Fields Medal 2022: two mathematicians in Switzerland among the honoured
This year, the International Mathematical Union awards the prestigious Fields Medal to four researchers, among them Maryna Viazosvska from EPFL and Hugo Duminil-Copin from the University of Geneva.
The Fields Medal is considered the highest honour for researchers in mathematics. It is awarded every four years to two to four researchers and comes with a prize money of over 11 thousand Swiss Francs. This year's recipients are: Hugo Duminil-Copin from the University of Geneva, June Huh from Princeton University, James Maynard from Oxford University and Maryna Viazovska from EPFL. Hugo Duminil-Copin is also a professor at the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques (IHES) near Paris, that SCNAT supports financially. The Fields Medal has thus been given to researchers in Switzerland six times since it was first awarded in 1936.
Maryna Viazovska receives the Fields Medal for her solution to the question of how to pack spheres in 8 and 24 dimensions as closely together as possible. This problem has occupied mathematicians for several hundred years.
Hugo Dominil-Copin receives the Fields Medal for his mathematical description of phase transitions, i.e. how the properties of matter change.