Ukrainian Mathematician Receives Fields Medal For Solving 400-Year-Old Puzzle

Ukrainian mathematician, Maryna Viazovska, has become only the second woman to receive the prestigious Fields Medal.

Often regarded as the Nobel Prize for mathematics, she won for her work on a 400-year-old puzzle about sphere packing.

The 37-year-old professor received the award alongside three other winners at a ceremony in Helsinki.

“I feel sad that I’m only the second woman,” she said.

“But why is that? I don’t know. I hope it will change in the future.”

The other Fields medal winners were France’s Hugo Duminil-Copin of the University of Geneva, Britain’s James Maynard of Oxford University, and June Huh of Princeton in the United States.

The medal is awarded every four years to outstanding mathematicians under the age of 40.

After winning the award, Professor Viazovsk paid tribute to those suffering in her war-torn country, saying “my life changed forever” when Russia invaded Ukraine in February.

Her parents and sisters were living in the capital, Kyiv, when Russian troops entered the country.

“When the war started I could not think about anything else, including mathematics,” she said in a video shown at the ceremony.

Her family were evacuated from Kyiv and are now staying with her in Switzerland, where she works at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne.

“Right now Ukrainians are really paying the highest price for our beliefs and our freedom,” she added.

The only previous female recipient of the Fields medal in its 86 year history was Iranian mathematician Maryam Mirzakhani, in 2014.