By Hoang Son - The Saigon Times Daily
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| Vietnamese Professor Ngo Bao Chau of University Paris-Sud in Orsay, France receives the Fields Medal 2010 award from India's President Pratibha Patil (L) during the International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) award ceremony in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad on Thursday - Photo: Reuters |
HCMC – Professor Ngo Bao Chau on Thursday became the first Vietnamese to win a Fields Medal as the most honorable mathematics award is comparable to the Nobel prize in other fields.
The 38-year-old professor’s outstanding achievement makes Vietnam the second nation in Asia – the other one being Japan – to have won a Fields award in the decades-long history of the prize.
Chau, who will start working as a professor at the U.S.-based Chicago University from September 1, was among four mathematicians to win the top prize at the International Congress of Mathematicians 2010 kicking off in Hyderabad in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh on Thursday.
The other three are an Israeli, a Russian and a Frenchman.
The young professor, a native of Hanoi, rose to stardom after successfully solving the Fundamental Lemma for the Langlands program in 2008. His achievement was selected by Time magazine as one of the Top Ten Scientific Discoveries of 2009.
Chau’s success in formulating the proof for the general case of Langlands’ lemma heaps worldwide praise, and is widely recognized as the most outstanding achievement in modern mathematics.
Peter Sarnak, a mathematics professor and a number theorist at the School of Mathematics of the Institute for Advanced Study, has once rated Chau’s achievement as bridging a key gap in mathematics.
"It’s as if people were working on the far side of the river waiting for someone to throw this bridge across. And now, all of a sudden everyone’s work on the other side of the river has been proven,” Sarnak was quoted as saying on the University of Chicago’s newsletter.
Before proving the general case of the Fundamental Lemma, Chau has won many honorable prizes in mathematics. These include a Clay Research Award in 2004 by solving part of the fundamental lemma, and the Sophie Germain prize and the Oberwolfach prize in 2007.
Chau became the youngest professor in Vietnam when he was given the title by the Government in 2005. While a student in Hanoi, he won two consecutive Olympic gold medals in the International Mathematics Olympiad contests in Australia and Germany in 1988 and 1989.
He then went abroad to further his study at University Paris 6, and obtained a Ph.D. degree at age 25. He became professor at University Paris 11 in 2004. In his visit to his birthplace of Hanoi last month, Chau was invited by Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Thien Nhan to hold a position in Vietnam’s education.
The deputy prime minister on Tuesday also signed a decision approving the country’s focal mathematics development strategy until 2020, under which a mathematics institute will be established for top-notch professors to exchange experiences and knowledge in this science.