Chinese Mathematicians Win Prestigious Global Mathematics Award for the First Time

According to Chinese government media, two Chinese scholars have won the world’s most prestigious mathematics award for the first time. Chinese mathematicians Hong Wang and Yu Deng shared the award alongside John Pardon from the United States and Jacob Zimmerman from Canada. Each recipient received 15,000 Canadian dollars, approximately 10,500 US dollars. They solved a century-old mathematical problem that had long baffled mathematicians. Thirty-five-year-old Wang, who teaches in the US and France, is also the third woman ever to receive this honor.

While artificial intelligence (AI) is challenging human computation, the Fields Medal—considered the Nobel Prize of mathematics—was awarded last Thursday in the United States. This achievement sparked significant discussion across Chinese social media platforms. Hashtags like “Fields Medal” and “First Chinese Mathematician to Win Fields Medal” have generated millions of views across platforms ranging from Weibo to Reddit. “This is a source of pride for all Chinese people,” commented one user on Weibo.

Chinese media have extensively covered the two scientists, publishing stories about their academic backgrounds, personal interests, and their contributions to the country. “This is a long-cherished dream realized for the Chinese mathematics community,” said Shing-Tung Yau, the first Chinese Fields Medal winner. Wang, together with collaborator Josh Sallee, answered a question posed in 1917 by Japanese mathematician Soichi Kakeya: What is the smallest area that can cover a pencil rotated fully once? Their study was published last year.

Thirty-seven-year-old mathematics professor Yang from the University of Chicago was honored for solving the century-old problem raised by German mathematician David Hilbert in 1900, which later became known as ‘Hilbert’s Sixth Problem.’ The question focused on how to calculate the behavior of a whole object or system based on the motion of individual particles. Yang addressed this by studying the behavior of gases. He said, “Having my name placed among those great mathematicians is a tremendous honor.”