Math laureate gets new medal

RIO DE JANEIRO: A Kurdish refugee whose top mathematics prize was stolen minutes after he received the honour last week here got a replacement medal yesterday, organisers said.

Caucher Birkar, 40, received the gold Fields Medal, which is considered math’s equivalent of the Nobel Prize, on Wednesday.

Less than an hour later, it emerged that his briefcase containing the award had vanished and when the case was found later at the Rio convention centre hosting the event, the medal was missing.

But for Birkar — an Iranian Kurd who won political asylum and citizenship in Britain — minus one plus one equals gold again.

“On Saturday, he will receive an identical medal to the one that was stolen,” said a spokesman for the International Congress of Mathematics, which organised the award ceremony.

Three other mathematicians were awarded the same prize, which is handed out only every four years.