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Peter Scholze
Peter Scholze (cropped).jpg
Scholze in 2014
Born (1987-12-11) 11 December 1987 (age 37)
Nationality German
Alma mater University of Bonn
Known for Introduction of perfectoid spaces and diamonds

Prismatic cohomology

Condensed mathematics

Geometrization of the local Langlands conjectures
Children 1
Awards Prix and Cours Peccot (2012)
SASTRA Ramanujan Prize (2013)
Clay Research Award (2014)
Cole Prize (2015)
Fermat Prize (2015)
Ostrowski Prize (2015)
EMS Prize (2016)
Leibniz Prize (2016)
Berlin-Brandenburg Academy Award (2016)
Fields Medal (2018)
Scientific career
Fields Mathematics
Arithmetic geometry
Algebraic geometry
Algebraic number theory
Institutions University of Bonn
Max Planck Institute for Mathematics
Academy of Sciences Leopoldina
University of California, Berkeley
Clay Mathematics Institute
Thesis Perfectoid Spaces (2011)
Doctoral advisor Michael Rapoport

Peter Scholze (born December 11, 1987) is a brilliant mathematician from Germany. He is famous for his work in a special area of math called arithmetic geometry. Since 2012, he has been a professor at the University of Bonn. He also became a director at the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in 2018. Many people consider him one of the best mathematicians in the world. In 2018, he received the Fields Medal, which is like the Nobel Prize for mathematics.

Peter Scholze's Early Life and School

Peter Scholze was born in Dresden, a city in Germany. He grew up in Berlin. His father is a physicist, who studies how the world works. His mother is a computer scientist, who works with computers. His sister chose to study chemistry.

Peter went to the Heinrich-Hertz-Gymnasium [de] in Berlin. This school was special because it focused on math and science. When he was a student, Peter was very good at math competitions. He took part in the International Mathematical Olympiad and won three gold medals and one silver medal. This is a huge achievement!

He later studied at the University of Bonn. He finished his first degree, a bachelor's degree, in just three semesters. That's about one and a half years, which is very fast! He then completed his master's degree in two more semesters. In 2012, he earned his Ph.D. His teacher for his Ph.D. was Michael Rapoport.

It's interesting to know that Peter Scholze is part of a special group of mathematicians. His teacher, Michael Rapoport, was taught by someone famous, and that person was taught by another famous mathematician, and so on. In this chain of teachers and students, Peter Scholze, along with three of his "math ancestors," all won the Fields Medal.

Peter Scholze's Amazing Career

From July 2011 to 2016, Peter Scholze worked as a Research Fellow. This was at the Clay Mathematics Institute in New Hampshire, USA.

In 2012, soon after he finished his Ph.D., he became a full professor at the University of Bonn. He was only 24 years old at the time. This made him the youngest full professor in Germany!

In 2014, Peter Scholze also became a Chancellor's Professor at the University of California, Berkeley. While he was there, he taught a course on a special type of math called p-adic geometry.

In 2018, he was chosen to be a director at the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in Bonn. This is a very important role in the world of mathematics.

What Peter Scholze Studies

Peter Scholze is mainly an Algebraic Geometer. This means he studies shapes and spaces using algebra. Much of his work looks at specific parts of p-adic Algebraic Geometry. He has made some older, complex math ideas easier to understand. These ideas were first developed by other famous mathematicians like Gerd Faltings and Jean-Marc Fontaine.

His Ph.D. paper was about something called perfectoid spaces. This work helped solve a difficult math problem known as the weight-monodromy conjecture.

Peter Scholze also worked with another mathematician named Bhargav Bhatt. Together, they created a new idea called prismatic cohomology. Experts say this is a big step forward in unifying different types of math theories.

More recently, Peter Scholze and Dustin Clausen have started a new project called condensed mathematics. This is another way they are trying to bring different math ideas together.

Awards and Honors

Peter Scholze has received many important awards for his amazing work in mathematics.

  • In 2012, he won the Prix and Cours Peccot.
  • In 2013, he was given the SASTRA Ramanujan Prize.
  • In 2014, he received the Clay Research Award.
  • In 2015, he won the Frank Nelson Cole Prize in Algebra and the Ostrowski Prize.
  • He also received the Fermat Prize in 2015 from a math institute in France.
  • In 2016, the German Research Foundation awarded him the Leibniz Prize.

Interestingly, he turned down a $100,000 award called the "New Horizons in Mathematics Prize" in 2016. This decision got some attention in the news.

In 2017, he became a member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina.

In 2018, when he was just 30 years old, Peter Scholze won the Fields Medal. This is one of the highest honors a mathematician can receive. He was one of the youngest people ever to get this award. He received it for his work on perfectoid spaces, which changed how mathematicians study arithmetic algebraic geometry. His work also led to new ways of thinking about cohomology theories.

In 2019, Peter Scholze received a high honor from the German government, the Great Cross of Merit of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.

In 2022, he became a foreign member of the Royal Society in the UK. He also received the Pius XI Medal from the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.

About Peter Scholze's Family

Peter Scholze is married to a mathematician, just like him! They have one daughter.

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