Hours at a desk aren’t necessarily the key to success – ask June Huh, the would-be poet who has won the Fields medal for mathematics
June Huh, a poet manqué who says he struggles to do more than three hours’ focused work a day, this week became one of the latest recipients of the highest honour in mathematics, the Fields medal. Rarely can a single sentence have contained so many apparent cultural contradictions. Maths is traditionally seen as a “hard” subject, requiring sustained concentration and regular practice. Some universities recommend that students do not take gap years without ensuring they follow a programme to keep up to scratch.
Prof Huh’s approach is different. For a few months in 2019, the Princeton academic revealed, all he did was reread books from his youth, including the novels of the Swiss-German polymath Hermann Hesse, guru of the hippy-era search for authenticity. He emphasised the parallels between artists and mathematicians, saying that, in both cases, “it feels like you’re grabbing something that’s already there, rather than creating something in your mind”.
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