The Fields Medal is awarded every four years on the occasion of the International Congress of Mathematicians to recognize outstanding mathematical achievement for existing work and for the promise of future achievement.
The Fields Medal Committee is chosen by the Executive Committee of the International Mathematical Union and is normally chaired by the IMU President. It is asked to choose at least two, with a strong preference for four, Fields Medalists, and to have regard in its choice to representing a diversity of mathematical fields. A candidate's 40th birthday must not occur before January 1st of the year of the Congress at which the Fields Medals are awarded.
The medals and cash prizes are funded by a trust established by J.C.Fields
at the University of Toronto, which has been supplemented periodically, but is still significantly
underfunded. The discrepancy in 2018 was made up by the University of Toronto and
the Fields Institute.
The name of the Chair of the Committee is made public, but the names of other members of the Committee remain anonymous until the award of the prize at the Congress.
The details of the Award, the nomination, and the selection can be found in the Statutes for the Award.
Obverse
The head represents Archimedes facing right.
Reverse
The inscription on the tablet reads:
CONGREGATI
EX TOTO ORBE
MATHEMATICI
OB SCRIPTA INSIGNIA
TRIBUERE
It means: "The mathematicians having congregated from the whole world awarded (this medal) because of outstanding writings". The verb form "tribuere" (the first "e" is a long vowel) is a short form of "tribuerunt". In the background there is a representation of Archimedes' sphere being inscribed in a cylinder.
Eberhard Knobloch, August 5, 1998
At the 1924 International Congress of Mathematicians in Toronto, a resolution was adopted that at each ICM, two gold medals should be awarded to recognize outstanding mathematical achievement. Professor J. C. Fields, a Canadian mathematician who was Secretary of the 1924 Congress, later donated funds establishing the medals, which were named in his honor. In 1966 it was agreed that, in light of the great expansion of mathematical research, up to four medals could be awarded at each Congress.
The Fields Institute, Toronto, Canada, organizes the Fields Medal Symposium. The goals of the program for the Fields Medal Symposium are to present the work of a Fields Medalist and its impact, to explore the potential for future directions and areas of its influence, to provide inspiration to the next generations of mathematicians and scientists, as well as to present the Medalist to a broader public.
