21/12/2022

In Folha, Marcelo Viana talks about the value of the Fields Medal.

Medalha Fields no ICM 2018 – Foto de Pablo Costa

Reproduction of Marcelo Viana's column in Folha de S. Paulo.

The creation of an international prize in mathematics was a long-held dream of the Canadian John Charles Fields (1863-1932). The opportunity arose at the end of the 1924 International Congress of Mathematicians, which Fields organized in Toronto, when it was decided to use the remaining funds from the event to finance two gold medals to be awarded every four years, on the occasion of subsequent Congresses.

Fields himself bequeathed part of his estate in his will to fund the new award, and in 1966, an anonymous donation made it possible to increase the number of medals to four. The first award, at the 1936 Congress in Helsinki, distinguished the Finnish analyst Lars Ahlfors and the American geometer Jesse Douglas.

Fields had died four years earlier, but in respect for his wish that the medal serve "as an incentive for new achievements," it was established that only mathematicians up to 40 years of age would be eligible for the award. With minor adjustments, this rule remains in effect to this day. But another expressed wish of Fields, that the award not bear anyone's name, was not respected: it has always been known as the Fields Medal, in his honor.

Throughout history, the medal has been awarded to 64 people, 62 men and two women. The gender bias began to be broken in 2014, when Iranian Maryam Mirzakhani was the first winner, and this trend was reiterated in 2022, with the awarding of the Fields Medal to Ukrainian Maryna Vyazoska.

Although they come from different countries, almost all the winners have in common that they carried out their studies in the developed world: the exception is the Brazilian Artur Avila, winner in 2014, whose education took place entirely in Brazil, culminating in his doctorate at IMPA, an institution where I have worked since 1986.

Despite the contributions received, funding for the Fields Medal remains insufficient, resulting in a comparatively small monetary value for the prize: 15,000 Canadian dollars, slightly less than R$ 60,000.

To read the full text, visit the newspaper's website.