41. Maryam Mirzakhani: The Math Whisperer

Maryam Mirzakhani: The Trailblazing Mathematician

This episode of 'She Changed History' delves into the life and legacy of Maryam Mirzakhani, an extraordinary Iranian mathematician and the first woman to win the basically the math olympics. Discussing her journey from a childhood during the Iran-Iraq war to her groundbreaking work in hyperbolic geometry, the episode highlights her resilience, optimism, and the critical support she received from teachers and peers. Maryam's remarkable achievements continue to inspire women in mathematics and science, leaving an enduring impact on the field.

Sources today area

1 https://mathshistory.st-
andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Mirzakhani/
2 https://www.britannica.com/biography/Maryam-Mirzakhani
3 https://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/aug/13/interview-
maryam-mirzakhani-fields-medal-winner-mathematician
4 https://www.quantamagazine.org/years-after-the-early-death-
of-a-math-genius-her-ideas-gain-new-life-20250303/

5 https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jul/19/maryam-
mirzakhani-obituary
6
https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2017/08/01/mary
am-mirzakhani-a-candle-illuminating-the-dark/
7 https://www.cantorsparadise.com/maryam-mirzakhani-
humble-till-the-end-856961ffd946
8 https://mariyamraza.medium.com/understanding-labor-of-
love-through-the-life-of-maryam-mirzakhani-a76e40f91ad5
9 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-28739373

00:00 Introduction and Algorithm Woes
00:26 Henry Cavill and Chivalry
01:47 Weekend Vibes and Math Talk
02:38 Introducing Maryam Mirzakhani
03:43 Early Life in Iran
05:29 Educational Journey and Challenges
11:46 Mathematical Olympiad Success
17:32 University Years and Research
20:37 Tragedy and Resilience
21:33 A Passion for Mathematics
21:42 Harvard and the Fields Medal
24:22 Understanding Hyperbolic Geometry
27:52 Maryam's Academic Journey
33:32 Breaking Barriers in Mathematics
38:57 Legacy and Final Years

Transcript

audio1509065257: 0:08

I see it. I'm on a Henry Cabell algorithm at the minute. Courtesy of Kay. It's all to do with Kay. She has destroyed my algorithm and now it is 99%. destroyed I'm doesn't matter. Mad. Yeah, I was gonna say, is that really destroying? Is this to do with your casting choices for the. Fairies and for the, for the fairy Smart. Yeah. The sexy fairies is basically, and also just, he's just so lovely. A lot of them have to do with like just chivalry. Like he's just really chivalrous and he is a good, good dude, isn't he? It just makes you swoon and it's ridiculous actually, you know. Before we were, I think we were discussing this at choir the other day. We were like, before at least it was like a possibility. But I think he's taken that, I think he's like a dad. He's like doing that kind of thing. Gutted. I never was laboring under the illusion that that was gonna happen for me. I mean, I'm a married woman, but also like. Yeah, just it can happen. Write your positivity. I'm not looking, so, you know. Oh, he can, he keeps texting me and I keep telling him, look, Henry, I've told you before, Henry, calm down. Calm down, Henry. Yes, he's, he's amazing. Um, but we are here not to talk about men. Karara, I'm sorry. No. We are here women and one woman in specific. Yeah. Um, I think so. Are you ready? Are you ready? Yeah, I am. So let's just like myself up. How are ya? How you doing? I'm good. How are you? Yeah, I'm really good. Thank you. Looking forward to the weekend. It's Friday. Yes, it's Friday night. This is like a nighttime recording. This is, I should, we should have had like a really playful rock and roll kind of topic and I have brought math is what I have brought, but a no. Math has to happen sometime. It might as well be on a Friday night. Oh, is it sexy math? It's a sexy person with a beautiful mind and an incredible soul. Okay. Math. I'm still very ambivalent. Not sexy. No, I can't, I can't get into it, but she. Was absolutely bang up for it. Loved a bit of the math. Okay. All right, all you've opened my mind. Let's go. Right. So, um, the topic, the lady who we will be talking about today, the topic being math and the lady being Maryam Ani, um, um, yeah, I mean, you, you won't be surprised to hear based on everything we just said that for me, math was like. The worst topic at school. I was terrified and I kind of have a bit of. Intellectual panic around anything to do facts and numbers. But she, it was a topic that was suggested by Robert Noche and I kind of looked into her and she's so cool and so such a winning person that I thought, okay. Put the math phobia aside, we're going to celebrate this person and her achievements. So I'm so proud of you for doing that. That's pretty cool. Thank you. It's, you have no idea how deep comforting this runs. Like this is school, school time. Traumas being put to write here. Um, nice. We are going to talk today about mathematician, professor and field medal winner maryam