- Ngo Bao Chau
-
In this Vietnamese name, the family name is Ngo. According to Vietnamese custom, this person should properly be referred to by the given name Chau.
Ngô Bảo Châu 
Born June 28, 1972
Hanoi, North VietnamCitizenship Vietnam[1]
France[2]Fields Mathematics Institutions Paris-Sud 11 University
Institute for Advanced Study
University of ChicagoAlma mater École Normale Supérieure
Université de Paris-SudDoctoral advisor Gérard Laumon Known for Proof of the fundamental lemma Notable awards Clay Research Award (2004)
Oberwolfach Prize (2007)
Sophie Germain Prize (2007)
Fields Medal (2010)Ngô Bảo Châu Vietnamese pronunciation: [ŋo ɓa᷉ːʊ̯ cəʊ̯] (born June 28, 1972)[3] is a Vietnamese and French mathematician at the University of Chicago, best known for proving the fundamental lemma for automorphic forms proposed by Robert Langlands and Diana Shelstad. He is the first Vietnamese to receive the Fields Medal.[4][5]
Contents
Biography
Chau was born in 1972, the only son of an intellectual family in Hanoi, North Vietnam. His father, professor Ngo Huy Can, is full professor of Physics at the Vietnam National Institute of Mechanics. His mother, Tran Luu Van Hien, is a physician and associate professor at an herbal medicine hospital in Hanoi. At age 15, he entered the mathematics concentration class at Vietnam National University High School (Khối chuyên Tổng Hợp – Đại học Khoa Học Tự Nhiên Hà Nội[6]), formerly known as A0-class. In grades 11 and 12, Chau participated in the 29th and 30th International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) and became the first Vietnamese student to win two IMO gold medals,[7] of which the first one was won with a perfect score (42/42).[8]
After high school, Chau expected to study in Budapest, but in the aftermath of the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe, the new Hungarian government halted scholarships to students from Vietnam.[9] After visiting Ngo's father, Paul Germain, secretary of the French Academy of Sciences, arranged for Ngo to study in France. He was offered a scholarship by the French government for undergraduate study at the Paris VI University but he chose the prestigious École Normale Supérieure. He obtained a PhD in 1997 from the Universite Paris-Sud under the supervision of Gérard Laumon. He became a member of CNRS at Paris 13 University from 1998 to 2005, and defended his habilitation degree there in 2003.
He became Professor at Paris-Sud 11 University in 2005. In 2005, at age 33, Chau received the title of professor in Vietnam and thus became the country's youngest professor ever.[8] Since 2007, Chau has worked at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey as well as the Hanoi Institute of Mathematics.[10] He joined the mathematics faculty at the University of Chicago on September 1, 2010. Before he received his Field Medal, he was in a hurry to request French citizenship because he wanted to give recognition to French mathematics, because France is where his higher education took place. [11] He holds both Vietnamese and French citizenship.[12]
Work
Chau first came to prominence by proving, in joint work with Gérard Laumon, the fundamental lemma for unitary groups. Their general strategy was to understand the local orbital integrals appearing in the fundamental lemma in terms of affine Springer fibers arising in the Hitchin fibration. This allowed them to employ the tools of geometric representation theory, namely the theory of perverse sheaves, to study what was initially a combinatorial problem of a number-theoretic nature. Chau eventually succeeded in formulating the proof for the fundamental lemma for Lie algebras in 2008.[8] Together with results from Jean-Loup Waldspurger, who had earlier deduced stronger forms of the fundamental lemma from this result, this completed the proof of the fundamental lemma in all cases.
Honors
In 2004, Chau and Laumon were awarded the Clay Research Award for their achievement in solving the fundamental lemma proposed by Robert Langlands for the case of unitary groups.[8] Chau also became the youngest professor in Vietnam in 2005. His proof of the general case was selected by Time as one of the Top Ten Scientific Discoveries of 2009.[10] In 2010, he received the Fields Medal.
