The Fields Medal winner who loves Go, anime

Two mathematicians, Deng Yu and Wang Hong, have become the first scholars with Chinese citizenship to win the Fields Medal, commonly referred to as the Nobel Prize equivalent in Mathematics.

The International Congress of Mathematicians recently announced the list of Fields Medal laureates. The prize is awarded every four years to two to four mathematicians under 40 in recognition of outstanding mathematical achievement.

Deng is a 37-year-old professor from the University of Chicago. According to East Week magazine, a sister publication of The Standard, Deng has buried himself in games, anime and music.

Both Deng and Wang are alumni of Peking University. Since the award's inauguration in 1936, only slightly more than 60 mathematicians worldwide have received this honor, with them receiving the awards causing their popularity to skyrocket. However, the spotlight was more on Deng, with many having been eager to know about his background.

The research that earned Deng the Fields Medal was his revelation on a problem posed by German mathematician David Hilbert while he was dining at a chicken shop, leading him to solve a century-old problem.

With ancestral roots in Henan, Deng was born into an academic powerhouse family in Shenzhen, and has been intrigued by books since the age of four or five. His mother, a doctor, kept a collection of medical books in her study, and Deng developed a keen interest in reading.

Meanwhile, his father is a computer engineer. During holiday hikes, Deng's father would turn geometric patterns and abstract mathematical concepts into fun puzzles, with the two walking and working out the answers together. This approach made Deng develop a habit of getting to the bottom of things.

Apart from ranking at the top of his class in mathematics, Deng is also a master in Go, or Weiqi – a strategy board game. By age nine or 10, Deng was already skilled in the game. He once participated in a tournament for it and almost stepped into the professional Go field.

Anime and music are also among many interests Deng possesses, including being a fan of the anime series Bloom Into You and a die-hard star fan of Chinese singer Zhang Liangying.

Also, it was only at age 16 that Deng represented China in the International Mathematical Olympiad, claiming gold.

Deng's family has succeeded academically through generations. Deng's mother was admitted to Sun Yat-sen University School of Medicine. His uncle Wang Wenhui's son was similarly admitted to the University of Science and Technology of China through a mathematics competition. Meanwhile, the child of Wang's younger sister was admitted to Peking University from a recommendation based on a gold medal in a computer science competition.

𝗗𝗼𝘄𝗻𝗹𝗼𝗮𝗱 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗮𝗿𝗱 𝗔𝗽𝗽 ↓