yeah sure, maybe today, it's the topology and set theory guys who get all the chicks and who get invited to the Oscars and stuff, but just you wait, two-three years, it's going to be ALL ABOUT the Langlands Program!

    On the other hand, take cohomology theory for algebraic varieties: that shit's just weird.