Fields Medals and ICM 2006

An article is already published in the NYT (link will probably die soon), but two Gustavus faculty (Holte & McDermott) were present to hear the announcement of the Fields medals presented at the ICM 2006 in Madrid. The Fields medals were awarded to Andrei Okounkov, Grigori Perelman, Terence Tao, and Wendelin Werner. There had been wide spread speculation that Tao and especially Perelman would win a medal. There had also been speculation that Perelman would decline the award. In the end, both rumors were true. Perelman is the first person to decline the Fields medal. The Nevanlinna prize for information theory went to Jon Kleinberg and the first Gauss prize was awarded to Kiyoshi Ito.