Four Balliol people — Professor Nick Trefethen (Professor of Numerical Analysis and Professorial Fellow of Balliol), Professor Adam Nahum (Supernumerary Fellow and Research Fellow in the Sciences at Balliol 2017–2020), Dr Graeme Segal (Balliol 1963) and Professor James Maynard (Balliol 2009) — have won Frontiers of Science Awards at the inaugural International Congress of Basic Science in Beijing.
The inaugural International Congress of Basic Science (ICBS) was held in Beijing in July 2023 with the theme of ‘Advancing Science for Humanity’, bringing together leading scientists from around the world in an effort to promote collaboration and knowledge exchange, focusing on three branches of basic science: mathematics, theoretical physics, and theoretical computer and information sciences.
Selected in both basic and applied research in 34 areas of these three basic science fields, the Frontier of Science awards honour ‘top research, with an emphasis on achievements from the past five years which are both excellent and of outstanding scholarly value’, the aims being ‘to encourage young scholars to look to the frontiers of basic science, set goals to obtain breakthrough results as early as possible, and contribute wisdom and energy to humankind’s study of the mysteries of the natural world’.
In the Numerical Analysis and Scientific Computation category, Nick Trefethen won for his paper (with Yuji Nakatsukasa and Olivier Sète) ‘The AAA Algorithm for Rational Approximation’, SIAM Journal on Scientific Computing (2018).
In the Condensed Matter category, Adam Nahum was recognised for his work (with Professor Brian Skinner and Professor Jonathan Ruhman) on ‘Measurement-induced Phase Transitions in the Dynamics of Entanglement’, Physical Review X (2019).
In the Number Theory category, James Maynard won for his paper (with Dimitrios Koukoulopoulos) ‘On the Duffin-Schaeffer conjecture’, Annals of Mathematics (2020).
In the Mathematics of String Theory and Condensed Matter category, Graeme Segal received an award for his paper (with Maxim Kontsevich) ‘Wick rotation and the positivity of energy in quantum field theory’, The Quarterly Journal of Mathematics (2021).