MANJUL BHARGAVA awarded Fields Medal in mathematics

Discovery_2015_Manjul

PHOTO BY DENISE APPLEWHITE

Manjul Bhargava, the Brandon Fradd, Class of 1983, Professor of Mathematics, was awarded the 2014 Fields Medal, one of the most prestigious awards in mathematics, in recognition of his work in the geometry of numbers. The International Mathematical Union (IMU) presents the medal every four years to researchers under the age of 40 based on the influence of their existing work and on their “promise of future achievement.”

The honor, often referred to as the “Nobel Prize of mathematics,” was awarded to four researchers at the 2014 IMU International Congress of Mathematicians held in Seoul, South Korea. The prize committee commended Bhargava “for developing powerful new methods in the geometry of numbers, which he applied to count rings of small rank and to bound the average rank of elliptic curves.”

The IMU further wrote that his “work in number theory has had a profound influence on the field. A mathematician of extraordinary creativity, he has a taste for simple problems of timeless beauty, which he has solved by developing elegant and powerful new methods that offer deep insight. … He surely will bring more delights and surprises to mathematics in the years to come.”

–By Morgan Kelly

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