What is the Connection between
J.C. Fields and the Fields
Institute?
by Elaine McKinnon Riehm
F
OR MANY YEARS, I HAVE thought about the
was bounded by Bloor
relationship between the Institute and its namesake,
St. on the north, Col-
John Charles Fields. While doing research for Turbulent
lege St. on the south,
Times in Mathematics: The Life of J.C. Fields and the
Spadina Ave. on the
History of the Fields Medal, I came to know the man well.
west, and Queen’s Park
The connection between the man Fields and the Institute
on the east. His neighbour-
is that of a shared mathematical vision that spanned the
hood then was that of the
twentieth century. The two are offset in time, however, by
Fields Institute now.
J.C. Fields
six decades: the Institute was established in 1992; Fields
...
died in 1932.
Notwithstanding
the
time
But they are linked in
warp between 1932 and 1992, John Charles
geographical proxim-
Fields and the Fields Institute are a perfect
The idea to name the Institute after
Fields came from Elaine McKinnon
ity — that of being in the
fit philosophically. They share a fierce
Riehm.
same place at widely
commitment to scientific research. When Fields
different times. During
was organizing the 1924 Toronto Congress, in
the thirty years when Fields taught mathematics at the
the absence of scientists from Germany and its World
University of Toronto, he always lived in rooms on streets
War I allies, he had to drum up attendance. This he did
that bordered the University: Huron Street, St. George,
by defining mathematics as broadly as possible and as
Sussex Avenue, all now subsumed by the University itself
inclusively as possible — including talks on actuarial
in its western expansion. For many years, Fields was ac-
science and statistics, forestry, astronomy, mechanics,
tive in the Royal Canadian Institute, then located in an old
ballistics, naval architecture, economics, radiotelegraphy,
house at 198 College Street, just east of St. George, where
geophysics, aeronautics, mining engineering, and the
he was responsible for creating a reading room modelled
aurora borealis, to mention only a few. His broad definition
on one he knew as a graduate student in the 1880s at the
of pure and applied mathematics corresponds closely to
Johns Hopkins University. Fields sat in the bay window
the vision of the founders of the Fields Institute and of
there and watched the College streetcars trundle along,
those who have followed the trail of mathematical research
as they do past the Institute today. Fields’ life in Toronto
wherever it has led over the past quarter century.
8
The Competition
competition to settle the permanent location of the Institute
and a competitive process was established. I believe Peter
Nicholson chaired it.
by Robert Prichard
If there had never been a competition for the permanent
location,
it would have remained at Waterloo and done
HE IDEA OF THE FIELDS INSTITUTE pre-dated my
fine.
But
by
holding a competition, the Board of the Fields
becoming President of
Institute forced potential hosts to
the University of Toronto.
make their strongest possible bids. It
It was strongly supported
In 1994, there was a competition among Ontario
was in this context that we decided
by the Department of
Universities to host the Fields Institute.
to put our bid forward.
Mathematics and the Faculty
My useful contribution was to
of Arts and Science. After
state an absolute determination
being temporarily housed at the University of Waterloo,
that
Toronto
must
win
the competition and that we would
it was agreed that there would be a province-wide
T
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