2014-12-94

Discussionsurprised only a few months before the congress by thelaunch of a complete reconstruction of the venue. 5Just one of several large halls turned out to be sufficientfor the ceremonies and plenary lectures (evenhaving been cut in half after the first week), and the surroundingrooms and floors served well for the purposesof exhibitions, special sessions, information and meetings.Also, the ICM was held at the end of the monsoonseason, with heavy rainfall caused by a distant typhoonjust before its start, as well as for the excursion and thefinal day, but the unfavourable weather conditions didn’thamper the experience.Like previous ICMs, about half the participants werelocal mathematicians, many of them students eager fordirect contact with their heroes. The special flair of theICMs has much benefited from the moments of tensionbefore the prize winners are publicly announced at theopening ceremony in the presence of many thousand participants.It has been a valuable effort of previous IMUcommittees to preserve discretion until the ceremony,regardless of the usual rumours and leakages; so it wascertainly a drawback that this time the prizes had beenannounced in advance on the IMU website and hence alreadyspread by the news, to the effect that at least everyparticipant owning a smartphone was deprived of thesemoments of suspense.Security controls before the opening ceremony accounted for the onlybottlenecks in a smoothly organised event.On the other hand, the enormous efforts of the organisershelped compensate for this, with a ceremony that wasopened by an impressive video show and live performancesintroducing the host country. There was a touchingmoment during the Cheo-Yong-Mu (a traditional Koreandance) where the masks seemed to scare the littledaughter of Maryam Mirzakhani, who therefore spentthe very moments before receiving the award taking herto the rear seats and calming her down.5This is only one example of the restless building activities inSeoul; likewise, the surrounding area south of the Han River(the literal meaning of Gangnam) used to be one of the poorestparts of the city, almost an hour of subway travel distantfrom downtown Seoul, until it was practically bulldozed inthe 80s and emerged as a skyscraper-filled business district,making up for almost 10% of Korea’s land value in the virtualcurrency of real estate speculation.Ceremonies and awardsThe climax of the event was, of course, the award ceremony,which introduced the Fields Medallists and theNevanlinna prize winner through some short but finevideos. As has often been said, the Fields Medals are distinguishedamong other prizes by bestowing greatnesson their winners, not vice versa. They serve both well asa motivation for the next generation of mathematiciansand as a link of our science to the mass media, who havegradually accepted them as an equivalent of the Nobelprizes. The diversity of the Fields Medallists could beviewed as proof of the rapid worldwide development inmathematics addressed above: Artur Avila, a Brazilianspecialist of dynamical systems, working now at IMPAand CNRS; Manjul Bhargava, a number theorist born inCanada to Indian immigrants, who grew up in New Yorkand works now at Princeton; Martin Hairer, of Austriandescent, who grew up in Geneva und works now onstochastic PDEs at Warwick; and Maryam Mirzakhani,who was the first women, as well as the first Iranian, tobe awarded a Fields Medal and now works on hyperbolicgeometry at Stanford.The first female medallist contributed much to theextensive media coverage of the congress. Certainly, ithas been somehow overdue – one might even say thatthe 78-year delay was caused by the late introduction ofthe medal itself, which barred Emmy Noether from theaward. In any case, it should be seen as a new normality,not a singular event, since there have also been otherworthy female candidates, so that it wouldn’t have beena big surprise if more than one woman had received amedal. This time, the pressure of the media was fully onMaryam Mirzakhani; future female medallists may lookforward to evoking less extensive curiosity.The Fields Medallists and their work will be introducedin specific contributions of this newsletter; ofcourse, Ingrid Daubechies, the IMU president, also announcedthe other prizes which have been added to theschedule of the congress over the years: Subhash Khotfrom NYU received the Nevanlinna prize (introducedin 1978, for mathematical aspects of computer science),Stanley Osher of UCLA received the Carl FriedrichGauss Prize for applications in mathematics (introducedin 2006) and Phillip Griffiths from Princeton receivedthe Chern Medal Award (introduced in 2010 for lifetimeachievements). The awards were presented by thePresident of South Korea, the already mentioned ParkGeun-hye, and the prestige of the congress is underlinednot just by the presence of the head of state but also thepurported anecdote that the Pope, who was visiting thecountry at the same time, had to postpone his audiencewith her by one day because she was occupied with themathematicians.Media, public perception, and scientific programThe high reputation of mathematics has also been underlinedin the following days by the extremely intense6On site, more than 250 media representatives were registered.36 EMS Newsletter December 2014