The Langlands programme aims to link different areas of mathematicsAndrew Ostrovsky/iStockphoto/Getty Images
Mathematicians have proved a key building block of the Langlands programme, sometimes referred to as a “grand unified theory” of maths due to the deep links it proposes between seemingly distant disciplines within the field.
While the proof is the culmination of decades of work by dozens of mathematicians and is being hailed as a dazzling achievement, it is also so obscure and complex that it is “impossible to explain the significance of the result to non-mathematicians”, says Vladimir Drinfeld…

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