Audio Edition: Amid Life’s Chaos, a Meticulous Mathematician Finds Stability
Summary
This episode profiles 2026 Fields Medal winner Yu Dang, a mathematician at the University of Chicago, and his pioneering work on partial differential equations with random data. The story traces his journey from a near-professional Go player to a top-tier researcher, highlighting his collaborations with Andrea Naumov and Zahir Hani. Their breakthroughs include proving the invariance of the Gibbs measure and solving Hilbert's sixth problem for long timescales, bridging microscopic wave dynamics with macroscopic kinetic theory.
Topics discussed
Sponsor: Terry Tao's book 'Six Math Essentials'
Introduction to 2026 Fields Medal winners
Deng's love for regulated verse and wave equations
Growing up in Shenzhen and early math aptitude
Near-miss in professional Go tournaments
Pivot to math and International Olympiad success
MIT transfer and discovery of random data problem
Deng's personality, habits, and early career path
Graduate school struggles and feeling aimless
Finding comfort in manga during a low period
Existential crisis and writing poetry in Long Beach
Collaboration with Namod and Yue on Gibbs measure
Working with Hani on wave kinetic equation
Solving Hilbert's sixth problem for long timescales
Winning the Fields Medal and current life balance
Credits and closing remarks
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