58 DISCOVERMAGAZINE.COM
UNIVERSITY OF UTAHPrizes, Thievery and Higher-Dimensional Doughnuts
The biggest math heist in years
happened the morning of Aug. 1
in a Rio de Janeiro auditorium
packed with witnesses — none of
whom saw it happen.
The math world’s largest conference, the
International Congress of Mathematicians, occurs
every four years, and during the meeting, two to
four researchers under age 40 receive the Fields
Medal. It’s a big deal, like math’s Nobel Prize, only
with less money.
One of this year’s four winners, Cambridge
University’s Caucher Birkar, was recognized for
his pioneering work in an abstract subfield called
algebraic geometry. But less than half an hour after
receiving the solid gold medal, he discovered it was
missing, along with his briefcase, wallet and cellphone. Birkar soon received a replacement medal,
making him the first mathematician to receive two
Fields Medals in the same year.
Christopher Hacon was in the room where it
happened. A few years ago, the University of
Utah mathematician and Birkar co-authored
one of the most important papers in the field
of algebraic geometry, cited in Birkar’s award.
It spoke to how they could classify complicated
polynomial equations — the kind with multiple
terms with a range of variables and exponents,
such as x^2 + y^2 + z^2 = 1.
As one of two recipients of 2018’s Breakthrough
Prize in Mathematics, Hacon also had an award-
winning year. Discover talked with him about the
year in math, what it’s like to win big and the
future of “the queen of the sciences.”MATH
Mathematical collaborations yield breakthroughs. BY STEPHEN ORNES
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Christopher Hacon