Kurdish refugee wins Fields medal, loses it minutes later

RIO DE JANEIRO: Kurdish refugee turned Cambridge University math professor Caucher Birkar (pic) was among four winners in Rio de Janeiro of the prestigious Fields prize, dubbed the Nobel for mathematics, but had his gold medal stolen minutes later.

It was an embarrassing debut for crime-ridden Rio, the first Latin American city ever to host the Fields ceremony, which takes place every four years.

Less than an hour had passed since Birkar, a 40-year-old specialist in algebraic geometry, had been handed his 14 karat gold medal when his briefcase went missing.

The organiser behind the event, the International Congress of Mathematics, said it “profoundly regrets” the incident.

Birkar celebrated his achievement – alongside co-winners Alessio Figalli, Peter Scholze and Akshay Venkatesh – as a fairy tale come true for the often beleaguered Kurds. “I’m hoping this news will put a smile on the faces of those 40 million people,” he said.

Born in a village in the ethnic Kurdish province of Marivan, near the Iran-Iraq border, Birkar said “Kurdistan was an unlikely place for a kid to develop an interest in mathematics”.

Despite that, he went from Teheran University, where he recounts having looked up dreamily at portraits of past Fields winners, to get political asylum and citizenship in Britain – and establish himself as an exceptional mathematical mind.

“To go from the point that I didn’t imagine meeting these people to the point where someday I hold a medal myself – I just couldn’t imagine that this would come true,” Birkar said.

The Fields medal recognises the outstanding mathematical achievements of candidates who were under 40 years old at the start of the year. At least two and preferably four people are honoured each time. — AFP