While Lu Zhou and Schultz were talking about the Langlands program, the other two Fields Medal winners were also talking about their award-winning thoughts.
Birkar looked at his medal and began to reminisce about his flee from Iran to UK. "… When I escaped Kurdistan, I never thought this day would come. I didn't even know any English when I enrolled at the University of Nottingham."
From overcoming his cultural and language barriers, from becoming the main contributor to the field of double rational geometry, from proving the finiteness of the Fano plane, as well as solving many problems of the minimal model program, all of these reasons were why Birkar was able to win the Fields Medal.
"It's not easy," Venkatesh said, "I've never experienced such tragic things in Australia. We are really lucky."
During the Iran-Iraq war in the '80s, being a mathematician wasn't an easy thing.
