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The International Mathematics Union named professor Andrei Okounkov a winner of the Fields Medal this morning. The award, often described as mathematics' equivalent to the Nobel Prize, is given once every four years and is considered the discipline's highest honor.
Okounkon was praised "for his contributions bridging probability, representation theory and algebraic geometry" — different areas of mathematics that had seemed unrelated.
"The work of Andrei Okounkov has revealed profound new connections between different areas of mathematics and has brought new insights into problems arising in physics," the group said in a statement Tuesday morning. "Okounkov's ongoing research in this area represents a marvelous interplay of ideas from mathematics and physics."
The professor, who received a stipend of $13,400 with his medal, reacted to the news of the prize with a touch of humor. "I suppose we will have to exhibit exemplary behaviour from now on, because a lot of people will be watching," he told the BBC.
Okounkov, who came to Princeton in 2002 from the University of California at Berkeley, was born in Moscow in 1969. He received his doctorate in mathematics from Moscow State University in 1995.
"Andrei Okounkov has made brilliant contributions to many areas of mathematics," mathematics professor Joseph Kohn said of Okounkov at the time of his appointment. "This work is truly spectacular."
Other mathematicians awarded the medal today included the now famously reclusive Russian mathematician Grigori Perelman, who has solved a key piece of the century-old puzzle known as the Poincaré conjecture.
Perelman, who gave a lecture at Princeton in 2003 explaining his proof, declined to attend the IMU's ceremonies in Madrid to receive his medal, apparently becoming the first mathematician to refuse the prize.
Australian native Terence Tao, a professor at the University of California at Los Angeles, is at 31 one of the youngest medal winners ever. Weindlin Werner of the University of Paris-Sud was the fourth winner.
Founded at the behest of John Charles Fields, a Canadian mathematician, the Fields Medal recognizes "work already done and as an encouragement for further achievements on the part of the recipient."
The medal, given only to mathematicians under 40, was first awarded in 1936 and, after a pause during World War II, has been regularly awarded since 1950.
Previous Fields Medal prizewinners with Princeton affiliations include Atle Selberg (1950), Kunihiko Kodaira (1954), John Milnor (1962), Charles Fefferman (1978), William Thurston (1982) and Gerd Faltings (1986).
More to come.
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