Best Of: Maryam Mirzakhani

Published Sep 11, 2024, 7:00 AM

This back to school season, we're bringing back some of our favorite Womanica episodes you might have missed. Today's Womanican is Maryam Mirzakhani (1977-2017). She was an optimist and an innovator, contributing new points of view and new teachings to the fields of dynamics and geometry. She is the only woman to have won the coveted Fields Medal.

This month, we’re heading back to school – and we’re taking you along with us! For all of September, we’ll be bringing back some of our favorite Womanica episodes you might have missed. You’ll hear me – and some talented guest hosts – share both iconic and under-appreciated stories. But there’s a twist... each week is dedicated to a different school subject. This week: Women you should be learning about in literature classes!

History classes can get a bad rap, and sometimes for good reason. When we were students, we couldn’t help wondering... where were all the ladies at? Why were so many incredible stories missing from the typical curriculum? Enter, Womanica. On this Wonder Media Network podcast we explore the lives of inspiring women in history you may not know about, but definitely should.

Every weekday, listeners explore the trials, tragedies, and triumphs of groundbreaking women throughout history who have dramatically shaped the world around us. In each 5 minute episode, we’ll dive into the story behind one woman listeners may or may not know–but definitely should. These diverse women from across space and time are grouped into easily accessible and engaging monthly themes like Educators, Villains, Indigenous Storytellers, Activists, and many more. Womanica is hosted by WMN co-founder and award-winning journalist Jenny Kaplan. The bite-sized episodes pack painstakingly researched content into fun, entertaining, and addictive daily adventures.

Womanica was created by Liz Kaplan and Jenny Kaplan, executive produced by Jenny Kaplan, and produced by Grace Lynch, Maddy Foley, Brittany Martinez, Edie Allard, Lindsey Kratochwill, Adesuwa Agbonile, Carmen Borca-Carrillo, Taylor Williamson, Sara Schleede, Paloma Moreno Jimenez, Luci Jones, Abbey Delk, Hannah Bottum, Lauren Willams, and Adrien Behn. Special thanks to Shira Atkins. Original theme music composed by Miles Moran.

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Hey listeners, it's Jenny. This month, we're heading back to school and we're taking you along with us. For all of September, we're bringing back some of our favorite Womanica episodes you might have missed. You'll hear me and some talented guest hosts share both iconic and underappreciated stories, and there's a twist. Each week is dedicated to a different school subject. This week, women you should be learning about in math class. These Womanquin stories show us just how exciting and diverse math really can be. So onto the show.

Hello from Wondermedia Network. I'm love you, Jay Jones. I'm a New York Times bestselling author, speaker, and host of the podcast Professional Troublemaker. I'm so excited to be your guest host for this month of Wimenica. This month, we're highlighting prodigies, women who achieved greatness at a young age. This is especially a passion point for me because my latest book, Rising Troublemaker, a Fearfighter MAO for teens, reminds them that they are never too young to make a significant impact. Today's prodigy was one of the most brilliant minds in mathematics. She was an optimist, and an innovator, contributing new point of view and new teachings to the fields of dynamics and geometry. She never shot away from difficult problems, preferring to instead tangle herself up in them to better understand the root of the situation, and to this day, she's the only woman to have won the coveted Fields Medal in its eighty six year history. Please welcome Mariam Murzakhani. Mariam was born in May nineteen seventy seven in.

Tehran, Iran.

The Iran Iraq War came to a close as Marian was entering middle school. She'd later say she saw herself as part of a lucky generation who experienced relative peace the wars. Aftermath, Mariam attended Farzanigan Middle School for Girls, a program dedicated to educating accelerated.

Or bright students.

Ironically, Mariam didn't excel in mathematics during her first year.

In fact, a.

Teacher told her she was not particularly talented in the subject. Instead, Mariam was deeply interested in literature in writing at the time. She even wanted to be an author when she grew up. But by the time she reached high school, Mariam demonstrated a new founded interest in math, She and her friends solved three Mathematical Olympiad problems on their own, much to the surprise of the school's principal. The Olympiad is a prestigious annual international math competition for youth. Although women had never competed on the Iranian Mathematical Olympia team or even participated in mathematical problem solving classes at the school, Mariam convinced her principal to arrange such a class, and in nineteen ninety four, Mario qualified for the Iranian Mathematical Olympia team. At the age of seventeen. She won a gold medal at the Olympia. Her score was a forty one out of forty two. The next year she won again, this time with a perfect score. Mariam continued studying math at the Sheriff University of Technology in Tehran, where she published multiple papers as an undergraduate. She graduated in nineteen ninety nine with a bachelor's degree and traveled to.

The US to earn her PhD from Harvard.

As a doctoral candidate, Mariam worked with renowned mathematician Curtis McMullen. She focused on what are called Reemann surfaces abstract surfaces with several holes in them that are defined by complex functions. Mariam reversed the method usually used to study these surfaces, offering a new solution to others investigating them. Her work shed new light on theorems and other fields, including quantum field theory. After receiving her doctorates, Mariam turned down a junior fellows ship at Harvard to become a Clay Mathematics Institute Research Fellow at Princeton University. In two thousand and eight, she became a professor at Stanford University at thirty one years old. She was considered a leader in the fields of hyperbolic geometry, topology, and dynamics. That same year, she married fellow mathematician and professor John von Drack. They had a daughter together, named Anahita in twenty eleven. Her work at this point focused on the interaction between dynamics and geometry, like a complicated and.

Eternal game of billiards.

Though the mathematics Marian focused on were often unending and extremely difficult, she was recognized as a career long optimist. She described herself as a slow mathematician precisely because she usually chose.

The more laborious way to solve a problem.

While her method took more time, she said she felt it brought her closer to the.

Heart of the math she was engaging with.

Peers stopped short before pursuing a proof that could fail. Mariam followed rabbit holes to their source. When solving math problems, Mariam would often doodle her proofs across giant pieces of paper laid on the floor.

Her daughter called it painting.

In twenty fourteen, Mariam received the Fields Medal. The award, established in nineteen thirty six, is one of the most important prizes in mathematics.

It's only awarded to people aged forty or younger every four years.

When Mariam won, she became the first Iranian and the first woman to win the award. To this day, she's the only woman to have won it. Mariam died on July fourteen, twenty seventeen, of breast cancer.

She was forty years old.

Thanks for listening to this best I Have episode of a Man. For more information, find us on Facebook and Instagram at Wamanica Podcast special thanks to Liz Kaplan, my favorite sister and co creator. Join us tomorrow for another one of our favorite episodes honoring the back to school season.

Talk to you then

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