Yau has been a professor at Harvard for 20 years, specializing in geometry, differential equations and mathematical physics.

FORBES: Plugging A Math Gap

But the predictive power of mathematical physics as opposed to the after-the-fact explanatory power of maths in other fields is still extraordinary.

ECONOMIST: In praise of particle physics

For his day job he's been a professor at Harvard for 20 years, specializing in geometry, differential equations and mathematical physics.

FORBES: Plugging a Math Gap

Western men live the certainty of this new absolutism because we accept the reduction of man to the mathematical physics of science.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: David Yerushalmi on the Geert Wilders Trial

Dr Nambu, who was at the University of Chicago, provided the mathematical foundations for understanding the spontaneous breaking of symmetries in fundamental physics.

ECONOMIST: The 2008 Nobel science prizes

Fortunately, exceptional mathematical fluency is required in only a few disciplines, such as particle physics, astrophysics and information theory.

WSJ: Great Scientists Don't Need Math

The lack of a reality check which this causes has led theorists so far into the deep end of mathematical speculation that many have started to question if what they are doing is still physics.

ECONOMIST: Planck-scale physics