Simon K. Donaldson

From the Mathematics Breakthrough Prize:

"Simon Donaldson has been awarded the Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics for the new revolutionary invariants of four-dimensional manifolds and for the study of the relation between stability in algebraic geometry and in global differential geometry, both for bundles and for Fano varieties. Donaldson has transformed our understanding of four-dimensional shapes, showing which ones can be 'tamed' with the kind of equations that mathematicians can solve, and which can’t. In the process, he both provided powerful new tools for physicists and incorporated new ideas from physics into mathematics."

"Simon Donaldson," Mathematics Breakthrough Prize

Fields Medalist, 1986