
The Fields Medal should return to its roots - adenadel
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-00513-8
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KKKKkkkk1
_Committee members started talking about criteria such as age and fields of
study, even before suggesting nominees. Most thought that focusing on specific
branches of mathematics was inadvisable. They entertained a range of potential
age considerations, from an upper limit of 30 to a general principle that
nominees should have made their mark in mathematics some time since the
previous ICM in 1936. Bohr cryptically suggested that a cut-off of 42 “would
be a rather natural limit of age”.

By the time the first set of nominees was in, Bohr’s cut-off seemed a lot less
arbitrary. It became clear that the leading threat to Bohr’s designs for
Schwartz was another French mathematician, André Weil, who turned 43 in May
1949. Everyone, Bohr and Morse included, agreed that Weil was the more
accomplished mathematician. But Bohr used the question of age to try to ensure
that he didn’t win._

Why let the committee argue whether the nuclear reactor needs to be built,
when you can get them to argue about the color of the bikeshed. Stuff like
that makes you wonder about the true significance of academic accolades.

~~~
coolgeek
This is not an example of bikeshedding. Bikeshedding is fighting over trivial
details in order to delay or avoid a decision (perhaps subconsciously)

This is an example of gaming the system in order to steer a decision in a
particular direction. It is an example of organizational politics - perhaps
even of corruption

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Fibo144
I think the age limit for the Fields medal reinforces this idea that
"mathematics is a young mans game." It's one of many reasons why I got
discouraged into entering mathematics when I was young because of this and
math competitions.

When I was younger , I would visit websites such as AOP , and ask questions
and then be treated in a condescending way by students who were my age or
younger who would then boast about their scores on Contests such as AMC. This
just reinforced me that I probably shouldn't waste time pursuing mathematics
as a career because I felt that I was drastically behind them, and I would be
competing with them for positions that they could take.

It took some time for me to realize that having encouraging parents who are
academics/engineers helps significantly in guiding you in a career such as
mathematics.

~~~
throwaway0255
> It took some time to realize that having parents who are academics/engineers
> helps significantly in guiding you in a career such as mathematics.

This is true of every good job.

I'm trying to get hired at big 4 tech right now. Every person interviewing me
is a rich kid. All of my competition is rich kids.

Touring these big tech companies was discouraging. They're all very diverse.
Rich white kids. Rich Asian kids. Rich female kids. Rich European kids. Rich
Indian kids.

I'm not sure there's anything I can ever do to make it past the
social/socioeconomic judgment round of these interviews.

These interviews make me feel like Red at a parole hearing in Shawshank
Redemption.

~~~
snoman
Wow. Lots to digest here, and I think I detect some strong frustration. My
sympathies on that.

I have worked at the big 4 (MS) but I'm a consultant now. I do a fair bit of
interviewing and what I propose is that you don't actually have a clue what
the finances of your interviewers are like, and you don't actually have a clue
what the finances of your competitors are like. You would be far better served
putting it out of your mind and focus on just trying to be a good engineer
(presuming that's what you are trying to be) and enjoying it.

The reason being is that, not only are you almost certainly wrong, but it
doesn't matter. Interviewers don't care about how much money the candidates
have because...

1\. they get a perk if you get hired and retained regardless, so they're
incentivized to place anyone that can do the job

2\. the competition often doesn't exist: the big 4 will often just hire anyone
and everyone who fit their criteria (high turnover and need leads to a few
hundred engineers starting each week)

3\. the job has a pay band, and if you're currently making low or nil, then
you're far more likely to HAPPILY fit into the lower segment of the band

BTW: The other interviewers and I can tell when the candidate is crusty and/or
resentful during the interview, and it reflects negatively on their
performance.

~~~
YeGoblynQueenne
>> Interviewers don't care about how much money the candidates have because...

No, hang on, I get what the OP says and it's a reasonalbe assumption. In large
companies with rigid hierarchies, people will often be sort of _subtly flash_
(!) with their money, because it basically marks their position in the
hierarchy. You can see this in the clothes people wear, their cars obviously,
their phones also obviously, the other tech they proudly display, discussions
about where they're going for holidays, or for the weekend etc etc.

If you're getting hired in a company with that sort of culture as a recent
graduate, say, coming from a less affluent background, then it's easy to feel
somewhat excluded.

~~~
snoman
> No, hang on, I get what the OP says and it's a reasonalbe assumption.

It's definitely an assumption, which is a problem to begin with, and it's
_not_ a reasonable one. Interviewers often go through training to avoid pre-
judging candidates, and candidates would be wise to do the same.

An interview candidate gets to talk to a couple of recruiters and have at most
2 conversations with 3-6 engineers at most. I would be pretty suspicious if
any of those conversations were about the interviewer in any significant way
to begin with, let alone about what they drive, where they're going on
vacation, or what they make.

So I get what you're saying, and there's certainly people like that anywhere
that pays their people exceptionally well, but making assumptions about the
character of your future-coworkers before you've actually gotten to know them
is a recipe for a bad time.

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throwaway5752
He should institute a Barany medal instead. It's an interesting idea, but the
Fields medal is what it is at this point. It would be very slow to change, and
even though his article is well researched, it's a bit idealistic and the
interpretation of the original intent isn't black & white.

~~~
bionsystems
> He should institute a Barany medal instead.

My thoughts exactly.

