Edward Witten

Through Euclid's Window Leonard Mlodinow brilliantly and delightfully leads us on a journey through five revolutions in geometry, from the Greek concept of parallel lines to the latest notions of hyperspace. Here is an altogether new, refreshing, alternative history of math revealing how simple questions anyone might ask about space — in the living room or in some other galaxy — have been the hidden engine of the highest achievements in science and technology.

The Yang-Baxter equation first appeared in theoretical physics, in a paper by the Nobel laureate C.N. Yang and in the work of R.J. Baxter in the field of Statistical Mechanics. At the 1990 International Mathematics Congress, Vladimir Drinfeld, Vaughan F. R. Jones, and Edward Witten were awarded Fields Medals for their work related to the Yang-Baxter equation.