Israeli-American mathematician Dennis Gaitsgory was awarded the 2025 Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics for his role in the proof of the geometric Langlands conjecture in early April.
Gaitsgory has spent the past thirty years solving the Langlands problem, often called a "grand unified theory of mathematics." The problem "is based on a series of conjectures proposing deep connections between two disparate parts of mathematics: the study of polynomial equations on the one hand and the study of geometric symmetries on the other," a handout from the Breakthrough Prize read.
The proof is expected to have a resounding effect on other areas of mathematics, including number theory, algebraic geometry, and mathematical physics.
In collaboration with several colleagues and students, Gaitsgory published the proof for the Langlands conjecture in 2024, consisting of 800 pages of work across five papers. He wrote an outline of the steps required for a proof in 2013.
Gaitsgory is a mathematician at the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics (MPIM), a research institute in Bonn, Germany. He completed his studies at Tel Aviv University before earning his doctorate in 1997 at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Following positions at Princeton and the University of Chicago, he was a professor at Havard University before he was appointed a Scientific Member and Director at MPIM in 2021.
The Oscars of Science
The Breakthrough Prize – popularly known as the Oscars of Science – was created by Jewish-Russian billionaire Yuri Milner in 2012 to honor scientific accomplishments, which Milner wants to give the same cultural resonance as sports or entertainment.
This year's awards spotlighted remarkable discoveries in gene editing, human diseases, and the fundamental particles of the universe and its underlying mathematical principles.
Milner set up the awards alongside technology giants, including Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, 23andme founder Anne Wojcicki, and Google co-founder Sergey Brin. The prizes are worth $3 million, around three times the sum a Nobel Prize winner receives.
Six Breakthrough Prizes worth $3 million each were awarded within the fields of Life Sciences, Fundamental Physics, and Mathematics during the 2025 ceremony, in addition to six $100,000 prizes to eight early-career physicists and mathematicians.
Additionally, three female mathematicians who have recently completed PhDs were each awarded a $50,000 Maryam Mirzakhani New Frontiers Prize, bringing the 2025 total prize money to $18.75 million.
James Corden, actor and host of The Late Late Show, acted as emcee for the Los Angeles black tie event, at which Hollywood stars Gwyneth Paltrow, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Jodie Foster brushed shoulders with tech entrepreneurs Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
