Mathematician’s award adds up to world headlines

Chau’s name is in lights as he receives global recognition for his award

Professor Ngo Bao Chau was last week conferred the 2010 Fields Medal, which is comparable to the Nobel prize for mathematics, at the 26th International Congress of Mathematicians in the Indian city of Hyderabad.

Chau’s award followed his proof of a 30-year-old mathematical conundrum known as the Fundamental Lemma.

The evidence offered a key stepping stone to establishing and exploring a revolutionary theory put forward in 1979 by Canadian-American mathematician Robert Langlands that connected two branches of mathematics called number theory and group theory, AP said.

The Fields medal for Chau, who was born in November 1972, the high time of American bombing in Northern Vietnam, has cemented “a journey that has taken him from war-torn Hanoi to the pages of Time magazine” as AP put it.

The Fields prize was established by Canadian mathematician John Charles Fields and has been given to only 48 mathematicians. Awarded every four years, it is traditionally announced and given away at the International Congress of Mathematicians to mathematicians under the age of 40.

Chau’s award has equipped Vietnam with a great honour, making it the second country in Asia after Japan to have a citizen awarded the medal.

President Nguyen Minh Triet, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and French Prime Minister François Fillon also sent messages to congratulate the 38 year old.

Chau, the youngest professor in Vietnam, majored in mathematics at Hanoi University of Natural Sciences’ mathematics, information oriented high school.

He was the first Vietnamese to win two gold medals at the International Mathematical Olympiad in Australia in 1988 and at the International Mathematical Olympiad in Germany in 1989.

After high school education, he studied at the Université de Paris VI and then completed his doctorate degree in the Université de Paris XI in 1997.

Chau was awarded the Clay research award in 2004 and Sophie Germain prize and the Oberwolfach prize in 2007.

In 2009, his evidence proving the Langlands fundamental lemma was selected by Time Magazine as one of the 10 most prominent scientific discoveries of 2009.

He is a professor at the science faculty at Orsay University and a member of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton in the US.