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Comment by kiyoto | Hacker News Reader

Also notably,

1. Mirzakhani is the first Iranian 2. Bhargava is the first Canadian 3. Hairer is the first Austrian 4. Avila is the first Brazilian

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Since there are still ~200 countries without a Fields Medal, this isn't mathematically remarkable in comparison to the parent point.

So, I understand instead that you're identifying this as notable for the following reason:

There are 100 times more women in the world than Canadians, yet women and Canadians have the same number of Fields Medals.

First of all, there's not enough data to be statistically significant in any of my ramblings, so it's all kind of hand-wavy and I apologize for that.

But my general feeling is that there used to be a few "powerhouse" countries and institutions that dominated, but that has been changing for many years. There's a lot more diversity these days. So I think kiyoto's point speaks to the changes there.

In 1950, it would have been pretty inconceivable that a woman from Iran would have had the access and opportunities to contribute to mathematics in a way that would have earned a Fields medal; in 2014, it's a first-time feat; hopefully, in the future, it quickly becomes mundane.

"not enough data to be statistically significant"

^suspect this is incorrect.

Mirzakhani is the first woman to ever win, which is even more notable than being the first Iranian.

True. But now she takes her rightful place in a line reaching back to Omar Khayyam and earlier. Congratulations to Maryam Mirzakhani.

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