me. Maryam was born in 1977 in Tehran, Iran. I will be saying that the American way people are going to wince. I'm sorry. There's nothing I can do about it. I could try to say Iran, but it just makes me feel icky. So what did you say? Iran? Iran. Iran. Oh, I didn't even notice, to be honest. Yeah, sorry. Okay. Well I could have gotten away. Did you say Iraq? Don't you say Iraq? Weird. I don't know that. Yeah, I, I don't know. I'm about to say it. So we'll find out because, um, her childhood was during the Iran Iraq war. Yes. And it was also during the Islamic Revolution in Iran. So. Politically and culturally there's a lot going on around her and a lot of it quite directly impacts on what women and girls. Can do, are encouraged to do or expected to do and are allowed to do. I'm not gonna go into that whole sort of political area really at all, other than through the lens of her direct experience. Mm-hmm. What I would say is if that's an area of interest to you, there's um, that graphic novel Persis that mm-hmm. Is set in Iran at that exact time in history. And it talks about the world from a little girl's point of view. And I very much. I couldn't help having that in mind when I was reading about Maryam. Um, so yeah, Periplus by Maryanne Satrapi I would strongly recommend because it does give you that kind of context of what it's like to be a girl. I bet a lot of our listeners grew up in the eighties as well, so at least they would have some like something. Awareness. Yeah. Like of world events that were happening. Mm-hmm. Um, I've just realized that I got so swept up in it that I didn't talk about our sources for today. So very quickly, let me, let's get those, let whiz through that. Um, uh, the good old BBC, there's a medium. Dot com article all about her life. There was, material in Forbes and The Guardian, something called Quantum Magazine, which I think is very science yourself. Oh, your new subscription. Very intellectual reading. Um, good old Britannica and, the University of St. Andrews had a lovely piece about her as well. So those are our sources for today, and as I said, she grew up in a troubled time. You know that, that point Yeah, of course. You're referencing, we're all kind of culturally aware of if we grew it was a long war as well. Yeah, it was. And although that was the picture outside of her house and in the world when she went out her front door within her home, it was a very happy family. Um, her dad was an electrical engineer, her mother. Was a homemaker who knows what she would've time. But what she was was tremendously encouraging of her daughter's curiosity and spirit. Her brothers. Likewise, tried to encourage her and when they learned things at school, they saw she was interested in science and math and in whatever it might be, they would bring home material for her to look at and read and reading was a big, a big feature. So apparently as a child, she would tell herself bedtime stories about a remarkable little girl who went into the world and achieved wonderful things. She was a mayor, or she traveled the world, or she went on adventures. And so with that natural sense of imagination and love of stories, Maryam imagined that she would become a writer. There's a quote here about it actually. When I was a kid, my dream was to become a writer. I spent my most exciting moments reading novels, reading virtually anything I could get my hands on. I mean, oh, I'm very tired and it made me quite emotional, you talking about her dreams and stuff. I was like, welling of, Aw, that's lovely. It's, it is so charming and it just gives you the insight. These, these women that we talk about this so often features that they have. This deep love of books, of stories, and of reading, and I think you and I both resonate with that. And I, I imagine lots of people will, there's an adorable little photo of her dressed up as a nurse. I know. Apparently she loved to read biographies of people like, Mary Curie and, you know, she just really, yeah, she had, that's weird. A real appetite for women mean who were out there doing mean. It's unusual for us. Small child. Yes. Isn't it? Yeah. Yes. It's quite real for a small child. Let's talk about the radi of, yeah, let's talk about that poisonous element that Mary GI vows a bit dark. Maybe this is her marking herself out from a really young age as just having a rapacious curiosity about the world. She went off to elementary school, uh, primary school, as you would say. Once she finished with that though, she was allowed to sit the entrance exam for a prestigious school. Okay. It's called Farzana again, middle School for girls, and it was managed directly by the Iranian National Organization for development of exceptional talents. So it was, it was to foster the best and the brightest. Wow. At that time in Iran, I imagine that that was a rare thing, and being in Teran will have gone a long way to give her that opportunity. That's, and she smashed it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like, it just