A fortnight ago, four mathematicians were awarded the Fields Medal, arguably mathematics’ highest honour. The medal is awarded every four years to four mathematicians under the age of 40. In this post, I want to talk about one of them: Hong Wang
The beginnings
Wang was born in 1991, in the Guangxi region of China. She grew up in the nineties, the only child of two teachers. She had a gift for and an interest in mathematics from an early age. Wang would finish all the problems in her school textbooks and then buy others from bookshops.
An early puzzle that she remembers solving at an early age was this: How can you plant 7 trees so that you have the greatest number of rows of three trees? Why not give this a try and then check the solution by clicking on this link?
University studies and the first episode of self-doubt
Wang was determined to study mathematics at the University of Peking, in Beijing. The university reserved one position in mathematics for her region. When she sat the selection test, she wasn’t the top student. Still, Wang enrolled in another degree and transferred to mathematics.
Wang wasn’t achieving the highest marks and doubted her ability to undertake graduate studies. When representatives of France’s prestigious École Polytechnique visited Beijing, she decided to sit their exam and she qualified to do a Master’s degree at their university. She moved to Paris, where she did not speak the language!
Graduate studies and the second episode of self-doubt
In Paris came the second internal setback: Wang felt that she had been doing well enough to pass her courses, but not well enough to undertake research in mathematics. She left mathematics for a semester and gave architecture a go. The discipline of mathematics came close to losing a future star.
The decision that turned Wang’s life around
At the end of that semester, Wang made the decision that would set the course of her life: “I decided not to worry about whether I would be good or not and just work on understanding better”. She is now on the staff of New York University and the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques in France. She also has a number of prestigious awards to her name.
Conclusion: Dealing with our own self-doubts
Most of us have, at times, found at least one area of mathematics hard to understand. It is comforting to know that even those with rare gifts and strong backgrounds also go through this experience. If you’re in this category, take heart and decide “not to worry”, and “just work on understanding better.”
Further reading
To learn about the research that won Hong Wang the Fields Medal, I recommend this article from Qanta Magazine. It gets quite technical towards the end, but there’s enough in there to get an idea.
To learn about another mathematician, and how his 18th century work enabled the founding of Google, take a look at this post.
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