T.less eight years, Ukraine from Kiev, la mathematics Maryna Viazovska is the second woman in history to win the Fields medalthe world’s greatest recognition for mathematics, a kind of Nobel Prize for researchers under the age of forty.
Fields Medal to Maryna Viazovska from Ukraine
«I’m sorry to be only the second one, but I hope to be the first of a long seriesThe scientist told the New York Times as soon as she received the news.
Viazovska she graduated from the University of Kiev and then continued his studies at the Kaiserslautern Polytechnic. In 2013 he obtained his doctorate in Bonn. Then he moved first to the Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques, then to the Humboldt University of Berlin, and then to Princeton and from 2017 is in Lausanne.
The moment when Maryna Viazovska receives the Fields Award in Helsinki. (Getty Images)
The second woman of the award since 1936
Since 1936, the year of its establishment, the prize had only been won by one woman, the Iranian Maryam Mirzakhani in 2014. As they always say in these cases, here it is another historical step on the way to the recognition in the research, in this case mathematics, of the feminine value.
The Field Medal Why
The Fields Medal for the Ukrainian scientist was awarded to Viazovska for having given the solution to a historical problem that exists in mathematics that is called “packing the balls”And which has been debated for hundreds of years. In practice, Viazovska answered the question of the problem which asked how congruent spheres must be arranged in a given vessel in order for it to reach maximum density. The solution to the question? “You can find it in the supermarket, with oranges. The pyramid shape ».
Until now this problem had been solved up to the 3 dimensions, but the professor went much further, going into the 8 dimensions and then up to 24.
The controversy never fails
In any case, there was no lack of controversy on the part of who accused her of having received the medal only because she was Ukrainian.
But Viazovska, he replied, only explaining how in February his life and that of the people in your country has changed forever. Emphasizing how often beautiful things are taken for granted. Like peace, for example, “one of the things I’ve always taken for granted, clearly wrong,” says the math
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