Great Country Academician

On July 25, the 29th International Congress of Mathematicians officially kicked off in St. Petersburg.

The soft and bright sunlight shines on the buildings, reflecting the grandeur of the Baroque style.

For this city with a relatively long history, it is quite attractive to be able to add some academic style to the atmosphere full of humanity.

In the Talon Imperial Hotel, people were coming and going.

Although the hall where the meeting was held could accommodate more than 3,000 people at the same time, it was still packed at the moment.

Although the organizers and the hotel have taken into account the large number of attendees of this conference and temporarily added more than 500 stools and chairs, they still cannot meet everyone's needs.

Many scholars who came to attend the conference chose to stand or sit in the aisles because they could not find seats.

No way, this time the International Congress of Mathematicians, because of the report on the Yang-Mills mass gap problem, welcomed not only mathematicians, but also many physicists who were interested in it.

For the International Mathematical Union IMU, this is a joyful thing.

It is definitely a pleasure to see mathematics expand into other fields and its influence expand step by step.

At 8:30 in the morning, the lecture hall was already full of people.

Having learned the lesson of being entangled by the crowd last time, Xu Chuan deliberately took his seat in advance this time.

Although many people still noticed him after arriving at the scene and took the initiative to come forward to communicate, but at last he was not surrounded and could not even get past his position.

"Wow, what a coincidence. I didn't expect our seats to be next to each other."

In the front row of the venue, Schulz glanced at the invitation in his hand, smiled and said hello to Xu Chuan, who was already seated.

Although most mathematicians who come to participate in the conference find a seat by themselves, the organizers will definitely choose to reserve seats in the front row.

Xu Chuan responded with a smile, his eyes falling on Professor G. Faltings who came with Schultz.

"Professor Faltings, long time no see."

Faltings said calmly: "It's only two or three months, it's not that long."

Hearing this, Xu Chuan was stunned for a moment, and realized that he was talking about the last report meeting on the solution of the Yang-Mills equation.

Indeed, it has only been two months since the report meeting held at the end of May.

Smiling, Xu Chuan said: "In my motherland, there is a saying that one day is like three autumns. Two or three months is already a long time."

Faltings didn't pay attention, and walked towards his seat after saying hello.

There, there are also older generation mathematicians such as Deligne, Fefferman, and Mori Shigefumi.

Although scholars like mathematicians often don't care about age, sometimes there is still a generation gap if the age difference is too big.

Just like Xu Chuan himself, compared to communicating with older generation mathematicians such as Fefferman and Qiu Chengtong, he can always feel more relaxed when hanging out with younger scholars such as Tao Zhexuan and Schultz.

"Speaking of which, Xu, who do you think will be the candidate for the Fields Medal this year?"

Around him, Schultz was a talkative person. After Faltings left, he quickly pulled him into a discussion.

Hearing this question, Xu Chuan thought for a moment and said: "Professor Xu Ji'er, who introduced the ideas of Hodge theory into combinatorics and proved the Strong-Messenne conjecture and the Heron-Rota-Welsh conjecture, should be able to win one."

"Professor Marina Vyazovska, who solved the E8 lattice providing the densest packing method of identical spheres in 8 dimensions, should be able to do the same."

"As for others, it depends on the decision of the council."

In fact, for him, he knows exactly who the winners of this Fields Medal are.

However, the reason why I only mentioned two is because I hope to leave some opportunities for my two students.

Although Gu Bing is unlikely, Amelia still has some chances as the main player in solving Bloch's conjecture.

However, considering her age, her chances may be greater in the next session.

After all, Amelia was about the same age as him, but he remembered that Amelia was a few months older than him and had already celebrated her twenty-sixth birthday in February this year.

In four more years, I will be almost thirty.

Thirty years old is more in line with the choice of the IMU Council.

But no matter what, Xu Chuan still hopes that Amelia can win the Fields Medal at this conference. After all, she is his student and his friend.

The time soon came to nine o'clock, and the conference kicked off with warm applause.

As in the process of previous conferences, the chairman of the organizing committee of the conference, Professor Marcelo Viana, first delivered an opening speech.

I also thanked the local organizations and sponsors of the conference, thanked the new and old friends who came to attend the conference, and announced the official opening of the 29th International Mathematics Congress.

Subsequently, the current President of the International Mathematical Union, Xi Keneng, delivered a speech and reviewed the development of the mathematics community in the past four years.

After the two principals finished their speeches, the opening ceremony of this mathematics conference entered the most exciting part - the announcement and awarding of the major awards of the International Mathematical Union!

Compared with the 28th Congress held in Brazil four years ago, this year’s Congress added the ‘Lilavati Award’ and the ‘Radzhinskaya Award’

Strictly speaking, the former is not a new addition. It already exists in South Asia. In this session, Infosys, a well-known Indian IT company, funded the Lilavati Award as a permanent award of IMU.

Its origin is an award established based on a mathematical paper called 'Leelavati' to reward the public popularization of mathematics and scholars who have made contributions in this field.

The latter is a new mathematical physics award this year, in order to commemorate the greatest female mathematical physicist Professor Radzhinskaya of Tsarist Russia (former Red Soviet Union) for her outstanding achievements in the important field of partial differential equations. Established for contribution.

In addition to the Fields Medal, Gauss Medal, Chen Shengshen Medal, and Abacus Medal, this year's International Congress of Mathematicians has a total of six awards.

These awards represent the highest honors in the field of mathematics. It can be said that if you win any one of them, the winner's mathematical career will be smooth in the rest of his life.

Especially the most important Fields Medal!

After all, whether it is compared with the Gauss Award, the Chen Shengshen Award, or the Wolf Award that is not included in the conference and other lifetime achievement awards, Phil, who can only participate in the award evaluation if he is under the age of 40, The MIT Prize can be said to be the most coveted award for countless talented mathematicians.

Because it is not only an award, but also represents that the winner has made great achievements before the age of forty and has made great contributions to the mathematics community.

Although awards are impressive, achievements are undoubtedly more attractive.

Especially for those talented mathematicians under the age of 40, winning the Fields Medal is not the end of their academic career, but a new beginning.

Of course, this important event, for the International Mathematical Union, is naturally reserved for last.

Standing on the reporting platform, Professor Xi Kenig, the current president of the International Mathematical Union, pushed up his glasses on the bridge of his nose and said with a smile: "I know you have been looking forward to it for a long time, so I won't waste it. It’s time.”

"Next, the awards for this International Congress of Mathematicians will be awarded!"

After a pause, he glanced at the speech in his hand, met the eyes of all the scholars in the room, and then said: "The first one to be awarded is the Gauss Prize!"

The moment the words fell, the lecture hall with thousands of people suddenly fell silent. You could hear a pin drop, and everyone couldn't help but hold their breath.

After looking around the entire venue, Professor Kenig's eyes fell on a figure in the front row for a second, and then he spoke slowly in a steady and solemn tone.

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