At the invitation of the IMU chairman Jacob Palis, Chinese President Jiang Zemin confers the 2002 Fields Medals to two winners at ICM2002 opening ceremony.
The opening ceremony of the 24th session of the International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM2002) was held on August 20 in Beijing. The current session of the ICM is organized by the Chinese Mathematics Society (CMS) under the auspices of the International Mathematical Union (IMU), The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) is among the eight sponsors of the Congress.
At the opening ceremony, upon the invitation of IMU chairman Jacob Palis, Chinese President Jiang Zemin awarded golden medals to the 2002 laureates of the Fields Medal Prize: Prof. Laurent Lafforgue from Paris-based Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques (IHES) and Prof. Vladimir Voevodsky from the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton. The prestigious Fields Medal is considered highest honor and prize in mathematics, equivalent to that of the Nobel Prize as there is no mathematics category in the Nobel Prize awards. Also at the ceremony, Indian mathematician Madhu Sudan was awarded 2002 Nevanlinna Prize.
"This is an important event for the international community of mathematicians," says chairman of the ICM2002 local organizing committee Ma Zhiming, CMS president and a research professor at the Academy of Mathematics & System Sciences, CAS. About 4,200 scholars from 101 countries will participate in the eight-day quadrennial meeting to share the latest developments and results. There will be 20 one-hour plenary lectures, 174 45-minute lectures specifically invited by the meeting, about 1,200 15-minute short communication reports and 90 or so posters on display at the session.
In addition, 46 satellite conferences will be held before or after the session until August 30 in 32 cities such as Shanghai, Moscow, Seoul, Taipei, Hong Kong, Macao, Hangzhou and Xi-an. The local organizing committee of the convention will host a series of public talks by inviting celebrated Chinese and foreign scientists such as Prof. Wu Wenjun, chairman of the ICM2002 and winner of China's Supreme S&T Award in 2001 to deliver speeches on the application of mathematics and its influence on other subjects to the public. On August 19, Stephen Hawking, a Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University, had given a public speech titled "Brane New World."
This session is the first ICM convention ever held in a developing country over the one-century or so history of the Congress. It has a special significance to China. At the meeting, there will be 11 scholars from the Chinese mainland, eight Chinese mainlanders now working abroad and two mathematicians of Chinese origin will give 45-minute lectures. This is unprecedented in the ICM history and convincingly indicates that mathematics in China now is enjoying a steady and sustained advancement,says the local organizing committee at a news release.
Under the progress of economy, science, technology, and mathematics itself, Chinese mathematicians will make a promise to cooperate with their partners in the world, scale the height in mathematics, and offer new mathematical methods for mankind, says CAS President Lu Yongxiang. (Guo Haiyan, Zhao Baohua)