shows the importance of those programs as well, doesn't it? The It really does. How much they needed. Yeah. Yeah. To spot that talent and, and. As we'll say to, to bring it on and, and to bring it out into the world. So she got in, in the first week of school. She met her lifelong best friend who was called Roya Beheshti. They immediately bonded and they would apparently go off to the bookstores around the school, uh, during their, their breaks. I know. And they would buy, I know, they're so cute. They would buy whatever books were cheapest, whatever was on sale. So they ended up reading. Everything. Like just, it's so good, isn't it? It's adorable, cutest thing. These two year school girls with the fuzzy little hair, right to the bookstore. Loving, loving the books. Um, oh, that tiny little pocket money buying the really cute books. Oh my god. I've got a crumble. Oh my God. Well, she and Roya would go off and do this. They also obviously had their classes. Maryam apparently didn't get off to a natural start with the maths. Um, she, in her first year had a teacher who told her, uh, that she wasn't especially talented in the subject, which apparently really damaged her confidence, I can see, and made her not very interested. Oh, it's horrible. It's a horrible thing to say, and it could have been the end of a remarkable story, right? Because all it takes really is one person to kind of tell you, well, no, no, that that's not for you. You're not good at that. Especially when you are young and you're fragile and you don't have that thick skin and mm-hmm. You probably haven't been told that before either. That's like new, that's a new data, especially you to absorb are like a gifted child who probably is good at a lot of different things. It would be natural to just go, well, okay, I can't be good at everything. Fine. But why would you say that to a little girl? Like what were you getting out of that? I, yes, this, it's a really odd thing to have done in my opinion, but luckily the following year she ended up with a different maths teacher. I would say a better maths teacher who encouraged her and her natural talent started to come So. That was during her middle school years. And then in high school, uh, still at, uh, Forgan, um, Maryam and Roya found a working paper, a practice paper that showed six mathematical problems from something called the Mathematical Olympiad, which is an international maths competition like Olympia. Like, yeah, like the Olympics. The Olympics. Of Max. Of Max. Yeah. That's where we're the Olympics of Max. Oh my God. How old is she at this point? Like middle? She's probably about middle school age. Yeah. Uh, just after middle school. So between 16 and 18 years old, fine. Just finds this paper and they think, I know we're gonna have a little go at it. So they do, because maths is fun because learning is. Fun. So they managed to solve three of the six problems without any, you know, support or, or teaching specifically for it. And they, oh, God brought this. I know. No, I can't actually barely scraped by the face level, but you know, it's not a little problem. Do you, you know it, the problem is like three lines low, isn't it? It's gonna be, um, yeah, it's, it's designed to weed out the. The average student from the truly mathematically gifted and just without any, you know, support, they knocked out half of them. They brought that along to their school principal and they asked her for mathematical problem solving classes. Uh, at that time in the Iranian curriculum, that was only allowed to be taught to boys or only typically taught to boys. Oh. In the eighties. Um, yep. Again, this is the, it's the Islamic Islamic Revolution and the women. Had much akin to I think what's happening in Afghanistan now. Kind of a rolling back of what a woman's role and what a girl's role should be. But her principal of her school said, no, we, we are going to do that for you. Used her sway and as Miriam would put it, her positive can do mindset to arrange those advanced maths classes. Um, cool. And previous to that, no girls had ever participated in the Iranian mathematical Olympiad team, but the principal's work paid off. The female principal's work paid off. Mm-hmm. And I think my immediate good reaction is if that was a man, I dunno if that would happen. That's the concern, isn't it? That Yeah. It's another example of. The luck of having support women, good support and good women around you, to, to recognize the potential you need, you need cheerleaders in your life. If anyone's watching, absolutely listening there to this, oh my God, if you don't feel like you have someone supporting you in your corner, come hell, high water. Go and get one. I'll do it. Do it. Get it. You're super good at it. Yeah, just, but it's so needed, isn't it? Because. It's not just the fact that she had a positive can-do mindset, it's she recognized that herself and that little girl I bet. At some level. Right. And she was willing to fight for her. