June Huh, Combinatorics, and the Strange Allure of Chess Knight Problems
June Huh was awarded the Fields Medal in 2022 for his transformative contributions to the field of combinatorics, particularly for the bridges he built between combinatorics and algebraic geometry. However, his story is not at all linear and straightforward – and it intertwines with poetry, science, and a particular type of chess problems.
In high school, Huh wanted to be a poet. He even dropped out of high school to focus on his poetry, feeling exhausted by the relentless studying. His poetry did not do all that well.
His university studies were also fraught with difficulties. He wanted to major in physics and astronomy and become a science journalist. However, his attendance record was poor and he had to repeat several courses after failing them.
If there was anything Huh knew he didn’t want to do, it was mathematics. “I was pretty good at most subjects except math,” he told the New York Times. However, there were glimpses of Huh’s mathematical brilliancy, it just did not seem like math.
