The full e-book “The Fields Institute Turns
Twenty-Five” is now available online.
From the Book
Where it all began
I thought this was especially odd given that Waterloo
had the singular distinction of having an entire faculty
devoted to mathematics and was home to several first rate
by W.F. Shadwick
mathematicians.
...
HE FIELDS INSTITUTE WAS MY IDEA.
I quickly found a number of supporters for the idea
When this all began, I was an NSERC University
Research Fellow, and an Associate Professor in the Pure of pressing Waterloo to back a proposal for a Centre of
Mathematics Department at the University of Waterloo. I had Excellence in Mathematics. As I recall, the ad hoc committee
I recruited to apply this pressure consisted of Adrian Bondy,
recently turned thirty-four.
Grafton Hui, David Jackson, John Lawrence,
I was about to spend the
and John Wainright. Aside from me, they were
next six years leading a
all senior professors, making this important
much more senior group of
The Fields Institute officially opened in
committee difficult to ignore.
people on a journey with no
the summer of 1992.
After a good deal of debate in the Mathematics
roadmap and no indication
Faculty, a meeting between my committee
that we could ever reach
and
Waterloo
President Doug Wright was convened by the
our destination. The outcome was an excellent illustration
Dean
of
Mathematics.
Wright agreed that the University
of George Bernard Shaw’s dictum about progress — “the
would
support
an
application
for a Mathematics Centre of
reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable
one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, Excellence in the expected call for proposals for a second
round of funding.
all progress depends upon the unreasonable man.”
T
6
This is a brief sketch of what I remember about the critical
points in the creation of the Fields Institute and the pivotal
contributions to it.
...
In the winter
of
the 1985–86
The Fields Institute was originally
located at the University of Waterloo.
academic year
at a meeting of
the
University
of Waterloo Mathematics Faculty Council, Waterloo’s plans
were announced for participation in a new program of
research entitled the “Centres of Excellence,” initiated and
funded by the Province of Ontario.
No consideration had been given to mathematics as a
potential area of research to be supported in this program.
7
Original Fields Institute group, 1992
21