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. Um, well it worked because Maryam and Roya made the Iranian Mathematical Olympiad team. Yes. Which it was a tremendous honor, but it also is done on merit, like they. They had to work to get into that position. Oh, damn right. Yeah. They had to be good enough. Just they not letting anyone into the Olympics karara, you're not letting any sausage in there. Exactly. It was a really, really big deal. So it gave Miriam both encouragement and recognition, but also an opportunity to go out and see the world, which from childhood was a dream of hers. All those adventures that she wanted were starting to happen. Yeah, that's pretty cool. Yeah. So her first competition was in Hong Kong. Amazing. Uh, Mari, completely different as well to like Iran, like ly everything away. Yeah. Yeah. Hong Kong in the eighties must have been mind blowing. Um, Maryam scored 41 out of 42 available points. She did and won a gold medal. She did. And Roya earned a silver. So nice. They, they represented their country beautifully. Really did. The following year in Toronto, Maryam got a perfect score of 42 out of 42 available points for another goal. Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes. She's doing, and this is the girl who can't do math. She's the girl who, oh, I don't think this is for you. I think that teacher can't do teaching is what I think. Yes. But um, we are, that is the summary. Yes, yes, yes. So that brings us up to 1995 and, okay. Feels very contemporary, doesn't it? It feels so contemporary. Maryam is beginning to study for her degree in mathematics mm-hmm. At the Sharif University of Technology in Tehran. Yeah. Also, she got this Olympic medal without having a degree since Oh yeah. That, that level of competition was specifically for. People of her age. So it was Oh, okay, okay, okay. Yeah, like there was a team in my school for academic decathlon, and it was, you would go and do like quizzes and stuff with kids, all kids. So she was, it wasn't an adult competition or anything, but it still was the, the absolute like gold standard cream of the crop worldwide. Nice, nice, nice, nice. In fact, there's a little bit about it here because her university place was funded by a fellowship. From the Institute for the Promotion of Mathematics who are deeply okay involved in that. So, there's a little quote, well, a not so little quote here that talks about the kind of things you can expect if you're doing the exam for one of these fellowships. What kind of topics should you expect? Well, that depends on your class, but don't expect questions straight out of a textbook. Classes two to four, you'll see numbers, patterns, basic operations time, and a few puzzles classes, five to six, I think, fractions, decimals, factors, and a bits of algebra thrown in. CLS is seven to nine. You'll need to know equations, geometry, and how to play around with data. Spare him. Come on guys. You know what I mean? Come kids, they're, they're stoked and I love it. I love that the phrasing, like play around with data because I think it, like personifies the approach that Maryam had throughout her career for her math was something fun and playful. So, you know, that's so interesting. We'll get there. Yeah. Yeah. At any rate, she was able to score highly enough to have her degree fully funded. And the university itself was one of the leading physical sciences universities in Iran. So, you know, it's so the right place for her. She gets there, she meets all these other people who are just on her wavelength, these mathematicians. And they all became friends because they were so passionate about their topic. And they would have like. Like little pickup problem solving sessions for fun and informal reading groups and literally just could not get enough of, of the math. She also, whilst doing her first year of uni and beyond, was busy publishing research papers, which. Is amazing. Ama. I know. My first year of uni, it's so hard to do. How? Like how I was pleased if I could find a parking spot where I wouldn't get a ticket. Or if I found a place that sold cheap sandwiches like I was. It's so true. You're surviving, you're living, you're learning to live. Survive as well. Survive. Survive. Well, she went ahead whilst doing all of that adjustment and freshman, you know. Yeah. Concern and all of it. To write the paper decomposition of complete tripartite graphs into five cycles. So there you go. Go. That's the kind of thing. I know what it's meant. Nope, not a clue. Absolutely Greek to me. Um, perhaps. Oh, a simple proof of a theorem of Sure. Okay. What? Sure. Yes, sure. S-C-H-U-R, who I assume is a, was a person academic in the field of maths. Yeah. Yeah. Throughout her university years, she's published is, is kind of the headline there. Mental, absolutely mental insane. Whilst all of this is going on during. The Iranian revolution during, she had a, the first tragedy of her young life, which was that a bus that she and some of the other students and a few teachers were on, was on its way back