How did Professor Heo Jun-yi become a ‘bearer’?

In an online press conference with the Korean media on the 6th, Professor Heo Jun-yi of the International Mathematical Union (IMU) Fields Medal winner, Princeton University in the United States, explained that he was not a ‘desperate’ (abandoning mathematics). He corrected the facts at a time when reports about Professor Heo had already been covered as ‘a mathematical genius who was in despair’. How did it happen?

In an interview with Professor Heo Jun-yi, the first mention of ‘depressed’ was in an article on Maeil Economics in May 2021 (the first dream of a ‘mathematics star’ who solved the difficulties of mankind is a poet.. My power of infinite imagination that crosses boundaries). It was the time when the newspaper that previously interviewed Professor Huh as one of the young mathematicians expected to receive the Fields Medal in 2014 highlighted Professor Huh as a ‘mathematician the world pays attention to’ for the first time in 7 years.

He was a professor at Stanford University at the time, and was considered a mathematician who proved the Reed conjecture for the first time since 1968 and was considered a “rising star in mathematics” who contributed to the proof of the ‘Rota conjecture’ and ‘Dowling-Wilson conjecture’. The reporter asked Professor Heo, ‘I heard that I didn’t show any talent in mathematics since childhood, but I hear jokes that I was a ‘depressed’.” Professor Huh said, “It was also quite late to break up the multiplication table. He said he didn’t memorize everything until he was in the second grade of elementary school.

In the first title, Professor Heo was referred to as a ‘superman’ in an article in the Chosun Ilbo on January 1 of this year (‘from ‘desperate’ to ‘genius mathematician’…”Don’t make hasty conclusions about life or mathematics”). The article introduces the anecdote of Professor Huh, who said that he was told that he was ‘too late’ when he tried to go to science high school when he was 3rd in middle school, copying answers from the problem book his father, a statistician, had asked him to solve. The reporter said, ‘I was a loser, but I became a world-class mathematician. He continued to ask, ‘Are you born with a math brain? Professor Huh said, “I think it is the difference in ‘density of taste’ rather than the difference in ability. I think that people who feel a strong attraction to really love this kind of thing become a genius in the process of specializing and developing it.”

Six months after that, the Chosun Ilbo was the first to write the news about the award of ‘Desperate’. On the 5th, the title of the article led to calling Professor Heo a ‘high school dropout’. Yonhap News followed the news of the award of the “Late Mathematics Genius” with the title of ‘Shining with the Fields Medal, a Korean math genius who almost became a loser’. “After dropping out of high school, he took the GED and entered Seoul National University (Faculty of Physics and Astronomy) in 2002. After graduating, he completed his master’s degree at Seoul National University (School of Mathematical Sciences) and received his doctorate (mathematics) degree from the University of Michigan.”

Afterwards, a series of reports in the media emphasized that ‘a high school dropout was the first Korean to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Mathematics’. From the 5th to the 6th, the number of articles that were searched for with the keywords ‘Heo Jun-i’ and ‘desperate person’ amounted to about 100 per portal such as Daum and Naver.

Some media reported that ‘The New York Times (NYT) also paid attention to Heo Jun’. The original NYT article introduced in this way introduces the four Fields Medal winners, their achievements, and their research. Along with Professor Huh, the young mathematicians who have won the Fields Medal include Marina Biazouska, a professor at the Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne, Switzerland, Hugo Duminil Copin, a professor at the French Academy of Advanced Studies, and James Maynard, a professor at Oxford University in England. In the case of Professor Marina Biazoska, it was also highlighted that she is from Ukraine and is the second female recipient of the award. Previously, 59 of the 60 Fields Medal winners were men. There were only a few articles mentioning this.

Can Professor Huh be called a ‘bufferer’? He entered the Department of Physics at Seoul National University in Korea and completed his master’s degree at the same school. Afterwards, he received his doctorate from the University of Michigan Graduate School, and worked as a professor at Stanford University and Princeton University. Born in 1983 to the father of a statistics professor while studying in the United States and the mother of a professor of the Department of Noh and Literature, the place where he achieved his academic achievements was in the United States.

However, the Korean media poured out reports that were engrossed in the success story of the bully who dropped out of Korea, and Professor Huh eventually came to correct it. At an online press conference on the 6th, Professor Huh answered the question ‘Why did you decide to go to the Department of Physics at Seoul National University after hearing that the professor was in vain?’

“I was talking about something like a childhood episode in an interview, and when I was in the second grade of elementary school, my parents were frustrated because it was hard to memorize the gugudan. There were times when my math grades were good and there were times when I wasn’t good, but because I was always above the middle, it seems a bit difficult to say that I am a loser. Because I did it, I don’t think it’s appropriate to be called a bully.”

Shin Mi-hee, secretary general of the Citizens’ Coalition for Democratic Press, pointed out, “The practice of aiming for a more dramatic and epic view of the award results has actually led to misinformation.” “In the case of person reporting, exaggerating stories or adding dramatic elements to increase topicality needs to be improved,” she said. It was also pointed out that, in order to deal with the case of a belated interest in mathematics, it was necessary to seriously shed light on why he was able to develop his talents and abilities in the American education system with a Japanese teacher.

In particular, he pointed out the problem of using remarks that the subject did not say in the interview article. Director Shin said, “The method of a reporter asking a question and highlighting it in the title is not an honest reporting method. As a direct example, Chosun Ilbo mentioned an interview with Shin Jong-hoon of the national boxing team in 2012 (“I was Iljin. I will make amends with London gold”). At that time, Shin explained that he had never said such a thing and that it was not true, but public opinion about him being expelled was pouring out.