BEIJING, July 24 (Xinhua) -- Deng Yu followed the well-trodden path of a Chinese math prodigy, while Wang Hong took a decidedly different route. On Thursday, their journeys converged on mathematics' most prestigious stage when both were awarded the Fields Medal in Philadelphia, the United States.
Their victories, the first time Chinese nationals have won the honor, have cast a spotlight on a broader generation of mathematical talent emerging from China's expanding education and research landscape, and its growing engagement with the global academic community.
Deng received the prize for his work on partial differential equations, while Wang was honored for her contributions to harmonic analysis and geometric measure theory.
Often dubbed the "Nobel Prize of mathematics," the Fields Medal was first awarded in 1936 and is presented every four years to up to four mathematicians under the age of 40 in recognition of both their outstanding achievements and their future potential.
Previous Fields Medalists of Chinese descent were Shing-Tung Yau in 1982 and Terence Tao in 2006.
"Seeing the younger generation of mathematicians, those who received a solid basic education in China and went on to do outstanding research overseas, ultimately win the Fields Medal, I feel deeply honored and truly gratified," said Yau, a chair professor at Tsinghua University.
While Deng embodied the classic path for gifted students in China -- winning a gold medal at the International Mathematical Olympiad and gaining admission to an elite mathematics program at a top Chinese university, Wang's journey was far more unconventional.
She hails from Guilin in south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. Despite lacking formal math Olympiad training, she skipped two grades and entered Peking University at the age of 16.
She initially enrolled in the School of Earth and Space Sciences but transferred to the mathematics program, driven by her interest in the discipline.
Tian Gang, a professor of mathematics at Peking University and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, noted that Wang studied in a highly competitive environment with many brilliant peers.
Wang's unconventional streak continued during her graduate studies in France, where she took a brief detour into architecture for six months before returning to mathematics.
This experience gave Wang a chance to reflect on and reaffirm her passion. She realized that compared with architecture, she preferred to leverage her creativity in mathematics, where she could develop her ideas independently.
Wang serves as a permanent professor at the Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques, a French institution whose faculty has included many Fields Medalists, and as a professor of mathematics at New York University.
Despite their different trajectories, the two mathematicians shared a common academic origin. They were classmates in the 2007 cohort at Peking University's School of Mathematical Sciences. Deng currently serves as a professor at the University of Chicago.
BROADER TALENT PIPELINE
Experts say the achievements of Wang and Deng are, in part, the fruit of China's deepened academic engagement with the world over recent decades.
It is a stark contrast to more than 40 years ago, when Tian was a math student at Peking University. Tian and his classmates would cycle for more than two hours round-trip just to attend a single lecture by a scholar returning from abroad.
Today, the university gives math students greater freedom to explore their interests and build confidence. It encourages independent study from an early stage, helping students find areas where their talents and passions intersect and engaging them in research as undergraduates.
Yau noted that China's support for basic sciences, including mathematics, is now on a par with that of the world's leading nations. "China has become fertile ground for basic research," he said.
Deng and Wang are among the brightest figures in a constellation of mathematicians emerging from this broader environment.
A cohort of students who enrolled around 2000 has been hailed as Peking University's "golden generation" of mathematics.
Deng and Wang's own 2007 cohort saw more than a dozen exceptional mathematicians emerge from its ranks. Many who studied mathematics at Peking University praise the institution for its relaxed atmosphere and academic freedom.
"It's hard to quantify the time spent on math," Wang once said. "Sometimes I'm just walking down the street, spacing out and thinking about a problem. But when I'm tired, I just stop, do something else, and rest."
Deng transferred to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) after two years in Beijing, later earning his Ph.D. in mathematics from Princeton in 2015.
In a post on Zhihu, a Chinese Q&A platform similar to Quora, he described his life at 21, which was his second semester at MIT. He took five or six math courses and read three books at the same time, spending more than eight hours a day on his studies.
Deng's interests extend well beyond mathematics. "If I weren't a mathematician, I would be a sci-fi writer," he once said, noting that his favorite work is "The Orthogonal Trilogy" by Australian author Greg Egan.
Tian said the Fields Medal victories by Deng and Wang could inspire a new generation of Chinese students and scholars, instilling in them the confidence to tackle major mathematical problems.
Yet he offered a frank assessment of the current reality. While Chinese scholars are leading the world in some areas and on par with global leaders in others, he said, the overall pool of mathematical talent remains limited.
Looking ahead, China is expected to further open up its education sector, attracting more global talent while encouraging its own scholars to study abroad. China's national plan extending through 2035 envisions "an open system of international cooperation and mutual learning."
On Chinese social media, many voices remained clear-eyed amid the jubilation, expressing the hope that the younger generation of Chinese mathematicians can achieve even more academic breakthroughs.
"I believe there is hope for us in some of the core areas of mathematics," Tian said. "Chinese mathematicians can make even greater contributions to the world." ■