from a competition and crashed into a ravine. So of the students who were on the bus. And the teachers who were on the bus, I think that there were nine deaths in total. Many, many, many people injured. She survived and went on to complete her and I didn't see a lot about how this affected her, but. She clearly is somebody who is not going to be stopped and yeah, who sort of pushes on even when things are drastically, drastically sad. The vibe I'm getting is it's like a calling. It's like she can't help herself but do it. She, she just has to get it out of her. I think you're absolutely onto something. She was willing to travel for it too. She graduated university and moved to the US to attend grad school. When she got to Harvard, which is where she went, she had seminars led by a man called Curtis McMullen who had just won the Fields medal. This is not something I know anything about. So I've done a little like succinct explanation mm-hmm. In case anyone else is just like the what now? Yeah. So would you, would you mind. Uh, the Fields Medal recognizes outstanding mathematical achievement for existing work and for the promise of future achievement they're given every four years On the occasion of the International Congress of Mathematicians And the laureates must be younger than 40 years old. Hmm. So it's like the shiniest of the medals of the It's a big deal. Yeah, it, it's a big deal. It's what else is given every It's kind of coming back to that like Olympics vibe that like, yeah, every so often they have this big international maths conference and they, they look around the world and they say, who, who are the young rising stars? Who are the kind of rock stars of the field right now who not only have done stuff but we can see are going to go on to do even more incredible stuff? We should make it up. We should have our own little. Thing every four years. Just recognize awesome people. Just yeah, yeah, yeah. Just somebody who's doing pretty similar. Pretty cool. And make it a laureate. I love it. That's that. Yeah. Can we get a little gold medal minted? I think that would be, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Definitely got, at least for this, at least. So here comes her professor with his freshly minted fields medal. He became her doctoral advisor and said that he was impressed by her imagination and her daring approach to problems. So I think that's daring, forged, daring to to try new things and to push, yeah. Push things and ask why and question more deeply. Love that. And that speaks to the complexity of what she's doing. She, we're not talking four plus four, are we? We are not, and in fact, we're pushing the boundaries. I'm, I'm about to push your boundaries. I think because there's an enormous quote here. Enormous, like almost a full page if you care to read it. What I did was, because I do not understand this field whatsoever, I thought I wanna know a little bit more about what her work was, right? So I went off on a little Reddit. Expedition and I found yes to read it. Explain like I'm five ELI five. This is what. Hyperbolic geometry, which was her area of focus. This is what it's all about. So are you up for reading a mega quote? In regular life, we look at stuff on flat surfaces, like the shortest distance between two points. If I want to walk from a point A to point B, the quickest way is simply walking in a perfect straight line. Cervical geometry is basically doing geometry on the surface of a sphere instead of a flat surface. So now if I want to walk between two points using the shortest path, I can't walk directly between them and a straight line. The quickest way to fly from London to Sydney would simply be through the earth in a direct straight line, but that isn't possible. So we must fly along the circular arc around the earth. That's because Cara, the earth is round a sphere. Exactly. So we're better at this than we thought. Hyperbolic geometry is like doing geometry. On a saddle shaped plane. If I want to walk between two points on this type of surface, I yet again cannot walk in a direct straight line as I. As I would have to walk between the surface and the thin air. Do I get that? So if you were to stick a little star on the outside edge of the saddle, like where, where your knee would need it, say, and you were to put another star on the other edge of the saddle. the, where the other leg would meet it if you wanted to connect those lines. The quickest way, quickest would be just like that. Oh, we're talking about a horse settle. A horse settle. Oh, right. If you want walk between two points of any type of the surface, I yet again cannot walk in a direct straight line as I would have to walk above the surface on thin air, which isn't allowed, I must remain on the surface at all times. This means that the practical, shortest distance between two points is going in a strange curved line. There will be non-parallel lines, which don't have, which don't, oh, which don't never intersect the angles. A triangle, some to less