11/09/2020

Mathematician Martin Hairer receives 'Oscar of Science'

Foto: Imperial College London

Austrian-British researcher Martin Hairer won the $3 million Breakthrough Prize 2021 in the "Mathematics" category. With the most generous remuneration in academia, the award is considered the "Oscar of Science" and rivals the Nobel Prize in terms of admiration and prestige. "I was surprised, but obviously very honored. I am very happy if I can inspire some people to study mathematics or just understand a little better what mathematics is all about. Mathematics is truth. Once you discover something, it applies to all eternity," said the professor from Imperial College London. In 2014, the researcher was one of the winners of the Fields Medal.

Last Thursday (10), Hairer learned of the Breakthrough Award win while watching the awards ceremony via Skype, in the apartment where he lives with his wife and fellow researcher Xue-Mei Li, in London. “We couldn’t go out or anything, so we celebrated at home,” he told The Guardian newspaper .

The work that earned the researcher the award was described by Jeremy Quastel, a mathematician at the University of Toronto and one of the Breakthrough Prize evaluators, as "possibly done by an extraterrestrial," given the richness of the descriptions and analyses performed.

In his presentation, Hairer discussed stochastic partial differential equations, a field that describes how randomness influences a process, such as the movement of wind in a tunnel or the limit of a drop falling on a fabric. When randomness is strong enough, the solutions to the equations become uncontrollable. "In some cases, the solutions vary so much that it's not even clear what the equation meant in the first place," he analyzed.

Earlier this month, the researcher participated in the online edition of the Brazilian School of Probability , an event organized by IMPA, the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA), Unicamp, and the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS).

The Breakthrough Prize has been awarded for nine years by the foundation of the same name, created by investor Yuri Milner and Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook. This year, in addition to the mathematician, scientists, physicists, and young researchers were also recognized by the "Oscars of Science." Besides the cash prize, the winners participate in an awards ceremony designed to celebrate achievements and inspire the next generation of scientists. There is also a program of lectures and debates.