In a first, Chinese woman wins the prestigious Fields Medal

Hong Wang has become the first Chinese woman to win the Fields Medal, mathematics' most prestigious prize, awarded alongside fellow Chinese mathematician Yu Deng. Often described as the Nobel Prize of mathematics, the Fields Medal is given every four years to mathematicians under 40 for outstanding achievement and future promise, and this marks only the third time in its 90-year history that a woman has received it. Wang's win, alongside Deng's, is also the first time two Chinese scholars have taken the prize in the same year, following previous Chinese-born laureates Yau Shing-Tung in 1982 and Terence Tao in 2006.

Wang, originally from Guilin, studied at Peking University before postgraduate work in France and a PhD from MIT, and now researches at New York University and France's Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques; she was honoured for resolving the century-old Kakeya conjecture in three dimensions. Deng, from Shenzhen, works at the University of Chicago on axiomatising physics, while American John Pardon and Canadian Jacob Tsimerman were also among this year's four medallists, recognised for work in topology, geometry and algebraic geometry. Each winner receives a gold medal and 15,000 Canadian dollars (about $11,000). The achievement has prompted discussion on Chinese social media about the country's "brain drain", since both Chinese laureates completed their advanced studies in the United States and Europe.