Prof Ngo Bao Chau uses Fields Medal money to found Vietnamese math magazine

Prof. Ngo Bao Chau, a 2010 Fields Medal laureate, has decided to spend the award’s US$15,000 prize money on running a math magazine targeting Vietnamese youths.

The magazine, named after the mathematical constant Pi, was launched on Sunday by the Vietnam Mathematical Society, of which Prof. Chau is a member.

The first issue of the monthly magazine will come out in January, and will be available to readers on the fifteenth day of each month.

The magazine is financially independent of its governing body, and will be funded by Prof. Chau’s money in addition to private donations during the first two years of its launch.

Launching a math magazine for students and math lovers in Vietnam had always been a dream of Chau, the Vietnamese math professor said at Sunday’s seminar.

He had often looked to foreign math magazines such as Math Monthly in the U.S. or Kvant in the erstwhile Soviet Union for inspiration, hoping to open a similarly credible and relevant magazine for Vietnamese youths.

Ngo Bao Chau, 44, is a Vietnamese-French math professor who was in 2010 awarded the Fields Medal for his proof of the fundamental lemma for automorphic forms, the first Vietnamese national to have been honored with the world’s top mathematical award.

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