Notes
- ^ Hàm Châu (2010-08-17). "Ngô Bảo Châu, “bom tấn” và “trống đồng” trong toán học". Khoa học & Đời Sống Online. http://dantri.com.vn/c20/s20-416055/ngo-bao-chau-bom-tan-va-trong-dong-trong-toan-hoc.htm/. Retrieved 2011-10-09.
- ^ "Le congrès international des mathématiciens". Société Mathématique de France. tháng 5 năm 2010. http://smai.emath.fr/IMG/pdf_ICM-L1v3l.pdf. Retrieved 2010-07-15.
- ^ University of Chicago (2011-03-15). "Homepage at University of Chicago". University of Chicago. http://www.math.uchicago.edu/~ngo/nbc-homepage.html. Retrieved 2011-08-20.
- ^ Hàm Châu (2005-11-18). "Hiện tượng Ngô Bảo Châu". Báo Tuổi trẻ Online. http://tuoitre.com.vn/Tianyon/Index.aspx?ArticleID=108794&ChannelID=13. Retrieved 2011-10-09.
- ^ K.Hưng (2005-12-29). "10 sự kiện khoa học - công nghệ nổi bật năm 2005". Báo Tuổi trẻ Online. http://tuoitre.com.vn/Tianyon/Index.aspx?ArticleID=116027&ChannelID=17. Retrieved 2010-12-19.
- ^ "Đại học Khoa Học Tự Nhiên Hà Nội". HUS-VNU official website. http://hus.edu.vn/?portal=home&obj=intro_daotao&id=745. Retrieved 2010-08-19.
- ^ "Ngô Bảo Châu". IMO's official website. http://www.imo-official.org/participant_r.aspx?id=1573. Retrieved 2009-10-12.
- ^ a b c d Ham Chau (2009-02-15). "Ngô Bao Châu, sommité mondiale des maths" (in French). Le Courrier du Vietnam. http://lecourrier.vnagency.com.vn/PrintView.asp?id=49751.
- ^ Hàm Châu (2010-08-17). "Ngô Bảo Châu, "bom tấn" và "trống đồng" trong toán học" (in Vietnamese). Dân Trí. http://dantri.com.vn/c20/s20-416055/ngo-bao-chau-bom-tan-va-trong-dong-trong-toan-hoc.htm.
- ^ a b "Top 10 Scientific Discoveries of 2009". Time magazine. 2009-12-08. http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1945379_1944416_1944435,00.html.
- ^ Sinh Phạm (2010-01-27). "Ngô Bảo Châu nhận lời mời làm giáo sư ĐH Chicago". VietNamNet. Archived from the original on 2010-01-27. http://www.tinmoi.vn/Ngo-Bao-Chau-nhan-loi-moi-lam-giao-su-DH-Chicago-01113985.html. Retrieved 2010-12-19.
- ^ "Le congrès international des mathématiciens". Société Mathématique de France. http://smai.emath.fr/IMG/pdf_ICM-L1v3l.pdf. Retrieved 2010-07-07.
External links
- Ngo Bao Chau's homepage at the University of Chicago
- Personal blog (Vietnamese)
- Ngo Bao Chau at the Mathematics Genealogy Project.
- Ngo Bao Chau's results at the International Mathematical Olympiad
- Ngo Bao Chau and Gérard Laumon's proof of the Fundamental Lemma for unitary groups.
- The Oberwolfach Prize 2007 is awarded to Ngo Bao Chau (Laudatio by Prof. Rapoport)
Categories:- 1972 births
- Living people
- People from Hanoi
- French people of Vietnamese descent
- Paris-Sud 11 University alumni
- Alumni of the École Normale Supérieure
- Vietnamese mathematicians
- Vietnamese academics
- Vietnamese scientists
- 20th-century mathematicians
- 21st-century mathematicians
- University of Chicago faculty
- Fields Medalists
- French mathematicians
- French academics
- French scientists
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