2010 Fields Medals Awarded. (August 28, 2010)

Awarded quadrennially the four Fields Medals for 2010 were awarded at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Hyderabad, India on August 19^th.

While often compared to the Nobel Prizes, the awarding on average of one Fields Medal per annum for work done by the individual while still under the age of 40 suggests to many that it holds greater prestige.

This year the medals went to:

Elon Lindenstrauss:  of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, was honoured for his work on ergodic theory, which looks at dynamical systems.
     (and read Julie Rehmeyer’s  summary as well as mathematician Harry Furstenberg's laudation).

Ngô Bảo Châu: of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, for his proof of the long standing Fundamental Lemma, of the theories of Robert Langlands.
     (Rehmeyer’s summary, James Arthur's laudation).

Stanislav Smirnov: of the Université de Genève in Switzerland,  for his work on scaling limits in lattice models in statistical physics.
     (Rehmeyer’s summary, Harry Kesten's laudation).

Cédric Villani:  for his work on the Boltzmann equation, which applies probability to the motion of molecules.
     (Rehmeyer’s summary, Horng-Tzer Yau's laudation).