Opinion – Marcelo Viana: How much is the Fields Medal worth?

The creation of an international prize in mathematics was a long-standing dream of 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 balance of the event to fund two gold medals to be awarded every four years, on the occasion of subsequent Congresses.

Fields himself bequeathed part of his estate to fund the new award, and in 1966 an anonymous donation increased 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 out of respect for his desire that the medal serve “as a stimulus to new achievement”, it was established that only mathematicians up to 40 years of age would be eligible for the award. With minor tweaks, this rule still applies today. But another expressed wish by Fields, that the award not be named after anyone, 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 the Iranian Maryam Mirzakhani was the first winner, and this trend was reiterated in 2022, with the awarding of the Fields medal to the Ukrainian Maryna Vyazoska.

Although coming from different countries, almost all the winners have in common having completed their studies in the developed world: the exception is the Brazilian Artur Avila, winner in 2014, whose training took place entirely in Brazil, culminating in his doctorate at Impa, the institution where I I’ve been acting since 1986.

Despite the contributions received, funding for the Fields Medal remains incipient, which means that the prize’s monetary value is comparatively small: 15,000 Canadian dollars, just under R$60,000.

But the Russian algebraist Efim Zelmanov, medalist in 1994, once pointed out to me that the prestige of the award provides the best professional opportunities, with a salary increase and, as this happens early in a person’s life, the benefit extends over decades. All in all, this is the biggest scientific award there is, he says.