Villani, Cédric

Cédric Villani, (born October 5, 1973, Brive-la-Gaillarde, France), French mathematician and politician who was awarded the Fields Medal in 2010 for his work in mathematical physics.

Villani studied mathematics at the École Normale Supériere in Paris. He received a master’s degree in numerical analysis from Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris in 1996 and a doctorate in mathematics from the University of Paris Dauphine in 1998. From 2000 to 2010 he was a professor of mathematics at the École Normale Supériere in Lyon, and in 2010 he became a professor of mathematics at the University of Lyon. In addition, he served as director of the Institut Henri Poncairé from 2009 to 2017.

Villani was awarded the Fields Medal at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Hyderabad, India, in 2010 for his work involving entropy. The amount of molecular disorder, or randomness, of a system is measured by entropy. Entropy always increases in a system until it is in thermal equilibrium with its environment. However, the rate at which entropy increases was unknown until 2005, when Villani and French mathematician Laurent Desvillettes determined that entropy did not increase at a constant rate. In 2009 Villani and French mathematician Clément Mouhot proved Soviet physicist Lev Landau’s conjecture that plasma reaches equilibrium without increasing its entropy. Villani also found applications for the mathematical study of entropy in differential geometry and in transport theory.

In 2017 Villani was elected to the National Assembly. Three years later he ran for mayor of Paris, advocating the use of advanced technology to deal with a number of the city’s issues, such as traffic and pollution. However, he was defeated in the first round of voting.