Korean's First Fields Medal, the 'Nobel Prize of Mathematics,' Awarded (Comprehensive)

Heo Jun, Associate Professor at the Institute for Basic Science, Receives Award at the International Mathematical Union Ceremony on the 5th

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Bong-su] A Korean mathematician has won the Fields Medal, known as the "Nobel Prize of Mathematics," for the first time in history.

According to the Korean Mathematical Society on the 5th, at the International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) held in Helsinki, Finland, Heo Jun, a professor at Princeton University in the United States and a distinguished professor at the Korea Institute for Advanced Study, became the first Korean mathematician to receive the highest honor in mathematics, the Fields Medal.

This award is the highest honor in mathematics, given by the International Mathematical Union (IMU) every four years at the ICM to mathematicians under the age of 40. It is commonly known as the Nobel Prize of Mathematics. Unlike the Nobel Prize, which is awarded annually and often shared among multiple recipients, the Fields Medal is awarded every four years to a maximum of four individuals, with no joint awards allowed, making it more difficult to receive than the Nobel Prize. Professor Heo earned the honor of being the first Korean mathematician to win the Fields Medal in the 126-year history of the ICM.

Professor Heo is a Korean-American born in the United States. However, he moved to Korea at the age of two and received all his education from elementary school through graduate school in Korea. He graduated with a double major in the Department of Mathematical Sciences and the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Seoul National University and completed a master's degree in mathematics. After earning his Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Michigan in the United States, he is currently a professor at Princeton University and a distinguished professor at the Korea Institute for Advanced Study.

Professor Heo was awarded the Fields Medal in recognition of his pioneering work in solving numerous difficult problems in combinatorics using algebraic geometry, opening new horizons in the field. His research achievements have contributed to the development of various applied fields such as information and communication, semiconductor design, transportation, logistics, machine learning, and statistical physics. He notably solved the Reed conjecture, a representative difficult problem in combinatorial algebraic geometry.

Professor Heo's father is Heo Myung-hoe, an emeritus professor in the Department of Statistics at Korea University, and his mother is Lee In-young, an emeritus professor in the Department of Russian Language and Literature at Seoul National University's College of Humanities. He attended Bangil Elementary School, Isu Middle School, and Sangmun High School (which he dropped out of) in Seoul. It is well known that he dropped out of high school to pursue a career as a poet and passed the qualification exam instead. In 2007, he earned a bachelor's degree in Physics and Astronomy from Seoul National University, and in 2009, he received a master's degree in Mathematics from the same university.

After moving to the United States, Professor Heo became a rising star during his doctoral studies in 2012 by solving the Reed conjecture, a mathematical problem that had remained unsolved for nearly 50 years. The Reed conjecture was proposed in 1968 by British mathematician Ronald Reed. He also solved another difficult problem, the Rota conjecture, sweeping prestigious international scientific awards such as the Blavatnik Young Scientists Award (2017) and the New Horizons Prize (2019). The Rota conjecture was proposed in 1971 by American mathematician Gian-Carlo Rota. Last year, he also received the Ho-Am Prize, Korea's highest academic award.

Professor Heo said, "For me, mathematics is a process of understanding my own biases and limitations personally, and more generally, it is about being curious about how and how deeply the human species can think." He added, "I feel deeply grateful to receive a meaningful award for something I enjoy doing myself."

Meanwhile, the government also congratulated Professor Heo on his award. The Ministry of Science and ICT issued a press release stating, "Based on a strong intuition for algebraic geometry, freely crossing between the two different fields of algebraic geometry and combinatorics to tackle difficult problems is a very challenging research that only mathematicians well-versed in both fields can attempt." They added, "He was recognized for opening new horizons to further expand the foundation of algebraic geometry, achieving the great feat of becoming the first Korean to win the Fields Medal."

The Ministry of Science and ICT said, "Professor Heo's Fields Medal award is joyful news following the IMU's recent upgrade of Korea's national mathematics ranking to the highest level this year," and "We look forward to Professor Heo's future activities, expanding his active research collaborations with mathematicians both in Korea and abroad while traveling between Korea and the United States, as well as the continuous development of the Korean mathematical community."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.