Manjul Bhargava, 44, Mathematician

Indian fascination with numbers and geometry dates back to Aryabhata and Brahmagupta. Modern mathematics, however, bears no resemblance to the ancient world of formulae and certainties once a discovery had been made. Somewhere in the intervening millennium, India and mathematics drew apart. Manjul Bhargava, a young mathematician of Indian origin, harks back to that tradition. One of the youngest professors of mathematics at Princeton University, his work blends modern number theory with geometry. The work is extremely technical and way beyond the means of those untrained in modern mathematics. But it marks great breakthroughs in his discipline. The awarding of the Fields Medal—the highest prize of that subject given to a mathematician under the age of 40— is testimony to his accomplishments. It is not surprising that he trained under another great scholar, Andrew Wiles, the man who proved Fermat’s Last Theorem.

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