688 NATURE [NOVEMBER 5, 1932 Obituary PROF. J. c. FIELDS, F .R.S. achievement is becoming so great as to tax N the death of Prof. John Charles Fields on severely the facilities available for publication. I August 9 the University of Toronto lost one During the period of the War and for some of its most renowned members and- probaby its time afterwards Prof. Fields was president of the most gifted mathematician. Prof. Fields was born Royal Canadian Institute of Toronto. Through­ on May 14 at Hamilton, Ontario, in the year 1863. out his term of office he never ceased to advocate When quite young he displayed unusual skill in scientific research as the ideal of the Institute and mathematics and in his university course at to emphasise the opportunity its organisation Toronto his brilliancy attracted much attention. afforded for the advancement of scientific thought. Though his doctorate was taken at Johns He initiated a movement in the direction of Hopkins University, Baltimore, it was to Ger­ having research professorships attached to this many that he, like many another student from institute similar to those now administered by the American continent in the early days, turned the Royal Society, the Royal Institution and the for stimulus to mathematical research. There it FrankliD Institute. From the way in which he was that he found his chief inspiration for his laid his plans for the success of this project and subject. He studied at Paris for a time but it from the manner in which he was quietly working was at Gottingen and Berlin, where he came them out I believe that had he lived but a few under the influence of such leaders as Wierstrass, years longer he would have achieved his aim Klein, Fuchs and Schwartz. that his imagination Prof. Fields was president of the International was fired and the foundations laid for the creative Mathematical Congress held in Toronto in 1924. side of his life's work. It was a very successful meeting ar.d it was In 1906, Fields published his famous treatise on largely through the financial aid personally "Theory of the Algebraic Functions of a Complex secured by him that it and the meeting of the Variable", a work which at once received world­ British Association for the Advancement of Science wide acclaim and won for its author imme­ held at the same time were made possible. diate recognition as a mathematician of the first The fact that the Press of the University of rank. In his conversations with me he often Toronto was able to handle such a difficult typo­ spoke with pride and with deep affection of the graphical task as that involved in the printing friendly part played by the late Mittag-Leffler, of the "Proceedings of the International Mathe­ the renowned Swedish mathematician, in the matical Congress" was somewhat of a surprise negotiations that led up to the publication of this to foreign mathematicians. It was only made work. possible, however, through the close co-operation Prof. Fields was called to the University of that was maintained between Mr. R. J. Hamilton, Toronto in the opening year of the present century. director of the Press, and his staff on one Since that time his researches and those of hand and Prof. Fields with his associate editors workers associated with him have been among on the other. the outstanding contributions to knowledge made What I consider to be Fields's greatest achieve­ by that institution. ment in advancing the cause of research in In all his academic relations Fields strenuously Toronto was the institution of the special annual advocated and promoted in every way open to finance grant that is made by the Legislature of him the claims of research. Soon after his appoint­ the Province to the University of Toronto and ment t.o Toronto he openly expressed the view ear-marked for research. The first of these grants, that students desiring to specialise in mathe­ which amounted to more than 75,000 dollars, wa8 matics came to universities in America handi­ made on the recommendation to the Government capped by defective mathematical training in the of Ontario of the Hon. Dr. H. A. Cody, then secondary schools. Another handicap to which Mmister of Education and now president of the he considered the students of a generation ago University. I do not think I am revealing any were subjected both in Canadian universities and in secret in stating that this grant was secured very American universities generally was that involved largely as a result of the most earnest solicitation in the use of defective mathematical texts, more by Prof. Fields. particularly of texts on the calculus. It was his One of Prof. Fields's last activities was the considered opinion that one would not be far establishment of a fund with which to provide wrong in attributing the almost complete sterility two or more gold medals, to be awarded by a of the mathematicians of the last generation in Committee of the International Mathematical America to inadequate and ineffective teaching of Congress at stated intervals for outstanding the calculus. But all this was gradually changed. achievements in mathematical research. The Through the efforts of Fields and of those of initial sources of the fund were the cash balances other leaders holding similar opinions, new life remaining in the hands of the organisation com­ was breathed into the teaching of mathematics mittees of the 1924 Toronto meetings of the in Canada and the United States, with the British Association and the International Mathe­ result that an ever-increasing stream of research matical Congress. His great interest in this fund No. 3288, VoL. 130] © 1932 Nature Publishing Group NOVEMBER 5, 1932] NATURE 689 is shown by the fact that according to the pro­ strator in physiology to the science students of visions of his will the residue of his estate after Newnham. In those days there were no lecturers certain annuities are paid will pass to the medal in science at that college. In 1888 she was fund, which it gave him such pleasure and awarded by Girton College the Gamble prize for satisfaction to inaugurate. a dissertation. Of late years Prof. Fields's life was more In 1890 she was appointed the head of the strenuous than the state of his health warranted. Balfour Laboratory in Downing Place--a queer, He frequently related with evident pleasure how ugly block of a building, once a chapel. How he had just caught a tram, or train, and he often it came by so surprising a change I never heard. travelled by aeroplane in order to economise his Some contraction in the spiritual life of Cambridge time. Some twenty years ago an attack of rheum­ must have thrown it, a spiritual derelict, on to atic fever left him with health impaired, and in the market. At any rate it became the laboratory 1924, through carrying his luggage to the station for women science students and, as Cambridge on one of the numerous journeys made in organis­ was still stirred by the genius and the tragic ing the 1924 meetings, he overstrained his heart. death of Francis Maitland the most brilliant of In spite of this disability the last eight years of the Balfour brothers, it bore his name. There, his life were crowded with activities. Two years until her marriage to Mr. George Bidder in 1899, ago he suffered a slight cerebral hremorrhage and Marion Greenwood was responsible for the teaching in May of this year he had a violent heart attack. of the women science students, and herself taught. He recovered sufficiently to sit up at times in a Her research work, however, was carried out in reclining chair from which he dictated letters at Foster's laboratory, where physiologists and bio­ intervals to some of his intimate friends. chemists, still undivorced, habited adjacent rooms Prof. Fields was the recipient of numerous to their mutual comfort and benefit. The rooms, honours, but the one he valued most was his in order, down the little dark passage, were the fellowship in the Royal Society of London. Quite homes of Sheridan, Lea, Walter Gaskell, Marion recently the Italian Government expressed a Greenwood, and beyond and through her room, desire to confer upon him an honour of rare in a cupboard of a place, Langley. Miss Green­ distinction but this he was compelled to decline wood was in a small passage room, and I shared through the existence of self-denying legislation the one bench with her. No modern Ph.D. enacted in Canada at the close of the War. aspirant could or would compress his or her I should like to mention one outstanding mental activities into the space we were contented with gift possessed by him. It was his remarkable in those days. memory. It was my privilege to be present at At that time women were rare in scientific a lecture given by him some years ago on "The laboratories and their presence by no means Evaluation of 1t". To my astonishment he went generally acceptable--indeed, that is too mild a to the blackboard in the course of the lecture phrase. Those whose memories go back so far and without hesitation wrote out the value of 1t will recollect how unacceptability not infrequently correct to 200 decimal places. flamed into hostility. The woman student was Prof. Fields's life was spent in the cause of rather expected to be eccentric in dress and research. He was devoted to his friends, and I manner ; she was still unplaced, so far as the never knew anyone more pure in heart and thought male in possession was concerned.