Fields Medals 2006

Awarded once every 4 years by the International Mathematical Union, the Fields Medal recognizes outstanding contributions to mathematics.

This year's winners...

Andrei Okounkov “for his contributions briding probability; representation theory and algebraic geometry.”

Grigori Perelman “for his contributions to geometry and his revolutionary insights into the analytical and geometric structure of the Ricci flow.” (Perelman's work may prove the more general Thurston Geometrization Conjecture from which the Poincare Conjecture would then follow. Perelman is quite the recluse and actually turned down the Fields Medal.)

Terence Tao “for his contributions to partial differential equations, combinatorics, harmonic analysis and additive number theory.” (At 31, Tao is one of the youngest mathematicians to be awarded the Fields Medal.)

Wendelin Werner “for his contributions to the development of stochastic Loewner evolution, the geometry of two-dimensional Brownian motion, and conformal field theory.”