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mianos
I am not sure awarding someone a prize 20 years after their work like the
Nobel, would achieve the goal of 'encouragement'. It may be ageist due to that
goal but that was the intent of Fields.

~~~
majos
I don't think this article is arguing that the Fields medal should imitate the
Nobel prize. Rather, it argues that the Fields medal should return to its
early selection criteria: mathematicians who have 1\. done good work, 2\. look
like they will do more good work/positively impact math, and 3\. would find
the Fields medal's recognition and prestige useful in doing future good work
(e.g. in getting them collaborators or funding)

The article argues that the <=40 cutoff is a poor proxy for points 2 and 3,
and also seems to make a separate point that the habit of awarding
mathematicians who are already professors at top institutions means point 3
may not be addressed well either.

An example of the kind of person this might help is Yitang Zhang, who made
substantial progress on the Twin Primes conjecture in his 50s after a
relatively quiet math career as an untenured lecturer beforehand. Granted, his
result was big enough to get him a MacArthur and a professorship at his
university, so he may not need extra recognition. But perhaps there are
similar, less-lauded cases.

------
sumanthvepa
I think the equivalent of the Nobel prize for Mathematics is the Abel prize
not the Fields Medal. The former rewards lifetime achievement.

~~~
kkylin
Totally agree, but it should be pointed out that unlike the Fields Medal, the
Abel Prize is relatively new, and perhaps intentionally set up in a way to
invite comparison to the Nobel (whereas the Fields wasn't).

------
tremendulo
Credentials and prizes are heading the way of the dodo because we're slowly
realising that while neither knowledge nor significance can be measured our
opinions can be swayed by prestige and politics.

~~~
biohax2015
I would say charisma.. that gets people before they think about any of those
things

------
uptownfunk
Ok so what awards ceremony selection process isn’t political?

Any guess on who is in consideration of the 2018 prize? I imagine those under
consideration are already at top tier institutions.

Is no noteworthy mathematics being done at less prestigious institutions?
(Loaded question I know) but it would be cool to see some undiscovered
mathematician doing ground breaking stuff at a lesser known university.

~~~
yodsanklai
> Is no noteworthy mathematics being done at less prestigious institutions?

People with high-potential are detected early on and can choose to work in the
most prestigious institutions.

It's like a pro-athlete. You don't expect Michael Jordan to be playing with a
small local team.

~~~
opportune
I think people are psychologically averse to acknowledging this level of
"filtering" even though it's mostly true, because it suggests an uncomfortable
level of inequality.

However I do think that there might be just a little too much focus on
contest-math when it comes to identifying the country's best mathematicians.
It's easily seen that the _best_ contest mathematicians usually become the
_best_ professional mathematicians. In aggregate, though, most contest-math
participants come from a very particular demographic (i.e. they live in big
cities in wealthy areas, have very supportive/tiger parents (this is the key),
go to magnet schools, obviously practice a lot, etc.). These people are still
probably much more likely than average to become professionals, but it filters
out a lot of bright people from less wealthy families or areas, or in regions
where culturally math competitions are barely even a thing.

~~~
wbl
That's not that true. Plenty of non IMO/Putnam people have won Fields Medals.

~~~
opportune
I think you may have misinterpreted my comment, because I'm really in
agreement with what you just said: placing near the top in prestigious math
contests indicates that you'll probably be a good professional mathematician,
but not having top contest-math scores does not preclude you from being a good
professional mathematician.

In general I think placement into top math undergrad/PhD programs (e.g.
Harvard) should be _less_ focused on contest math.

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shem73
I think this overlooks the fact that mathematics is very specialised,
segmented. Enormous talent in one strain of maths does not mean that anybody,
following a slightly different course, would recognise the talent.

So, being an arbiter always means disappointing someone.

I suggest several micro-Fields medals, each arbitrated by the cross-cut of the
nebulously defined experts of this field.

------
pducks32
I recently got to meet a fields medalist who will remain nameless but he
mention a really really interesting statistic. No Field’s medalist has ever
been the mentor to another Field’s medalist. I (my opinion here not his) think
that this glorifies these young mathematicians who never go onto mentor or
yield another similarly gifted mathematician. We should be finding great
mathematicians who discover great math collaboratively.

~~~
jhshah
Quibbling about the Fields Medal mentoring claim: Schwartz -> Grothendieck ->
Deligne is a counterexample.

~~~
kkylin
Also Avila & Yoccoz:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artur_Avila](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artur_Avila)
and [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-
Christophe_Yoccoz](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Christophe_Yoccoz).

------
javiramos
Shocking that 55/56 Fields Medals have been awarded to men.

Maryam Mirzakhani has been the only female recipient. [0]

[0] [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/16/us/maryam-mirzakhani-
dead...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/16/us/maryam-mirzakhani-dead.html)

~~~
wheresmyusern
why is it shocking?

~~~
Hasz
If you accept the idea that a penchant for math is randomly distributed among
all people, then the odds of 55/56 men winning by chance are very, very, very
low.

~~~
cycrutchfield
All it would require is just that the standard deviation for math ability in
men (whether by nature or nurture, I am making no judgment either way) is only
very slightly higher than for women. Since we are looking at the tail of the
distribution, the result would not be surprising.

~~~
77pt77
That hypothesis got Larry Summers in a lot of trouble.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Summers#Differences_b...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Summers#Differences_between_the_sexes)

