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That the Fields medal is in the public imagination at all is mostly due to its mention in the movie Good Will Hunting.

In which it is explained simply as "like the Nobel Prize for math".

So that's it. There you go

I enjoyed Good Will Hunting, it is easily the coolest commutative diagrams have ever been with the general public. It was also released 25 years ago, before approximately a quarter of the world's population was born. I don't think that is why.

It is definitely why. I know nothing about the fields medal beyond that movie.

It still holds a pretty compelling position in the cultural zeitgeist - it's become an object beyond an event, largely decoupled from its origination by virtue of its excellence.

But movies like these have the power to shape public perception for a long time. Even journalists who might have never seen the movie might just use the like the nobel prize, but for mathematics line. Last time I heard precisely this sentence was last time the fields medal was announced.

Out of that quarter of the world's population, how many know that the Fields medal exists?

And going further, how much mindshare does that quarter of the population have in "public imagination"? Surely, people under 14 not having watched <movie> does not preclude that movie from being influential?

Also, is if really true that people only watch movies made after they're born?

Some movies remain popular long after they were released though.

I'm not necessarily arguing it was GWH, but for sake of argument say it did have that effect, it then gets perpetuated by journalists, enters the public psyche, and goes on from there.

I don't think the suggestion was that everyone watched GWH and then had that misconception straight from primary source.

I probably view(ed) it a bit wrongly too, and I have seen GWH, but I'm pretty sure I'd read ('pop math'/news) about the award/it's winners before that.

And nobody that watched it ever spoke of it again, to anyone, ever. Especially about them apples.

> It was also released 25 years ago, before approximately a quarter of the world's population was born

Sure. Except that most people under the age of 25 probably haven't heard of the Fields medal anyway, unless it's from someone who watched GWH.

You would be astonished at how long phrases can last, with little sense behind it at all!

My favorite example is documented in Bully for Brontosaurus (see https://www.amazon.com/Bully-Brontosaurus-Reflections-Natura... if you want to buy it) in the essay, "The case of the creeping fox terrier clone." For close to a century, the first thing that everyone learned about the early horse Euohippus, officially known as Hyracotherium, was that it was "about the size of a small fox terrier". This despite the fact that essentially nobody knew what size a small fox terrier WAS. And despite the fact that later research found that the animal in question actually weighed several times what a fox terrier does! (But the shoulder height is indeed close.)

I've certainly seen the phrase "like the Nobel for mathematics" many times. I couldn't even have cited the original source. But it doesn't surprise me if this is the only thing most people have heard about the Fields medal. And it also doesn't surprise me that it would come from a movie.

Side note, is your screen name a reference to the Beaver?

> like the Nobel Prize for math

One recognizes individuals who are not too old and the other recognizes individuals who are not too old (i.e. dead).

This article says it's an artifact of cold war politics https://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/10/opinion/sunday/how-math-g...

I'm not personally familiar with the history, this just turned up when I googled the nytimes for "fields medal" and "nobel prize", but that query also turns up articles from 1986 and 1977.

On the other hand, if it's still part of the public imagination, it does seem more likely that its from Good Will Hunting and not the cold war.

You’ve godda understand, most of us don’t pay attention to medals. The Fields Medal is prestigious, and prestige breeds misconceptions. I’ve been vaguely interested in mathematics for decades and never knew the Fields Medal was anything but a recognition of the greatest mathematical achievement.

Thanks for the anecdote about Wiles. I had no idea mathematics didn’t have some way of properly recognizing achievements from the ancients over 40. So much for respect for one’s elders.

Did you read the parent comment? Wiles received two other prestigious prizes in addition to the "special IMU silver plaque" from the Fields committee, so I don't think you can say his achievement wasn't properly recognized.

the very same comment you are replying to mentions the Abel prize and the Wolf prize for recognizing general mathematics achievements, which if you look at the recipients over the last 2 decades, are almost all over 40 (usually white men who typically get tenured as mathematics professors and have the time and resources to focus on research).

I appreciate OP for explaining that the field recognized this pattern and made a step to try to encourage future mathematicians to have something to aspire to.

Actually, it's a bit of the reverse. The Fields medal was established in 1936, Wolf in 1978, and Abel in 2003. And Wolf and Abel filled gaps that Fields left because of its restrictions. Further, the first woman to get the Fields, Maryam Mirzakhani, was only awarded in 2014 (Abel, Wolf are worse). I don't think you can look at any of these awards and address the gender inequity in mathematics, either.

Give it based on the math, not based on gender.

It kind of tracks that Abel and Wolf would trail behind Fields in that regard.

As someone noted, since Fields is for the under-40 crowd, it'll be able to draw upon female mathematicians coming up into the field. Abel and Wolf would need to draw on the larger population. And thanks to all the biases, I'd imagine the number of women get smaller as the age gets higher.

That should correct itself in time.

Math (and I’m a math major) has a hard-on for youth. So does comp sci.

Everyone wants to pretend they’re Abel or Galois in Math.

And even Abel and Galois completed their most important work near the end of their lives.

I had to read up on these folks to understand that one of them was shot dead at 20, and the other attracted tuberculosis and died at 26.

Pretty sure you mean "contracted" TB, but the typo did provide a humourous mental image.

I probably did. ESL, in over my head.

Your first clause is complex and correct so you're doing just fine. :)

...so even at the end of their lives they would have still easily qualified for the Fields Medal. Maybe they should receive a posthumous honorary one. Or maybe they already did?

Yes I think Galois deserves a Fields in his name

Well, not the same, but Galois did get fields in his name, actually https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galois_field . Is that what you intended?

Yes, that's the joke ;)

It's not a life changing amount of money, and if someone makes a huge finding they will still get tons of recognition and other forms of monetary compensation too. It's not like it's all or nothing.

I'm only very superficially aware of the Fields medal. I was not even aware it had an age limit.

I know it's given as a credential when someone wants to be shown as "good at math".

Just want to ask from a layperson, between Abel and Wolf prize, which one is more 'prestige' like Nobel Prize for mathematics kind of prestige?

40 seems incredibly old for an "emergent" talent in Maths

It is idiotic to think that an award for "greatest mathematical genius" [...] would just ignore accomplishments over a certain age, it is almost offensive

Unfortunately, nature - as ever - doesn't care about causing offence.

At the very highest creative level, maths - like pop music and physics - is a young person's game.

As somebody who does some 'mathy' theoretical CS work, I wonder if this will stay true forever, for the following reasons:

* The general population, but also academics, take increasingly more time to mature.

* The body of knowledge grows and mastering it takes more time.

* People (at least the privileged elites) spend more time taking care of their mental and physical health. For example, we see that athletes competing in team sports on top level may reach their peak in their mid-30ies, which is a relatively recent development. If one translates this to math (I know it is a shaky assumption, but why not speculate) and peak creativity is reached in the mid-30ies, the papers that result from it may be published years later.

* In some decades, people will most likely frequently use software tools as helpers.

Not that I think that these developments change things completely, but I would expect that we will see a substantial shift.

I had read up on HoTT/UF after Voevodsky passed away. It seemed promising, has it developed much? It seemed like coq / UniMath had a reasonable community.