But in reality, the moment he realized he had won the Fields Medal – the mathematics equivalent of the Nobel Prize – came when he was halfway up the stairs. “We were renovating the house and I painted a little bit,” he said. “I was completely covered in paint and very messy and I was using my phone as a flashlight.” He saw that he had a message requesting a Zoom call with the president of the International Mathematical Union. It didn’t take long for one of the world’s leading mathematicians to make the necessary deduction. “I guess I guessed.” Yesterday, Maynard, professor
