Fields Medal 2026: Wang, Deng, Pardon, Tsimerman win
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- Fields Medal 2026 winners are Yu Deng (University of Chicago), John Pardon (Stony Brook University), Hong Wang (NYU), and Jacob Tsimerman (University of Toronto), announced at the International Congress of Mathematicians on 23 July in Philadelphia.
- Hong Wang solved the three-dimensional Kakeya conjecture — a 50-year-old problem about how much space a needle needs to point in every direction — and became only the third woman to win the medal in its nearly 90-year history.
- Yu Deng and collaborators derived the Boltzmann equation from a microscopic hard-sphere model, resolving a question posed by David Hilbert in 1900 and unifying microscopic particle motion with macroscopic gas behavior.
- John Pardon answered Mikhael Gromov's 1980s question on knots wrapped around toruses and proved the 20-year-old MNOP conjecture, which counts curves on geometrical shapes featured in string theory.
- Jacob Tsimerman introduced the logic-based tool 'o-minimality' into algebraic geometry and advanced the Hodge conjecture, one of seven Millennium Prize Problems carrying a $1 million reward.
- Pardon noted in a pre-recorded video that 'finding the solution was not proportional to the interest it's generated,' reflecting the medal's celebration of mathematical depth over immediate utility.
Why it matters: Hong Wang became only the third woman to win the Fields Medal in its nearly 90-year history. The winning work spans core physics and pure mathematics — from resolving Hilbert's 1900 question on gas dynamics to advancing the Hodge conjecture, one of seven Millennium Prize Problems worth $1 million each.
