| Fields Medal | |
|---|---|
The obverse of the Fields Medal |
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| Awarded for | Outstanding contributions in Mathematics |
| Presented by | International Mathematical Union (IMU) |
| Country | Hosted every four years, at a varying location |
| Reward | C$15,000 |
| First awarded | 1936 |
| Last awarded | 2010 |
| Official website | Official site |
The Fields Medal, officially known as International Medal for Outstanding Discoveries in Mathematics, is a prize awarded to two, three, or four mathematicians not over 40 years of age at each International Congress of the International Mathematical Union (IMU), a meeting that takes place every four years. The colloquial name is in honour of Canadian mathematician John Charles Fields.[1] Fields was instrumental in establishing the award, designing the medal itself, and funding the monetary component.[1] The Fields Medal is often viewed as the greatest honour a mathematician can receive.[2][3] It comes with a monetary award, which since 2006 is C$15,000.[4][5] The medal was first awarded in 1936 to Finnish mathematician Lars Ahlfors and American mathematician Jesse Douglas, and it has been awarded every four years since 1950. Its purpose is to give recognition and support to younger mathematical researchers who have made major contributions.
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The Fields Medal is often described as the "Nobel Prize of Mathematics" for the prestige it carries,[6] though in most other ways the relatively new Abel Prize is a more direct analogue. In contrast with the Nobel Prize, the Fields Medal is awarded only every four years. The Medal also has an age limit: a recipient's 40th birthday must not occur before January 1 of the year in which the Fields Medal is awarded. As a result some great mathematicians have missed it by having done their best work (or having had their work recognized) too late in life. The 40-year rule is based on Fields' desire that
... while it was in recognition of work already done, it was at the same time intended to be an encouragement for further achievement on the part of the recipients and a stimulus to renewed effort on the part of others.
The monetary award is much lower than the roughly US$1.5 million given with each Nobel prize. Other major awards in mathematics, such as the Abel Prize and the Chern Medal, have a large monetary prize like a Nobel.
In 1954, Jean-Pierre Serre became the youngest winner of the Fields Medal, at 27. He still retains this distinction.
In 1966, Alexander Grothendieck boycotted the ICM, held in Moscow, to protest Soviet military actions taking place in Eastern Europe.[8]
In 1970, Sergei Novikov, due to restrictions placed on him by the Soviet government, was unable to travel to the congress in Nice to receive his medal.
In 1978, Grigory Margulis, due to restrictions placed on him by the Soviet government, was unable to travel to the congress in Helsinki to receive his medal. The award was accepted on his behalf by Jacques Tits, who said in his address: "I cannot but express my deep disappointment — no doubt shared by many people here — in the absence of Margulis from this ceremony. In view of the symbolic meaning of this city of Helsinki, I had indeed grounds to hope that I would have a chance at last to meet a mathematician whom I know only through his work and for whom I have the greatest respect and admiration."[9]
In 1982, the congress was due to be held in Warsaw but had to be rescheduled to the next year, due to martial law introduced in Poland Dec. 13, 1981. The awards were announced at the ninth General Assembly of the IMU earlier in the year and awarded at the 1983 Warsaw congress.
In 1990, Edward Witten became the first and so far only physicist to win this award.
In 1998, at the ICM, Andrew Wiles was presented by the chair of the Fields Medal Committee, Yuri I. Manin, with the first-ever IMU silver plaque in recognition of his proof of Fermat's Last Theorem. Don Zagier referred to the plaque as a "quantized Fields Medal". Accounts of this award frequently make reference that at the time of the award Wiles was over the age limit for the Fields medal.[10] Although Wiles was slightly over the age limit in 1994, he was thought to be a favorite to win the medal; however, a gap (later resolved by Taylor and Wiles) in the proof was found in 1993.[11][12]
In 2006, Grigori Perelman, who proved the Poincaré conjecture, refused his Fields Medal[4] and did not attend the congress.[13]
The medal was designed by Canadian sculptor R. Tait McKenzie.[14]
Translation: "Mathematicians gathered from the entire world awarded [understood "the winners"] for their outstanding writings."
In the background, there is the representation of Archimedes' tomb, with the carving illustrating his theorem on the sphere and the cylinder, behind a branch. (This is the mathematical result of which Archimedes was reportedly most proud: Given a sphere and a circumscribed cylinder of the same height and diameter, the ratio between their volumes is equal to 2/3.)
The rim bears the name of the prizewinner.
| Book: Fields Medal | |
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