The winners of the Fields Medal -- considered the most distinguished international award in mathematics -- are French mathematician Laurent Lafforgue and Russian mathematician Vladimir Voevodsky.

At the opening ceremony, the 2002 Nevanlinna Prize, another renowned award in the mathematics community, was granted to Indian mathematician Madhu Sudan.

The ICM was first held in Zurich, Switzerland, in 1897 and is considered an academic conference of the highest level in the international mathematics community. The congress is held every four years.

Mathematics is the base of high technology and to some extent the symbol of modern civilization, said Vice-Premier Li Lanqing at the opening ceremony.

Li said the Chinese Government fully supports the development of science and technology and has made a series of national plans to enhance research in basic sciences, including mathematics.

For example, financial aid offered by the National Natural Science Foundation of China towards mathematics has been doubled over the past four years, he said.

The congress in Beijing offers a precious opportunity for Chinese mathematicians to learn from and seek co-operation with their foreign counterparts, Li said.

He hoped the congress would mark a new starting point for the development of mathematics as well as other sciences.

According to Ma Zhiming, chairman of the organizing committee of the ICM 2002 and president of the Chinese Mathematical Society, 4,270 mathematicians from 101 countries and regions are attending the congress.

A total of 20 plenary lectures and 174 invitational lectures will be delivered during the congress and represent the latest advancement and frontier achievements in mathematics, Ma said.

A plenary lecture lasts one hour at the ICM and an invitational lecture lasts 45 minutes. It is considered a great honor for a mathematician to have the chance to deliver such lectures.

Ma said public talks on a range of topics and special activities relating to the congress have been arranged to attract the public to modern mathematics.

For example, a Juvenile Mathematics Forum and a ICM 2002 Mathematics Summer Campus have been organized to spark enthusiasm among young generations for mathematics.

The interest of the Chinese public in mathematics was initially ignited when Stephen Hawking, the renowned Cambridge professor, delivered a speech at Beijing International Convention Centre on Sunday.

Titled "Brane New World,'' Hawking's speech attracted more than 2,200 people, including domestic and foreign scientists, professors, teachers, university students, and citizens with no background in science.

Fields Medal Prize

The Fields Medal Prize, regarded internationally as the most prestigious prize in the field of mathematics, is awarded to mathematicians under the age of 40.

France's Laurent Lafforgue and Russia's Vladimir Voevododsky became the latest winners of the prize, at the opening ceremony of the 2002 International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) here Tuesday.

The prize, named in honor of Professor John Charles Fields, a Canadian mathematician, was formally established at the 1932 ICM and first awarded at the 1936 ICM.

On the face of the medal are the portrait of the Greek mathematician, Archimedes, and Latin inscriptions.

Laurent Lafforgue, Winner of Fields Medal Prize 2002

French mathematician Laurent Lafforgue was one of two winners awarded a 2002 Fields Medal Prizeat the 24th International Congress of Mathematicians which opened in Beijing on Tuesday.

Lafforgue has made outstanding contributions to the so-called Langlands Program by proving the global Langlands correspondence for function fields and thereby providing new connections between number theory and analysis.

His work is characterized by formidable technical power, deep insight and a tenacious, systematic approach.

Lafforgue was born on Nov. 6, 1966 in Antony, France. He graduated from the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris in 1986. In 1990 he became an attache de recherche at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. Then he worked in the Arithmetic and Algebraic Geometry team at the Universite de Paris-Sud, where he received his doctorate in 1994.

In 2002, he was made a permanent professor of mathematics at the Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques in Bures-sur-yvette, France.

2002 Fields Medal Prize Winner Vladimir Voevodsky

Vladimir Voevodsky, a Russian mathematician won the 2002 Fields Medal Prize at the opening ceremony of the 24th International Congress of Mathematicians in Beijing on Tuesday.

Voevodsky made one of the most outstanding advances in algebraic geometry in the past few decades by developing new cohomology theories for algebraic varieties. His work is characterized by an ability to handle highly abstract ideas with ease and flexibility and to deploy those ideas in solving concrete mathematical problems.

Voevodsky was born on June 4, 1966 in Russia. He received his bachelor's degree in mathematics from Moscow State University in 1989 and his doctoral degree in mathematics from Harvard University in 1992.

He held visiting positions at the Institute for Advanced Study in the United States and Harvard University before joining the faculty of Northwestern University in 1996. In 2002 he was named a permanent professor in the School of Mathematics at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey.

2002 Nevanlinna Prize Winner Madhu Sudan

Madhu Sudan from the United Sates was awarded the Nevanlinna Prize at the opening ceremony of the 24th International Congress of Mathematicians in Beijing on Tuesday.

Sudan has made important contributions to several areas of theoretical computer science, including probabilistically checkable proofs, non-approximability of optimization problems, and error-correcting codes. His work is characterized by brilliant insights and wide-ranging interests.

Sudan was born on Sept. 12, 1966 in Madras (now Chennai), India. He received his bachelor's degree in computer science from the Indian Institute of Technology in New Delhi in 1987 and his doctoral degree in computer science at the University of California at Berkeley in 1992.

He was a research staff member at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York from 1992 to 1997. He is currently an associate professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

International Congress of Mathematicians

The ICM, supported and assisted by International Mathematics Union (IMU), has a history of over 100 years. The first ICM was held in 1897 in Zurich, Switzerland. Since the 1900 ICM in Paris, it has been held every four years except during the two world wars. Now it has become the most authoritative academic meeting in its field, attracting mathematicians from all over the world.

The plenary lectures and the invited lectures given during the congress are often regarded as representing the most important achievements and developments in all fields of mathematics. The prestigious Fields Medal Prize is usually awarded at the opening ceremony of the ICM.

The 1998 IMU Membership Conference decided China would host the24th ICM.

(People's Daily August 21, 2002)