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Elaine McKinnon Riehm
him entrée into the Royal Society of London and gave him standing in scientific circles in Canada , including membership in the Royal Society of Canada .
The 1898 manuscript for his book , handwritten in dipped pen and ink , may be found today in the stacks of the Gerstein Science Information Centre at the University of Toronto — hard evidence of the man ’ s presence . It is vulnerable there to damp and book thieves , and should probably be moved either to the Mathematics Library or to the University of Toronto Archives for safe keeping . But Fields was careless with his own correspondence and memorabilia and would not likely care .
There is a further slender artifact linking John Charles Fields with the Fields Institute . In 1929 , Fields began exploring his idea of a medal : an international prize acknowledging outstanding research in mathematics . Fields died in August 1932 , shortly before sculptor R . Tait McKenzie had designed the medal . But Fields had made his wishes known and had given a lot of thought to its design . In his determination to make the medal truly international , he specified that there should be no modern language used , no country or person from the modern era named . He left these instructions with J . L Synge , his mathematical colleague , executor , and friend . Early in 1933 , a small box arrived at the University of Toronto addressed to Professor Synge . It contained the first prototype casting in bronze of what has become known , contrary to Fields ’ wishes , as the Fields Medal . The foundry sent it to Synge for his approval . It sits now , courtesy of Cathleen Morawetz , Synge ’ s daughter and herself an esteemed mathematician , in the safe at the Fields Institute .
Notwithstanding the time warp between 1932 and 1992 , John Charles Fields and the Fields Institute are a perfect fit philosophically . They share a fierce commitment to scientific research . When Fields was organizing the 1924 Toronto Congress in the absence of scientists from Germany and its