Fields Medals 2026 (mathunion.org)
70 points by nill0 5 hours ago
siva7 15 minutes ago
"harmonic analysis and geometric measure theory, including applications of multiscale and decoupling techniques to the local smoothing conjecture for the planar wave equation, and major advances in Fourier restriction, Falconer distance sets, Furstenberg sets in the plane, and the Kakeya problem in three dimensions."
I'm not sure there is another profession in the world where it's impossible to explain to a layman on what the winners of their most prestigious award have worked on.
rahimnathwani 4 hours ago
The winners were inadvertently announced early:
unethical_ban 3 hours ago
Reading the descriptions of their work makes me think of magic. It's an understanding of the principles of math and physics at a level above almost everyone on the planet - these are modern wizards.
layer8 5 minutes ago
Clarke’s third law.
vonneumannstan an hour ago
Incredibly impotent wizards. Very little if anything they work on will have direct effects on the world.
throwaway_7274 an hour ago
This Fox has a longing for grapes:
He jumps, but the bunch still escapes.
So he goes away sour;
And, 'tis said, to this hour
Declares that he's no taste for grapes.
rvz 2 hours ago
Well deserved. Congratulations to them!
num42 4 hours ago
Congrats to the winners! I’m not sure how accurate this prediction is, but 2026 may be the last time pure humans win the Fields Medal. By 2030, AI could be a coauthor on many winning results. With recent news about LLMs solving major conjectures, winning IMO gold medals, and so much rapid progress, a lot is happening.
netvarun 2 hours ago
I posted a similar comment when the winners were leaked: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48906573
i’d like to revise my earlier comment: 2022 may have been the last time we had pure humans win a Fields Medal.
I’m fairly certain this batch's winners used LLMs for research, lit-revews, reviewing work, and calculations... perhaps not enough to count as a co-author, but still enough to handle a lot of the grunt work.
Who would have imagined the pace of progress in LLM-powered math..
anvuong an hour ago
It's like saying:
- winners in the 30s were the last time we have pure human to win (before computer)
- winners in the 70s were the last time we have pure human to win (before internet)
- winners in the 90s were the last time we have pure human to win (before search engine)
Why can't we treat LLMs as just another tool like computers, search engines, computing libraries? Why do people keep trying to anthropomorphizing these binaries?
People in the 1800s used to win awards and acclamation by simply hand-cranking numbers for popular calculations (Pi, error functions, etc.) and printing them in a book. This will just be the same thing.
falcor84 16 minutes ago
neaden 32 minutes ago
What do you base that certainty on? I'm not saying you're wrong, but I am also skeptical you are correct and since it is four people you can probably look into if any of them have talked about it instead of just deciding that what you think is true.
Laurel1234 3 hours ago
Clankers aren't people. Should we be handing out Fields medals to LateX, python and calculators?
kylecazar 3 hours ago
Do humans win Fields medals for formatting and calculation?
Laurel1234 3 hours ago
tocs3 3 hours ago
Should we be handing out Fields medal to
I don't know, maybe. I would not put Clankers on the same level (or category / level of importance) as people but if they produce the work maybe they should get the credit.
hooloovoo_zoo 2 hours ago
num42 3 hours ago
I don't remember the details exactly. I think earlier this year someone listed an LLM as a coauthor on a paper, maybe in physics or maybe another field. I remember reading about it on Reddit, but I'm not sure when or which paper it was. If anyone remembers what I'm referring to, please let me know.