Chinese win world's top Maths prize for first time

Key Points:

• Chinese mathematicians Hong Wang and Yu Deng have won the prestigious Fields Medal, marking the first time Chinese academics have received this top mathematics prize, alongside winners John Pardon (US) and Jacon Tsimerman (Canada).
• Wang, the third woman ever to win the Fields Medal, solved a century-old problem related to the minimal area swept by a rotating pencil in three-dimensional space, a question originally posed by Soichi Kakeya in 1917.
• Deng was recognized for his work addressing Hilbert's Sixth Problem, which concerns calculating the behavior of a whole system based on the movement of individual particles, a challenge posed over a century ago by David Hilbert.
• The Fields Medal, awarded every four years to mathematicians under 40, has generated significant social media attention in China and extensive coverage highlighting the winners' backgrounds and the significance of their achievements for the Chinese mathematics community.
• Wang, born in Guilin, China, and currently a professor at New York University and France's IHES, received personal congratulations from French President Emmanuel Macron, who praised her as a symbol of scientific excellence and research collaboration between France and China.