Mathematician at UCSD Wins ‘Nobel’ of Field

LA JOLLA — The world’s most prestigious award in mathematics was awarded Sunday to UC San Diego Prof. Michael Freedman at the annual conference of the International Congress of Mathematicians in Berkeley.

The Fields Medal is presented annually to young mathematicians who show great achievements in the discipline, according to congress officials, and is considered the “Nobel Prize” of the mathematics field.

Freedman, the Charles Lee Powell Professor of Mathematics at UCSD, is known the world over for his work in the little understood area of four-dimensional spaces, an ethereal part of topology and geometry. In 1982, Freedman solved the 82-year-old mathematical riddle known as the fourth-dimensional Poincare conjecture.

Freedman’s work is on the cutting edge of physics; his department chairman once joked that he had no inkling into Freedman’s research but knew that it was very important. Research into four-dimensional shapes could eventually have an important effect on understanding the shape of the universe, because most models of the universe attempt to link up the three dimensions of length, width and depth with time in space.

In 1984, Freedman was named winner of a $176,000 prize by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, which makes unsolicited large cash grants annually to outstanding achievers. Freedman was also named California Scientist of the Year in 1984 by the California Museum of Science and Industry and elected to membership in the National Academy of Sciences.

Earlier this year, Freedman was awarded the Veblen Prize, the top prize in mathematics of the American Mathematical Society.

Freedman, 35, is the second member of the UCSD faculty to win the Fields Medal. Shing-Tung Yau, who holds the Chancellor’s Chair in Mathematics, won the award in 1982. Yau also won the Veblen Prize in 1981.

“The Fields Medal marks the culmination of 10 years of extraordinary achievement by Michael Freedman,” UCSD Chancellor Richard C. Atkinson said Sunday when he heard of the announcement. “His work represents one of the major intellectual accomplishments of our time. I am particularly proud that this great work was accomplished during Professor Freedman’s tenure in our department.”

Two other Fields Medal winners were also named Sunday: Simon Donaldson of Oxford University and Gerd Faltings of Princeton.