UK-based mathematician Martin Hairer has managed to bag the 2021 Breakthrough Prize -- an award as prestigious as the Nobel -- in the field of mathematics with a reward of $3 million for groundbreaking discovery.?
The prize was awarded for his work on stochastic analysis -- a field of mathematics that looks at an outcome out of random, unpredictable things or occurrences -- something as random as the spreading of a particular fire, or the way water flows or is absorbed by a surface etc.
On winning the award, Professor Hairer, said, ¡°I was surprised but obviously very honoured. I¡¯m very happy if I can inspire some people to study mathematics or even just understand a little bit better what maths is all about. Maths is truth. Once you discover something in maths, it applies to all eternity.¡±
Son of Professor Ernst Hairer, a mathematician at the University of Geneva, he submitted a 180-page paper that spoke about ¡®regularity structures¡¯ that he first introduced in 2014. It generates equations to accurately describe seemingly random things like fluctuations in stock markets or how water travels on a specific surface or how a bacteria grows.?
Hairer explains, ¡°While the exact details of the fluctuation of the stock market and the movement of water atoms are very different, their probabilistic outcome is the same.¡±?
Hairer stays in a rented flat in London with his wife Xue-Mei Li who is also a mathematician at Imperial College in London. He heard about his prize on a Skype call amidst lockdown caused by the novel coronavirus. He¡¯s expressed that with the award money, they¡¯d finally look to buy an apartment of their own in London.
He wasn¡¯t the only one to be awarded on Thursday. There were other winners too including a Hong Kong-based scientist named Dennis Lo who developed a test for genetic mutations in DNA shed by unborn babies, getting inspired from Harry Potter and the scar Voldemort gave to Harry.
Another winner, Catherine Dulac from Harvard University showed that neural circuits for maternal and paternal behaviour are found in both men and women, quashing the idea of gender-specific roles in child care.?