Fields Medal

In News

• Four mathematicians were awarded prestigious Fields medals.

About Fields Medal

•  It is an honour that is often described as the Nobel Prize in mathematics.

• It is awarded every four years to one or more mathematicians under the age of 40 in recognition of “outstanding mathematical achievement for existing work and for the promise of future achievement”.
• History 
  • The Field Medals were first proposed at the 1924 International Congress of Mathematicians in Toronto, where a resolution was adopted stating that at each subsequent conference, two gold medals should be awarded to recognize outstanding mathematical achievement.
• Awardees
  • Among the more than 60 mathematicians who have been awarded the Fields Medal since 1936
  •  There are two of Indian origin — Akshay Venkatesh of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, who won in 2018, the last time the honour was announced, and Manjul Bhargava of the Department of Mathematics at Princeton University, in 2014.
• Features 
  • The honour carries a physical medal of 14K gold, 63.5 mm in diameter and weighing 169 g, and with a unit price of approximately 5,500 Canadian dollars.
    •  There is also a cash award of CAD 15,000.

Source:IE