The Fields Institute Turns Twenty-Five 170725 Final book with covers | Page 17

Introduction
xv
World War I allies, he had to drum up attendance. This he
did by defining mathematics as broadly as possible and as
inclusively as possible—including talks on actuarial science
and statistics, forestry, astronomy, mechanics, ballistics,
naval architecture, economics, radiotelegraphy, geophysics,
aeronautics, mining engineering, and the aurora borealis, to
mention only a few. His broad definition of pure and applied
mathematics corresponds closely to the vision of the founders
of the Fields Institute and of those who have followed the trail
of mathematical research wherever it has led over the past
quarter century.