CURRENT SCIENCE, VOL. 96, NO. 11, 10 JUNE 2009 pp.1437 – 1438

In the year 2010, the city of Hyderabad will host an event of great significance. The ‘International Congress of Mathematicians’ (ICM), which was held for the very first time in 1897 in Zurich, will be held in Hyderabad. The Congress, convened by the International Mathematical Union, is an event that occurs every four years. Since the first assembly in Zurich, except for the period corresponding to the time of the two World Wars, the Congress has been a regular event. This is the first time that the Congress will be hosted in India, and it will be one of the few occasions that the Congress has travelled outside of Europe and the United States.

The opening ceremony of the Congress will see some exciting moments. The prestigious Fields Medal, the Nevanlinna Prize and the Gauss Prize are traditionally awarded to mathematicians of repute during the opening ceremony. Of these, the Fields Medal is the most prestigious and has often been called the ‘Mathematics Nobel’. First awarded in 1936, this prize is given every four years to between two and four mathematicians and carries a cash prize of around US$ 15,000. The Fields Medal is awarded to mathematicians who are less than 40 years of age.

Tracing the history of the Congress throws up some unexpected insights. The 1897 Zurich Congress was initiated by the French and the Germans. This was the period in history when Europe was at the forefront of mathematical research and study. The proceedings of the first Congress were recorded in French and German, with talks being presented in different European languages. As such, the proceedings are a glimpse of a world in which English was not yet the dominant language of communication. There were in fact many proposals in Europe at that time that a new ‘international auxiliary language’ be devised to be used for communicating between people with different native languages.

Writing in the September 1897 issue of Science, American mathematician George Bruce Halsted1 reported that the Congress was in ‘every way a success . . .’ and that the ‘. . . the actual program was particularly rich and interesting’. He noted that ‘The greatest mathematician in the world Sophus Lie was not expected; and the greatest French mathematician, Poincare, though down for a speech, did not come; . . . ’. There is also one other sentence in this report which I cannot resist quoting here. Halsted says ‘. . . The second section contained a title from Z. de Galdeano, whose heroic efforts gave Spain a Journal of Mathematics, now unfortunately dead in the decadence of that beautiful, priestridden land’^[1].

At the first gathering, the purpose behind the regular future meetings was also decided and these were to be ‘(1) to promote personal relations between mathematicians of different lands; (2) to give, in reports or conferences, an aperçu of the actual state of the diverse branches of mathematics, and to treat questions of recognized importance; (3) to deliberate on the problems and organization of future congresses; (4) to treat questions of bibliography, of terminology, etc. on subjects where an entente international appears necessary’^[1].

The next Congress was held in Paris in 1900. It was at this assembly that the German mathematician David Hilbert announced his famous list of 23 problems in mathematics, now known as Hilbert’s problems. Hilbert is said to have presented his problems with the following opening lines ‘Who among us would not be happy to lift the veil behind which is hidden the future; to gaze at the coming developments of our science and at the secrets of its development in the centuries to come? What will be the ends toward which the spirit of future generations of mathematicians will tend? What methods, what new facts will the new century reveal in the vast and rich field of mathematical thought?’^[2]. As it turned out, the problems Hilbert discussed formed a large part of 20th century mathematical study. Among the 23 problems Hilbert presented to the world, some were solved fairly quickly, some were decided to be irresolvable, and some remain unresolved even now.

The World Wars threw their shadows on the mathematical community. After the First World War, an International Research Council was set up by the countries that had won the war, but those that had lost the war were not allowed to participate. This Council included an International Mathematical Union (IMU). At the 1920 ICM in Strasburg, the statutes of the IMU were decided on, but Germany was excluded from participation. This state of affairs continued until the 1928 ICM at Bologna, from which point onwards the Congresses was open to all mathematicians, irrespective of nationality.

Although at the 1936 ICM at Oslo it was decided that the next Congress would be in USA in 1940, because of the Second World War it only took place in 1950 at Cambridge. This time, participation was solicited from mathematicians from any part of the world, irrespective of nationality. It was also at this ICM that the host Americans took efforts to revive the IMU, which had not been playing an active role in international mathematics until then. After this point the IMU played the lead role in arranging future meetings. For the earlier congresses, at each event the venue of the next meeting would be decided upon and the rest left to the host country to organize. However, the Congresses starting with the one in 1962 in Stockholm have been organized with joint participation between the host countries and IMU^[3].

The Fields Medal was instituted and first awarded at the 1936 ICM to Finnish mathematician Lars Ahlfors and American mathematician Jesse Douglas. At the last ICM in Spain (2006), an event that caught the attention of the popular press was the refusal of Russian mathematician Grigori Perelman to accept the medal.

Indian participation in the ICM has been qualitatively significant. The schedule of each Congress includes some 200 invited talks. To be invited to deliver a talk is considered a matter of great prestige. Since the 1958 Congress, except for the one in 1986, there has been at least one invited talk by an Indian mathematician living and working in India^[4].

The last Congress in Spain was an eight-day event attended by about 4000 participants from all over the world. This gives some idea of the scale and scope of the event. In India, the National Board of Mathematics, under the aegis of the Department of Atomic Energy, is responsible for the promotion of higher mathematics. Four Indian mathematicians  represented the country at the Meeting of the IMU General Assembly in Santiago de Compostela, Spain in August 2006 and bid successfully for ICM 2010. An Executive Organizing Committee was set up and has been meeting regularly to oversee the preparations for ICM 2010. The event will take place between the 19 and 27 August 2010 at the Hyderabad International Convention Centre.

1. Halsted, G. B., Science, 1897, 402.

2. Wikipedia

3. Cassels, J. W. S., Not. Am. Math. Soc., 1998, 46, 1230.

4. Raghunathan, M. S., 2005 Seminar, 547.

Rosalind Ezhil K. (S. Ramaseshan Fellow)

122, 3rd Main, Dollars Colony, RMV 2nd Stage, 1st Block, Bangalore 560 094, India.

E-mail: rosalindezhil@gmail.com