than a hundred degree. I'm gonna cut this paragraph out. It's too much. So this is, this is the important one. Oh no, that's me. Like is too much. This is too much. I think the fact that it's too much is the point the, the fact that even a rudimentary explanation of the mathematical world in which she was engaging. It's impossible. The point this person's making is that all the things we think we understand about math about. How many degrees the corners of a triangle add up to about how spheres and planes and lines work. The fact that parallel lines will never meet and non-parallel lines will eventually cross. Yeah, all those rules are gone. Hyperbolic geometry is. Absolutely bonkers. That's right. That's the takeaway. That's the, the, the fine, the single understood single line. There's a picture that I've pulled in from a master that starts it's like that to me looks like a dog toy. Beyond that I've got nothing. It does. Yeah. But she's working with this. Um, this is where Maryam is playing in this wildly difficult. Impossible to deal with with intuition realm where none of the rules really apply. She makes herself at home there. So her research, even at this comparatively early stage in her career is bringing up new theories and overturning accepted thinking about how this all works. Um, she had, um, a dissertation about this called Simple Geodesics on hyperbolic surfaces. And volume of the modularized space of curves. And I included that simple. I thought that was hysterical. Simple, simple. Um, obviously I don't understand probably the last 700 words that either of us has said. But people who knew knew and they saw this was exceptional work, like once in a generation thinking. So it earned her the Leonard m and Eleanor b Blumenthal Award for the advancement of research and pure mathematics. Hmm. Uh, she was offered a junior fellowship at Harvard, which she declined. She was given a clay research fellowship and that allowed her to have the time and space to think about things. She went off with this fellowship to become an assistant professor at Princeton. And she really relished that time. Here's something about her that I think everyone can get behind and appreciate. There's a, a much smaller quote here, if you would. I am a slow thinker and have to spend a lot of time before I can clean up my ideas and make progress. Yeah. Yeah. Because you're often criticized for being a slow thinker. Mm-hmm. Aren't you? It's often like, make a quick decision. Make it, now capitalism. Yeah. Go, go, go suck every second out of every day. And actually, yeah, like hustle. Hustle. Culture. Hustle, baby. Yeah. Yeah. And the like, I kind of had a note here that the things that we associate, the words we associate with intelligence are, oh, they're really quick, they're really sharp, they're really fast. Speed is a virtue. But here she comes and she's. Demonstrably an exceptional mind, and she's going, I just need to let things brew. I need to think about it. I need to work it over and work it over. And I found that so delightful and refreshing. Yeah. That's pretty cool. Yeah, so she, she used that time, it was fruitful. She produced many more papers all around that wacky, hyperbolic geometry world that she loved. And then in 2006 she started a collaboration with a couple of other mathematicians, Alex Eskin mm-hmm. And Amir Hamdi. And the three of them did some huge breakthrough works in Geodesics and. Important as the work clearly is to people in that field. What I think is super interesting is how, how they and she worked, so, mm-hmm. There's another quote here from Eskin, talking about Maryam as a coworker. Aw. She is very optimistic and that's infectious. When you work with her, you feel you have a much better chance of solving problems. At first seem hopeless. Oh, that's great. Oh, isn't, isn't that delightful? If that was on my performance review, I'd be classic. No one's saying that about me. I'm telling you No. Oh, but she, she came through such difficult things. I can't help but think that that builds. Uh, it builds a certain reserve and hope is such an active revolution, you know, to be optim optimistic. I was thinking she probably got it from her teacher. It's very similar, positive, can do optimistic, infectious, like they're very similar vein, aren't they? Wonderful? Maybe that teacher I dunno. I love that. It's a leap, but it's quite cool. Like No, no. I can see it like such a role model. I love this picture you've got, by the way, isn't that of her like looking serene, gorgeous in her element? Absolutely. In her element. I love it. Look, face equations, that makes me feel sweaty and stressed, but she's just. her spot. But s look beautiful, like all the loops and the brackets it's a very calm image. I know obviously the background isn't, but it, it feels calm. I think for her it is. It's a place, a place of joy. And yeah, so there's a bit that I kind of noted down a little further along that talks about her seeing mathematical characters and, and. You know, objects