On February 3rd, 65438, the award ceremony of "Scientific Breakthrough Award" was announced at the Ames Research Center of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in San Francisco. * * * The prize is $22 million, among which, the "Breakthrough Award" for the most outstanding achievements in the fields of life science, basic physics and mathematics is $3 million, which is the first prize in the scientific field.
This year, five life scientists won the "Life Science Breakthrough Award" with a prize of $3 million. Five winners of the Basic Physics Breakthrough Award * * * enjoy $3 million, and two winners of the Mathematics Breakthrough Award share $3 million. In addition, * * * three young physicists each won the "New Horizon Award", and four young mathematicians * * * shared three "New Horizon Awards", including two mathematicians from China, Yun Zhiwei and Zhang Wei, both of whom graduated from Peking University.
Zhang Wei, male, 198 1 year, was born in the countryside of Dazhu County, Sichuan Province. He is the second child in the family, along with a brother and a sister. My parents farm and do small businesses to support their families. Zhang Wei studied in the village primary school for the first four years, and transferred to Tiancheng Township Primary School in Dazhu County in the fifth grade. It was then that Zhang Wei's mathematical talent began to appear. At that time, the Olympiad was not popular, let alone popular, and the math teacher only gave some reference materials to the students with good math scores in the class after class, including the soldiers in Han Xin, the problem of the seventh bridge in Konigsberg and other interesting math to satisfy the curiosity of a few people. Zhang Wei is one of these few people, and then he changed from interest to obsession and won the first prize in the national primary school mathematics competition. Zhang Wei said that the primary school math teacher gave good guidance in his initial stage. Inadvertently, he opened a treasure house full of rare treasures. Later, Zhang Wei was admitted to Dazhu County Middle School, participated in the national mathematical physical chemistry competition, and easily won the first prize. The school teacher then told Zhang Wei that some students in the school had been admitted to Chengdu No.7 Middle School for this reason. I hope he can try, after all, this is one of the best schools in the province. Zhang Wei wrote a letter of recommendation with the mentality of trying. "At that time, I didn't know who to send the letter to, so I wrote' from the principal of No.7 Middle School'." Unexpectedly, a few days later, he received a reply from Yang Nengsheng, vice president of No.7 Middle School, with only half a page of manuscript paper. The general idea is-"Welcome to Chengdu No.7 Middle School." In this way, Zhang Wei became one of the five foreign students admitted to Chengdu No.7 Middle School from 65438 to 0997. When he graduated from high school, Zhang Wei participated in the national mathematics winter camp as a member of the Sichuan team, thus obtaining the qualification of being sent to the Mathematics Department of Peking University. After graduating from Peking University, Zhang Wei went to Columbia University to study PhD step by step. After graduation, he went to Harvard University as a postdoctoral fellow and lecturer, and returned to Columbia University as an assistant professor two years later. At the age of 30, I began to take doctoral students. By 20 16, Zhang Wei had supervised three doctoral students, some of whom were only a little younger than him. 20 14 Zhang Wei was hired as an associate professor by Columbia University, which has tenure. On 20 15, Zhang Wei was hired as a full professor again.
In 2005, Zhang Wei discussed with Zhang Shouwu, a professor of mathematics at Columbia University, trying to solve the modularity problem in Kudala conjecture. Zhang Shouwu didn't have much hope for Zhang Wei at that time. He just thinks it's enough to find something to keep himself busy. But after only two or three months, Zhang Wei found a solution. In his second year as a doctoral student, he successfully wrote a paper. Zhang Shouwu said, "Zhang Wei is one of a group of young mathematicians in China who are very influential in the field of international mathematics. I know about 10 people in this group. They are very smart and of the same generation. Among them, five or six are students of Grade 2000 in the Department of Mathematics of Peking University, Zhang Wei's classmates, including Yuan Xinyi, Yun Zhiwei and Zhu Xinwen, and several other students in Tsinghua. They are the future of mathematics in China. By that time, it should be the most brilliant time for China's mathematics. "