FieldsMedalAndItsWinners 2009-06-12 19:10:13 2009-06-12 19:30:33 Topic Field Medal Fields Medal awardees list In his Will, John Charles Fields proposed to establish the Fields Medal which has played since 1936 the role that the Nobel Prize might have placed if it were awarded to mathematicians (which it is not). His proposal was accepted at The International Congress of Mathematicians at Z\"urich in 1932. However, it was not until the next congress, held at Oslo in 1936, that the Fields Medal was first awarded. Fields Medals were then not awarded during World War II so that the second Fields Medals were not awarded until 1950. In his Will Mr.Fields wished that the awards should recognize both existing mathematical work and also the promise of future achievement, and to fit these criteria the Fields Medals can only be awarded to eminent mathematicans that are under the age of 40 at the time when the award decision is being made. Unlike the Nobel, the Fields Medal can be shared by four, not three, researchers. (A similar proposal was discussed without success between Sweeden and Norway in 1905 for the establishment of an Abel Prize in Mathematics and Physical Mathematics/Mathematical Physics. In 2001, Norway alone established the substantial Abel prize for eminent mathematicians and also mathematical physicists on a par with the Sweedish prize for sciences other than mathematics. Considering the existing Crafoord prize which is also in Mathematics, it would seem that mathematicians may easily become either over-prized or `over-priced'(?), whichever comes first.) The list of the Fields Medal winners is as follows: 1936 L V Ahlfors 1936 J. Douglas 1950 L. Schwartz 1950 A. Selberg 1954 K. Kodaira 1954 J-P. Serre 1958 K. F. Roth 1958 Rene\'e Thom in France, for results in Topology (not for mathematical biology or catastrophy theory) 1962 L. V. H\"ormander 1962 J. W. Milnor 1966 Sir M. F. Atiyah , in UK 1966 P. J. Cohen, in UK 1966 Alexander Grothendieck (whose PhD advisor was L. Schwartz) at IHES 1966 S. Smale 1970 A. Baker 1970 H. Hironaka 1970 S. P. Novikov 1970 J. G. Thompson 1974 E. Bombieri 1974 D B Mumford 1978 P. R. Deligne (whose PhD advisor was A. Grothendieck) at IHES 1978 C. L. Fefferman 1978 G. A. Margulis 1978 D. G. Quillen 1982 A. Connes at IHES, Paris, France 1982 W. P. Thurston 1982 S-T. Yau 1986 S Donaldson 1986 G Faltings 1986 M Freedman 1990 V. Drinfel'd 1990 V. Jones (some of his work is also fundamental in Quantum Operato Algebras) 1990 S. Mori 1990 E. Witten 1994 P-L. Lions 1994 J-C. Yoccoz 1994 J. Bourgain 1994 E .Zelmanov 1998 R. Borcherds 1998 William T. Gowers, FRS, at Cambridge University, in UK, for his work in functional analysis and combinatorics 1998 Maxim Kontsevich, for his work in mathematical physics 1998 Curtis T. McMullen of Harvard University, for his work on holomorphic dynamics and geometry of 3-dimensional manifolds 2002 L. Lafforgue 2002 V. Voevodsky A special award of the ``IMU silver plaque'' was given to Andrew J. Wiles at Princeton University Institute for Advanced Study for his proof of Ferma's Last Theorem.