The mathematician Maryna Viazovska has been awarded the prestigious Fields Medal 2022. Viazovska is the second woman to receive the award in almost 90 years. The medal is the most prestigious award in mathematics – comparable to the Nobel Prize. In addition to the 37-year-old Ukrainian, three other mathematicians were honored.
According to the International Mathematical Union (IMU), Viazovska has solved a “very old problem in mathematics”. In this way she found the “closest packing of identical spheres in a certain dimension” and thus solved the problem of sphere packing.
The 37-year-old mathematician has also done research in Berlin, for example at Humboldt University. At the age of twelve, today’s award winner began taking part in mathematics Olympiads at school. “Then I realized that I wanted to be a mathematician,” says Viazovska in an interview with the IMU. And that desire continues to this day.
Nor can she be broken by the Russian war of aggression against her homeland. However, the strong feelings that the war had triggered in her did not allow her to reconcile with mathematics at first – she could no longer do anything. But now she knows that something has to be done. And that the price comes with a certain responsibility.
