Fields Medal

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 463.

Text 10. Make the written translation into Russian (time 90 minutes)

(1650 characters)

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, Fields was instrumental in establishing the award, designing the medal itself, and funding the monetary component. The Fields Medal is often viewed as the top honor a mathematician can receive. It comes with a monetary award, which since 2006 is C$15,000. 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.

Conditions of the award.

The Fields Medal is often described as the "Nobel Prize of Mathematics" for the prestige it carries, 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 1 January 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.