John Charles Fields

Education and Career

John Charles Fields, known as J.C. Fields, was  born in Hamilton, Canada West [Ontario]. His father was a tanner and his mother was a school teacher before she married. Fields attended Central School and Hamilton Collegiate, where he won the gold medal in mathematics. Fields was educated at the University of Toronto where he received his Bachelor of Arts in1884 and won another gold medal in mathematics. He completed his PhD in mathematics at Johns Hopkins University in 1887. Fields taught mathematics for four years at Allegheny College in Pennsylvania. In 1892, he resigned from his teaching position to further pursue his studies in Berlin, Paris and Göttingen, which were the main European centres for mathematical research. On his return to Toronto in 1902, Fields was appointed lecturer in the mathematics department at the University of Toronto, becoming Research Professor of Mathematics in 1923.

Legacy

J. C. Fields was an ardent campaigner for both business and state support for scientific research, taking his message to the Canadian Manufacturers' Associationand boards of trade. He was active in the creation of the School of Graduate Studies at the University of Toronto, and the Ontario Research Foundation.

Fields was also instrumental in arranging the 1924 meeting of the International Mathematical Congress. As President of the Royal Canadian Institute (1919–25) and Chairman of the Organizing Committee, Fields organized and presided at the Congress at the University of Toronto. With funds left from organizing the meeting, he attempted to establish a mathematics prize to be awarded at future meetings of the International Congress of Mathematicians. These efforts resulted in the Fields Medal, which was named in his honour and first awarded in 1936, four years after his death. The Fields Medal is widely regarded as the Nobel Prize of Mathematics; it is awarded every four years to between two and four mathematicians under the age of 40. The award recognizes outstanding research as well as future potential.

The Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences was also named in honour of J.C. Fields, in “recognition of his seminal contributions to world mathematics and his work on behalf of high level mathematical scholarship in Canada.” The centre was founded in 1992 at the University of Waterloo before moving to the University of Toronto in 1995.

Memberships and Academic Affiliations

J.C. Fields was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1909 and the Royal Society of London in 1913. He was a member of the London Mathematical Society and a corresponding member of the Academy of Science, Russia and the Institute of Coimbra, Portugal.