Previous post: Who will get Fields medals in less than two hours?
Of course, if you are interested, you know already: Artur Avila, Manjul Bhargava, Martin Hairer, Maryam Mirzakhani.
I named in my previous post all except Martin Hairer, who is working in a too distant area in which too many people are working. I was put off tracks by the claim that M. Mirzkhani definitely will not get the medal. Before this rumor (less than a week ago) I would estimate her chances as about 60%. The award has no effect on my opinion about her work: her results are very good and interesting, but not "stunning", as it is said in the citation. Many people in related areas and even in the same area made comparable or much deeper and unexpected contributions.
I do not consider my estimates of somebody chances as predictions when the estimate is 60% or even 80%.
But I made three predictions, and they turned out the be correct: Artur Avila will be a winner; one of the winners will be a woman; one of the winners will be from Stanford. The first two of them were rather easy to made. But why Stanford? The idea materialized in my mind out of blue sky only few days ago; there was no new information, neither rumors, nor mathematical news.
Instead of a medal Jacob Lurie recently got a prize worth of 3 millions. I hope that he realizes that the decision of the Fields medal committee not to give him a medal tells much more about the committee than about the depth and importance of his work.
Next post: To appear
