A Chinese podcast · Same story, 4 levels
3:18
中国人第一次拿到“数学界的诺贝尔奖”：王虹、邓煜与菲尔兹奖
China Wins the 'Nobel Prize of Math' for the First Time: Wang Hong, Deng Yu and the Fields Medal
This is an HSK 3-4 Chinese listening episode that runs about 3 minutes. The full Mandarin script is shown with tap-for-pinyin and a line-by-line English translation, so you can listen and read at once — comprehensible input in the sense of Stephen Krashen's i+1 theory. It teaches 8 key vocabulary words such as 问题、一起、简单 and walks through 3 grammar patterns, each explained in English with examples. The same news story is retold at 4 difficulty levels — use the level selector above to find the version that is challenging but still understandable for you.
Read the complete story in Chinese. Reveal pinyin and English only when you need them.
Let me start with a question: just how good can the very best at math be?
This year, that question got an answer, from two Chinese people.
One is named Wang Hong, the other Deng Yu.
This week, the two of them together won the biggest prize in math — the Fields Medal.
You can think of the Fields Medal as "the Nobel Prize of math."
But it's even harder to win than the Nobel Prize.
Why do I say that?
First, it's given only once every four years.
Second, only to people who are still young, under forty.
Third, each time it goes to just two to four people.
So worldwide, very, very few people hold this prize.
What's rarer still: among this year's four, two are Chinese — and old classmates at that.
Let's start with Wang Hong.
She figured out an old problem more than a hundred years old.
You can picture it like this:
In your hand is a very thin needle.
You turn it in a full circle, pointing it in every direction.
The area the needle sweeps takes up some space.
How small can that space possibly be?
It sounds simple, but this problem stumped mathematicians for over a hundred years.
Wang Hong figured it out.
Deng Yu's problem was a different kind of hard.
Think about it: the air is full of tiny, tiny things we call molecules.
These molecules are always moving, bumping into one another, colliding back and forth.
Yet what we humans see is wind, heat, weather.
From "molecules colliding" to "the wind and heat we feel," no one had ever fully connected the path.
Deng Yu and two colleagues connected that path.
Now let's talk about why Chinese people are so happy.
In the past, ethnic Chinese did win the Fields Medal — Shing-Tung Yau and Terence Tao, for example.
But by the time they won, they were already American citizens.
Wang Hong and Deng Yu are different — when they won, they were still Chinese nationals.
So people say they are the first two "Chinese nationals" to win the Fields Medal.
Their story has one more especially interesting side.
Deng Yu was the classic "gifted kid" — as a teenager he won a gold medal at an international competition.
Wang Hong's road was different.
At first her exam score wasn't high enough to get into Peking University's math department.
She went into another department, studying on her own and testing until she finally transferred into math.
The two became classmates at Peking University, then later went to America to study together.
This year, the two of them again stood together at the highest place in the mathematical world.
There's one more point especially worth making.
Wang Hong is only the third woman ever to win the Fields Medal.
In math, women have always been few.
So Wang Hong's achievement made a lot of people especially happy.
Think about it:
A hard task that many worked on for a hundred years without finishing.
What kind of person is willing to keep at it?
Try it without the transcript and notice what sounds clearer.
A problem or question. 一个一百多年的老问题 = an old problem over a century old.
Together. 他们俩一起拿到 = the two won it together.
Simple, easy. 听起来好像很简单 = it sounds simple.
A place or area. 针转过的地方 = the area the needle sweeps.
A competition. 国际比赛 = an international competition.
A molecule — a tiny particle. Beyond HSK 3; glossed in the episode.
A person of Chinese descent (regardless of citizenship) — the contrast the episode draws with 中国人 (Chinese national).
Female, woman (formal). 第三个拿奖的女性 = the third woman to win.
* beyond level超纲词
把 + 宾语 + 动词
The 把 construction moves the object before the verb, focusing on what is DONE to it.
你把它转一圈。
邓煜和他的两个同事，把这条路走通了。
比……还(要)……
'even more … than …' — a stronger comparison than plain 比.
它比诺贝尔奖还要难拿。
让……(高兴/做)
'make / let someone (feel or do something)'.
王虹这件事，让很多人特别高兴。
是什么，能让一个人，一直做下去？
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