as these characters in a kind of story, in a narrative, and apparently she would get these great, huge roles of paper and roll them out and sketch things that I can imagine. Well, like you read that description of what this hyperbolic geometry involves. Mm-hmm. She's drawing things that by definition cannot be depicted, but she's Ah, it's beautiful. It is. Yeah, it is beautiful. And fluid and organic she finishes her fellowship. She is made a professor at Stanford. Finally. Yeah. Jesus. I wrote about time and at this point she meets and marries Jan Vdr, who is a Czech theoretical computer scientist and applied mathematician. So bonding, describing their bin on the math. Uh, he's teaching over at Princeton and then they had a little daughter called in, uh, 2011. So. At the 2014 International Congress of Mathematicians, which you will remember is a big deal. Big deal. Um, they give out Maryam. Maryam made history by becoming the first woman and the first Iranian to receive the field's medal. Nice. So, yeah, strong. You know, you know, this is a huge, huge step and, and she's still so young. She is 20 full of very young, but so full of promise and I think. She didn't give an acceptance speech, but she did do interviews and okay. She talked in those interviews about what she felt was the most important thing for her to get where she did. So there's a little chunky quote there. I was very lucky in many ways. The war, Iran Iraq War, which lasted from 1980 1988, ended when I finished an elementary school. I couldn't have had the great opportunities that I had if I had been born 10 years earlier. I went to a great high school and had very good teachers. I met my friend Roya ti the first week. It is invaluable to have a friend who shares your interests and helps you stay motivated. Also, our school principal was a strong-willed woman who was willing to go a long way. I'm gonna cry to provide us with the same opportunities as the boys school. Oh my God. It's gorgeous, isn't it? Oh, and it's just so full of. Gratitude and recognition of others. Yeah. It's a remarkable testament to her character. Mm-hmm. How are you feeling up for beating? Another quote? I think I'm just tired. It is. I feel like I'm putting you through the paces today. I can do this one if you prefer, but I just thought it was a really interesting thing because mm-hmm. When they were talking about this award, going to Maryam, the Fields medal panel really consciously chose to open that door to, okay. To her as a woman working in the field of maths. Yeah. Finally. And it's like, it's good news, don't get me wrong, but it is like we're in 2014 now, like, come on. You know what I mean? Professor Dane, Francis Kowan a member of the Medal selection committee from the University of Oxford pointed out that despite maths being used as traditionally, a male reserve, women have contributed to mathematics for centuries. Yes, we have. She noted that around 40% of maths undergraduates in the UK are women. Yes, they are. But that proportion declines rapidly at PhD level and beyond. Why is that? There is so many reasons why that is and why that doesn't happen for men. I could go on quote. I hope that Maryam, being granted this award will inspire lots more girls and young women in this country and around the world to believe in their own abilities and to aim to be fields medalists in the future. Professor Ker one said. Yeah. Oh, I get it. And I get that she's tried to put the stats in there and it reminds me of that book, invisible Women that we are Reading. Like the World is not designed for us sometimes and like. It is not, it's not our fault that 40% of mass graduates in the UK are women, but then it decreases. That's nothing to do with this. That is the society that has been built. Yet we are the ones having to fight for the society. You know, I think that directly acknowledging it. And saying, we are deciding to take steps to do what we can to, to redress this, to, to, to change this. I see. And this all came down to a teacher giving her a shot. Yep. And it's like, ugh. How many kids didn't get that shot? You know, Yeah. Yeah. I'm an emotional wreck. So how about you carry on, because now I've gone from tired to cry to angry all in in that space. About 10 minutes. Well, the rollercoaster will continue. I'm afraid to say no. Yeah. So, um, we'll start with this. Maryam, throughout her career was noted for her optimism and her collaboration. We talked a little bit about how playful she was in seeing mathematical. Objects as characters and stuff like this. Her colleagues also described her as humble, that she really only accepted honors because she understood that it would inspire other girls and women to follow that same path. Uh, but despite her not seeking those. Honors. They came. They came. So she had her fields medal. She was given, I'm gonna just run through this little bullet.'cause apparently these are the, these are the big ones in that field. Um, despite the Emmys, the Oscars, the Emmys, and the SCAs, the whole