From IMO Gold Medalist to President: The Remarkable Story of Nicușor Dan

When a Mathematician Becomes President

If you still wonder why anyone should study mathematics — here is yet another answer.

Romania has just elected a new president. His name is Nicușor Dan. And he is no ordinary politician — he is a genuine mathematician:

• He won gold twice at the International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) — in 1987 and 1988
• Both times with a perfect score — meaning he solved every problem, including the legendary Problem 6 from 1988, one of the hardest in IMO history (which, notably, even Terence Tao did not solve — though in his defense, he was only 13 at the time)

From the Olympiad Stage to the Sorbonne

After the olympiad, Dan moved to France and continued doing what he loved best — number theory. He completed his doctoral dissertation at the Sorbonne in arithmetic geometry, studying meromorphic continuations of Green currents — a technique for extending analytic objects onto singular sets within arithmetic geometry.

Dan authored several papers on polylogarithms, regulators, and Zagier’s conjecture for n = 4 — in short, an attempt to understand how iterated logarithms capture deep relationships between numbers, bridging number theory with geometry and algebra. You can read one of them here: arxiv.org/abs/0809.3984.

The Research of a Mathematician President

His academic work spanned a remarkable range of topics:

• Arakelov-style arithmetic geometry — studying integer equations as though they live on smooth geometric spaces, uniting algebra, analysis, and geometry simultaneously
• Zeta functions and height functions — tools that measure the “complexity” of algebraic objects and track the distribution of equation solutions
• Multiple logarithms and functional equations — generalizations of the ordinary logarithm that reveal deeper connections between numbers and symmetries within formulas
• Beilinson, Borel, and Goncharov regulators in simplicial formalisms — subtle numerical invariants linking topology and arithmetic, where the simplicial approach streamlines calculations through geometric constructions

From Number Theory to City Hall

After publishing his paper on Zagier’s conjecture, Dan ran for mayor of Bucharest for the first time — and nine years later, he was leading the city.

Quite a turn of events. Which raises a question worth pondering: do you think he simply grew tired of number theory, or did he actually find a way to apply it — in real life?