Indian-origin mathematician Manjul Bhargava wins Fields Medal
Dear Reader, Manjul Bhargava, a Canadian mathematician of Indian origin, has been awarded the prestigious 2014 Fields Medal at the International Mathematical Union’s (IMU) International Congress of Mathematicians held in Seoul. Bhargava, 40, is the first person of Indian origin to receive the prestigious medal, which has been awarded since 1936 and recognizes outstanding mathematical achievement for existing work and the “promise of future achievement”. Known to colleagues as a gifted mathematician who would devise new and simple methods to prove centuries-old theorems in number theory, Bhargava’s work has been described by IMU as based both on a deep understanding of the representations of arithmetic groups and a unique blend of algebraic and analytic expertise. Bhargava was awarded the medal “for developing powerful new methods in geometry of numbers, which he applied to count rings of small rank and to bound the average rank of elliptic curves”, IMU said. One of Bhargava’s mo...