Laurent Lafforgue is a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 mathematician

Mathematician

A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....

.

He won 2 silver medals at International Mathematical Olympiad

International Mathematical Olympiad

The International Mathematical Olympiad is an annual six-problem, 42-point mathematical olympiad for pre-collegiate students and is the oldest of the International Science Olympiads. The first IMO was held in Romania in 1959. It has since been held annually, except in 1980...

 (IMO) in 1984 and 1985.
He entered the École Normale Supérieure

École Normale Supérieure

The École normale supérieure is one of the most prestigious French grandes écoles...

 in 1986. In 1994 he received his Ph.D.

Doctor of Philosophy

Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...

 under the direction of Gérard Laumon

Gérard Laumon

Gérard Laumon is a French mathematician. He studied at the École Normale Supérieure and Paris-Sud 11 University, Orsay.In 2004 Laumon and Ngô Bảo Châu received the Clay Research Award for the proof of the Langlands and Shelstad's Fundamental Lemma for unitary groups, a key component in the...

 in the Arithmetic

Arithmetic

Arithmetic or arithmetics is the oldest and most elementary branch of mathematics, used by almost everyone, for tasks ranging from simple day-to-day counting to advanced science and business calculations. It involves the study of quantity, especially as the result of combining numbers...

 and Algebraic Geometry

Algebraic geometry

Algebraic geometry is a branch of mathematics which combines techniques of abstract algebra, especially commutative algebra, with the language and the problems of geometry. It occupies a central place in modern mathematics and has multiple conceptual connections with such diverse fields as complex...

 team at the Université de Paris-Sud. Currently he is a research director of CNRS, detached as permanent professor of mathematics

Mathematics

Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...

 at the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques

Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques

The Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques is a French institute supporting advanced research in mathematics and theoretical physics...

 (I.H.E.S.) in Bures-sur-Yvette

Bures-sur-Yvette

Bures-sur-Yvette is a commune in the Essonne department in Île-de-France in northern France.Inhabitants of Bures-sur-Yvette are known as Buressois.-Geography:...

, France.

In 2002 at the 24th International Congress of Mathematicians

International Congress of Mathematicians

The International Congress of Mathematicians is the largest conference for the topic of mathematics. It meets once every four years, hosted by the International Mathematical Union ....

 in Beijing

Beijing

Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...

, China

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

 he received the Fields Medal

Fields Medal

The Fields Medal, officially known as International Medal for Outstanding Discoveries in Mathematics, is a prize awarded to two, three, or four mathematicians not over 40 years of age at each International Congress of the International Mathematical Union , a meeting that takes place every four...

 together with Vladimir Voevodsky

Vladimir Voevodsky

Vladimir Voevodsky is a Russian American mathematician. His work in developing a homotopy theory for algebraic varieties and formulating motivic cohomology led to the award of a Fields Medal in 2002.- Biography :...

. Lafforgue made outstanding contributions to Langlands' program in the fields of number theory

Number theory

Number theory is a branch of pure mathematics devoted primarily to the study of the integers. Number theorists study prime numbers as well...

 and analysis

Mathematical analysis

Mathematical analysis, which mathematicians refer to simply as analysis, has its beginnings in the rigorous formulation of infinitesimal calculus. It is a branch of pure mathematics that includes the theories of differentiation, integration and measure, limits, infinite series, and analytic functions...

, and in particular proved the Langlands conjectures for GL_n of a function field. The crucial contribution by Lafforgue to solve this question is the construction of compactifications of certain moduli stacks of shtukas. The monumental proof

Mathematical proof

In mathematics, a proof is a convincing demonstration that some mathematical statement is necessarily true. Proofs are obtained from deductive reasoning, rather than from inductive or empirical arguments. That is, a proof must demonstrate that a statement is true in all cases, without a single...

 is the result of more than six years of concentrated efforts.

He received the Clay Research Award

Clay Research Award

The Clay Research Award is given annually by the Clay Mathematics Institute to mathematicians to recognize their achievement in mathematical research...

 in 2000. His younger brother Vincent Lafforgue

Vincent Lafforgue

Vincent Lafforgue is a French mathematician. He is a "Directeur de Recherches" at the Université d'Orléans since September 1, 2010. Lafforgue was awarded the 2000 EMS Prize for his contribution to the K-theory of operator algebras: the proof of the Baum–Connes conjecture for discrete co-compact...

 is also a notable mathematician.

Lafforgue is a critic of what he calls "pedagogically correct" in France's educational system.

On May 22, 2011, Lafforgue was awarded an honorary Doctor of Science from the University of Notre Dame

University of Notre Dame

The University of Notre Dame du Lac is a Catholic research university located in Notre Dame, an unincorporated community north of the city of South Bend, in St. Joseph County, Indiana, United States...

.

External links

• Official home page (in French)
• Lafforgue and education in France L’Affaire Lafforgue (in Portuguese)