Quantcast
ZME Science
  • News
  • Environment
  • Health
  • Future
  • Space
  • Features
  • More
    • About
    • The Team
    • Advertise
    • Contribute
    • Our stance on climate change
    • Privacy Policy
    • Contact
No Result
View All Result
ZME Science

No Result
View All Result
ZME Science
No Result
View All Result
Home Science Mathematics

Iranian is the first woman to win prestigious math award

Henry Conrad by Henry Conrad
August 13, 2014
in Mathematics, News
Reading Time: 2 mins read
A A
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterSubmit to Reddit

Maryam Mirzakhani, who was born and raised in Iran, has been awarded the highest honour a mathematician can attain: the Fields Medal.

It’s one of those moments which will go down in history – for the first time in almos 80 years, a woman has won the Fields Medal (officially known as the International Medal for Outstanding Discoveries in Mathematics). Maryam Mirzakhani, an Iranian maths professor at Stanford University in California was rumoured to be among the favorites for quite a while, due to her groundbreaking studies, which seem downright esoterical to less mathematical minds.

ADVERTISEMENT

Born and raised in Iran, Mirzakhani completed a PhD at Harvard in 2004, even though her childhood passion was literature.

Sorry to interrupt, but you should really...

...Join the ZME newsletter for amazing science news, features, and exclusive scoops. More than 40,000 subscribers can't be wrong.

   

“I dreamed of becoming a writer,” she said in an interview for the Clay Mathematics Institute (CMI) in 2008. “I never thought I would pursue mathematics before my last year in high school.”

Nowadays, she works on geometric structures on surfaces and their deformations. She has a particular interest in hyperbolic planes, which can look like the edges of curly kale leaves. As a matter of fact, hyperbolic planes are so strange that they may be easier to crochet than explain. Mirzakhani says that while advanced math is not for everybody, most students don’t give math enough chances. Frances Kirwan at Oxford University, one of Britain’s leading mathematicians, said:

“Maths is a hugely rewarding subject, but sadly many children lose confidence very early and never reap those rewards. It has traditionally been regarded as a male preserve, though women are known to have contributed to its development for centuries – more than 16 centuries if we go back to Hypatia of Alexandria.

This may also motivate more female students to dive even deeper into research and academic careers.

ADVERTISEMENT

“In recent years around 40% of UK undergraduates studying maths have been women, but that proportion declines very rapidly when we look at the numbers progressing to PhDs and beyond. I hope that this award will inspire lots more girls and young women, in this country and around the world, to believe in their own abilities and aim to be the Fields medallists of the future.”

Tags: fields medalMathematicsStanford University
ShareTweetShare
Henry Conrad

Henry Conrad

Henry Conrad is an avid technology and science enthusiast living in Albuquerque, New Mexico with his four dogs. Aside from being a science geek and playing online games, he also writes poems and inspirational articles and short stories just to dabble on his creative side.

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
  • News
  • Environment
  • Health
  • Future
  • Space
  • Features
  • More

© 2007-2019 ZME Science - Not exactly rocket science. All Rights Reserved.

No Result
View All Result
  • News
  • Environment
  • Health
  • Future
  • Space
  • Features
  • More
    • About
    • The Team
    • Advertise
    • Contribute
    • Our stance on climate change
    • Privacy Policy
    • Contact

© 2007-2019 ZME Science - Not exactly rocket science. All Rights Reserved.