Caucher Birkar

Caucher Birkar (born July 1978, in Marivan, Kurdistan Province, Iran, as Fereydon Derakhshani فریدون درخشانی) is an Iranian mathematician and a professor at the University of Cambridge. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 2018, "for his proof of boundedness of Fano varieties and contributions to the minimal model problem".

Quotes

"An innovator who brings order to an infinitude of equations" Quanta Magazine (2018)

Kevin Hartnett (1 August 2018), "An innovator who brings order to an infinitude of equations", Quanta Magazine.

• In Tehran university, at the math club, where I was studying the pictures of Fields medalists were lining the walls. I looked at them and said to myself, ‘Will I ever meet one of these people?’ At that time in Iran, I couldn’t even know that I’d be able to go to the West.

• To go from the point that I didn’t imagine meeting these people to the point where someday I hold a medal myself — I just couldn’t imagine that this would come true.

• I read all these books and I had the feeling that just reading things is not enough. I also wanted to create my own stuff, to create something new.