Neena Gupta won the Infosys Prize 2024 in Mathematical Sciences. For which achievement was she recognised?
- Solving the Zariski Cancellation Problem (posed 1949)
- Proving the Riemann Hypothesis for specific classes of functions
- Developing a new approach to prime number distribution
- Proving Fermat's Last Theorem for higher-dimensional varieties
Answer: Solving the Zariski Cancellation Problem — a fundamental question in algebraic geometry posed by Oscar Zariski in 1949
Neena Gupta is a mathematician at the Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata. In 2014, she proved a striking negative answer to the Zariski Cancellation Problem in positive characteristic — a problem in algebraic geometry that had remained open since 1949. The Infosys Prize 2024 (presented at a ceremony on 11 January 2025 in Bengaluru) formally recognised this work alongside her broader contributions to commutative algebra.