Yu Deng, a winner of the 2026 Fields Medal, said that there were virtually no reference materials available for the problem he was trying to solve, forcing him to develop the necessary mathematical tools on his own while pursuing a solution to a question that had remained unresolved for more than a century.

Two of the four are the first Chinese-born winners of the prize since 1986.

Mathematicians who helped unify laws of physics and cracked decades-old problems in geometry are among this year's recipients of the Fields medal