Polyakov and coauthors discovered the so-called BPST instanton which, in turn, led to the discovery of the vacuum angle in QCD.

[1] Polyakov also played an important role in elucidating the conceptual framework behind renormalization independent of Kenneth G. Wilson's Nobel Prize–winning work.

Other insightful conjectures that came years or even decades before active work by others include integrability of gauge and string theories and certain ideas about turbulence.

On 19 November 2020 the German Physical Society announced it would award Alexander Polyakov the 2021 Max Planck Medal.

[15] “The garbage of the past often becomes the treasure of the present (and vice versa).”[16] “There are no tables for path integrals.” (quoted in [17]) “I wanted to learn about elementary particles by studying boiling water.” [18] (paraphrased in [19])