The Fields Medal isn't the only achievement in math. > based on an ancient premise that old mathematicians can't make new incredible discoveries. Not true. Th

The Fields Medal isn't the only achievement in math. > based on an ancient premise that old mathematicians can't make new incredible discoveries. Not true. The Fields Medal is an encouragement to do more work, not a reward for completion. https://www.ams.org/notices/201501/rnoti-p15.pdf https://www.ams.org/notices/201501/rnoti-p15.pdf In fact, the strict age limit of forty was only codified at the 1966 Congress, although an informal criterion of youth preceded it. Fields’s remark that is often interpreted as favoring young medalists, that the prize should be “in recognition of work already done” but was “at the same time intended to be an encouragement for further achievement,” is associated with no claim about the age or career status of the recipient. Rather, the stipulation that the award should be given “not alone because of the outstanding character of the achievement but also with a view to encouraging further development along these lines,” was Fields’s suggestion for how “to avoid invidious comparisons” from partisans dissecting candidates’ existing work [18, pp. 173– 174]. What started with a worry about rivalrous national factions became an excuse to narrow the pool of candidates and eventually turned into a restrictive cutoff. It is yet another myth that Fields intended the medal only for the young. https://www.ams.org/journals/notices/201504/rnoti-p327.pdf https://www.ams.org/journals/notices/201504/rnoti-p327.pdf