works. The Ruth Little Satter prize in mathematics, and she earned that in 2013. She was elected to the Paris Academy of Sciences and the American Philosophical Society in 2015 to the American National Academy of Sciences in 2016 and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2017, she was invited to speak at the international Congress of mathematicians again and again. Including the plenary lecture in 2014, um, the year she was elected, uh, nominated for the prize and won. But sadly, even before she had received the fields medal, Maryam had been diagnosed with breast cancer. She continued to work throughout her illness, which I think really goes to that point that you were making about vocation, about just being her calling and a lot of her work, her most significant discoveries. They were during that, that time when she was ill. eventually the cancer spread and she died in 2017, just 40 years old, which took from her loved ones this wonderful woman took from the world of mathematics this incredible. Bright star and I know it's rough. So there's a quote here from her talking about her illness. Um, I think you're gonna have to read it. I will cry. Okay., So she says Life isn't fair. I was born in a loving family. I was born with a smart head and had good people around me. I didn't complain about how fair that is. Many people in this world don't have those things, so why should I complain now? Oh, oh. Which is just brave. Beyond imagining. Yeah. After she died her, well, I guess her boss, it would've been the Stanford president, mark Tessier Levine. Said that she obviously was gone far too soon, but that her impact as a scholar and a role model would be significant and enduring. Yeah. Do you feel up to one last quote? Yeah. Her ideas will live on for the thousands of women she inspired to pursue math and science. and he's dead. Right? Because her legacy. Continues even now. There are other people out there working on the foundations that she laid. Um, I wanted to mention in particular to mathematicians called Laura Monk and Ani and Araman, uh, who this year extended Merriam's work on random hyperbolic surfaces, that old favorite. Yay. Um, and it just goes to show those ideas, although they're already over a decade old. Are generating new discoveries in that absolutely bizarre universe of hyperbolic geometry that she began mapping. So Maryam Mars's life, though obviously much too short, really shows that that power of legacy and. Her imagination and her perseverance and her intellectual courage can turn even these bizarre, abstract and challenging topics into playgrounds that can be enjoyed and understood. Along the way. And she was so lucky. She found her thing, she, she found her thing and she ran with it as far as she could, as quick as she could. I mean, see what you think about this, but I've got a sense that whatever she turned her interest to. Would have become her thing you, I think. I think this was a special thing that resonated for her because God knows nobody would get involved in that if it wasn't, but she just seemed to be such a sparky inventive. Determined. Like hard worker. I can't, if you can master hyperbolic geometry, what can't you do? You know? Yeah. Fair, fair, fair. Yeah. But that's our gal. That's our gal for today. Oh, well, she's wonderful, isn't she? And it's very, yeah, because I haven't even thought about the things that are not flat or need measuring. That has not entered my realm at all. No, I don't want to. No, I don't want to think about these things, but I'm, I'm stoked that somebody's enjoying it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like CAD wasn't a thing. You know, all of that kind of stuff. None of this could be mapped in those ways. She was still pen and papering. Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty wild. I love the pictures as well. The pictures are so, um, I dunno. But she shines. She shines in all of those things too. It's pretty cool. I think the word that comes to mind is intensity, that she's, she's got a depth to her that comes through in those pictures and. Uh, you know, that joy in, what she's doing. What a cool cat. Yeah. Yeah. Not a bad suggestion at all. No, that was a wonderful, that was a really, thank you so much. Interesting thing to research. My pleasure. Thanks for listening. I'm sorry for the emotional. Oh, I think it's, um, turmoil. I think it's me. I dunno, like, I guess it is emotional as a story. It is, yeah. It is sad, but at the same time, the things that she achieved and the way that she worked, I thought so lovely. Um. Anyone who advocates for slow thinking and taking your time, I'm on your side. Yes, absolutely. I immediately on that. So new. And it also shows that it takes, it takes different strokes, right? For everyone has something to give and contribute, and you are Val, you add value, whoever you are, whatever you do in your own way, you add value and that makes Yeah. Well, thanks Kara. My pleasure.

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