These days many in our community are thinking of Maryam Mirzakhani battling cancer. She is a genius mathematician, first female Fields Medalist in the world, a Stanford professor, member of National Academy of Sciences, and a mother. My sadness reminds me of a distant bittersweet and difficult time in her life and people who knew her. I remember emotions I felt vividly. I had just came to U.S. I picked up a local Persian newspaper from a Persian restaurant. I saw picture of the National Mathematics Olympiad team on the cover. I happily opened the newspaper to the related page to see if there is news of number of medals they won, or other similar achievements we were used to often hear about them. My joy quickly turned to sorrow as I read more. They were all in a fatal bus accident, when traveling to a camp in preparation for their international competitions. Each individuals image and name was still fresh in my memory from their TV interviews and newspaper reports. I wept and wept not having read the article to the end. Few days later, I revisited the article. As I read more, my sorrow diminished. Maryam and a few others had survived that bus accident. I now read news articles about her fighting cancer. There must be a final line missing. That she has survived again. I am searching for that newspaper.
http://www.payvand.com/news/17/jul/1066.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maryam_Mirzakhani
My learning experiences, feelings, and memories often in form of a poem or a story.
Full Moon Rising
This picture is by Stefan Seip.
1 comment:
Maryam Mirzakhani will always be remembered as a mathematician in the tradition of great persian Omar Khayyam and Al Khorezmi. I think that she was working on a very abstract and almost philosophical field of mathematics, namely the relationships on high-dimensional bended surfaces. Its a pitty that she died to young. Terrible to see that even in the US with a highly developed cancer medicine this disease often leaves the doctors helpless.
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