Congratulations to Terence Tao, Grigori Perelman, Andrei Okounkov and Wendelin Werner for their richly deserved Fields medals.
See info here
http://www.icm2006.org/press/releases/
Terence Tao and Perelman are more or less allstars in their respective fields (the latter turned the Fields medal down) for their combined mathematical contributions. Perelman for instance sketched the proof of the Poincare Conjecture and ultimately led to its resolution.
Okounkov works in representation theory and combinatorics and has a lot of material that is readily useable by physicists (much of it has to do with String theory). Similarly, Werner (who's great friends with my best friend) also has a lot to do with string theory, more particularly conformal field theory and statistical mechanics.
Perelmans story is the most intriguing of course for the press. The fact that he turned the million dollar prize down and worked 7 years in near isolation, despite the truism that he lives with his mother on her pension is amusing. Otoh it wouldn't be the first time a pure mathematician is slightly off his/her rocker.
See info here
http://www.icm2006.org/press/releases/
Terence Tao and Perelman are more or less allstars in their respective fields (the latter turned the Fields medal down) for their combined mathematical contributions. Perelman for instance sketched the proof of the Poincare Conjecture and ultimately led to its resolution.
Okounkov works in representation theory and combinatorics and has a lot of material that is readily useable by physicists (much of it has to do with String theory). Similarly, Werner (who's great friends with my best friend) also has a lot to do with string theory, more particularly conformal field theory and statistical mechanics.
Perelmans story is the most intriguing of course for the press. The fact that he turned the million dollar prize down and worked 7 years in near isolation, despite the truism that he lives with his mother on her pension is amusing. Otoh it wouldn't be the first time a pure mathematician is slightly off his/her rocker.