Article: Award-winning links twixt math and physics. (Fields Medals awarded to mathematicians Vaughan F.R. Jones, Edward Witten, Shigefumi Mori, Vladimir G. Drinfeld)

Award-winning links twixt math and physics

Mathematicians at a major international conference this week in Kyoto, Japan, turned the spotlight on four members of their community by awarding each a Fields Medal. Among mathematicians, the award -- first presented in 1936 and now given every four years at the International Congress of Mathematicians -- carries the prestige if not the monetary value of a Nobel Prize.

Medalist Vaughan F.R. Jones, 37, a topologist at the University of California, Berkeley, is best known for his work in knot theory (SN: 5/21/88, p.328). In 1984, he unexpectedly discovered a connection between von Neumann algebras (mathematical ...

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