Berkeley Mathematician Shares International Prize

A UC Berkeley mathematician, best known for his “Monstrous Moonshine Conjecture” proof of numeric relationships, was one of four men awarded the international Fields Medal.

Richard Borcherds was presented the award, often called the Nobel Prize of mathematics, on Tuesday at the Berlin meeting of the International Congress of Mathematicians. Maxim Kontsevich, Curtis McMullen and William Gowers were also cited for their achievements.

Borcherds produced a proof in 1989 for the Monstrous Moonshine Conjecture, which describes the relationship between modular functions and the largest group of whole numbers and their sums known in algebra, called the “Monster Group.”

The collection of numbers that comprise the Monster Group would contain more numbers than there are particles in the known universe, and would be written as 8.08017 followed by 53 zeros.

The award cites Borcherds for his achievements in algebra and geometry and includes a gold medal and a prize of $15,000 in Canadian currency.