Winner’s math gold medal stolen minutes after its award

A 14-karat gold medal often described as the Nobel Prize for mathematics was stolen minutes after it was awarded to a Cambridge University professor at a ceremony Wednesday in Brazil.

Caucher Birkar, 40, a former refugee of Kurdish Iranian origin, was one of four joint recipients of the Fields Medal, which is awarded every four years to the youngest and brightest stars in mathematics.

Within minutes of receiving the award, Birkar noticed that his briefcase containing the gold medal, his wallet and his cellphone were missing, the Brazilian newspaper O Globo reported.

The briefcase was later found outside the venue, but the medal was missing.

The organizing committee from the International Congress of Mathematics is analyzing recorded images of the event in Rio de Janeiro and working with authorities in their investigation to identify the thief.

Birkar, who was born and raised in Kurdistan province in northwestern Iran, moved to England in 2000, after applying for political asylum while finishing his undergraduate degree in Tehran.

He completed a doctorate at the University of Nottingham, and developed theories that have solved long-standing conjectures, according to the University of Cambridge, where he now holds a professorship.

While studying at Tehran University, Birkar would look up at pictures of Fields Medal winners on the walls of his math club, he told Quanta magazine in an interview.

“I looked at them and said to myself, ‘Will I ever meet one of these people?’ At that time in Iran, I couldn’t even know that I’d be able to go to the West,” he said.

“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 is Cambridge University’s 11th Fields medalist.

“This is absolutely phenomenal, both for Caucher and for mathematics at Cambridge,” said professor Gabriel Paternain, head of the university’s department of pure mathematics and mathematical statistics.

The other three winners of the 2018 Fields Medal are Alessio Figalli of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich; Peter Scholze from the University of Bonn; and Akshay Venkatesh of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and Stanford University in California.

In addition to the medal, each receives an $11,500 cash prize.