SEOUL (AFP) – An Iranian-born
mathematician has become the first woman to
win a prestigious Fields Medal, widely viewed
as the Nobel Prize of mathematics.
Maryam Mirzakhani, a Harvard-educated
mathematician and professor at Stanford
University in California, was one of four
winners announced by the International
Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) at its
conference in Seoul on Wednesday.
“This is a great honour. I will be happy if it
encourages young female scientists and
mathematicians,” Mirzakhani said in a press
release from Stanford University where she is a
professor.
“I am sure there will be many more women
winning this kind of award in coming years,”
she added.
The award recognised Mirzakhani’s
sophisticated and highly original contributions
to the fields of geometry and dynamical
systems, particularly in understanding the
symmetry of curved surfaces such as spheres.
Although her work is considered “pure
mathematics” and is mostly theoretical, it has
implications for physics and quantum field
theory, as well as for the study of prime
numbers and cryptography.
“Fluent in a remarkably diverse range of
mathematical techniques and disparate
mathematical cultures, she embodies a rare
combination of superb technical ability, bold
ambition, far-reaching vision, and deep
curiosity,” the ICM said in a statement.
Mirzakhani was born in Tehran in 1977 and
earned her PhD in 2004 from Harvard
University.
She has previously won the 2009 Blumenthal
Award for the Advancement of Research in
Pure Mathematics and the 2013 Satter Prize
of the American Mathematical Society.
The Fields Medal is given out every four years,
often to multiple winners who should not be
aged over 40.
The other three winners this year were Artur
Avila of France, Manjul Bhargava of Princeton
University in New Jersey, and Martin Hairer of
the University of Warwick in Britain.
With no Nobel prize awarded for mathematics,
the Fields Medal is seen as the top global
award for the discipline.
The medals were presented by South Korea’s
first woman president, Park Geun-Hye.
“I congratulate all the winners, with special
applause for Maryam Mirzakhani, whose drive
and passion have made her the first woman to
win a Fields Medal,” Park said.
Before Wednesday’s ceremony all 52 previous
recipients had been men.
Born and raised in Tehran, Mirzakhani initially
dreamed of becoming a writer, but by the time
she started high school her affinity for solving
mathematical problems and working on proofs
had shifted her sights.
“It is fun — it’s like solving a puzzle or
connecting the dots in a detective case,” she
said. “I felt that this was something I could
do, and I wanted to pursue this path.”
Although it usually involves abstract concepts
of nature that might not have an immediately
obvious application, Mirzakhani said she
enjoyed pure mathematics because of the
elegance and longevity of the questions she
studies.
“It is like being lost in a jungle and trying to
use all the knowledge that you can gather to
come up with some new tricks, and with some
luck you might find a way out,” she said.
Mirzakhani became known on the
international mathematics scene as a
teenager, winning gold medals at both the
1994 and 1995 International Math Olympiads
— finishing with a perfect score in the latter
competition.
In 2008 she became a professor of
mathematics at Stanford, where she lives with
her husband and three-year-old daughter.
“On behalf of the entire Stanford community, I
congratulate Maryam on this incredible
recognition, the highest honour in her
discipline, the first ever granted to a woman,”
said university president John Hennessy.

http://www.vanguardngr.com/2014/08/iranian-first-woman-win-nobel-prize-maths/

great news....

don't mind marrying a mathematician


check out her pix. below

more pics