The Nobel of Numbers
How a Hamilton native played mathematical peacemaker after World War One April 2013
John Charles Fields is a little-known Canadian. He deserves to be better known. Turbulent Times in Mathematics: The Life of J.C. Fields and the History of the Fields Medal, a fine biography and account of his career and work by Elaine McKinnon Riehm and Frances Hoffman, may help to rectify that situation.
Fields is best known today among the world’s mathematicians for having established an award that has taken the place of a Nobel Prize for…