International Congress of Mathematicians
Encyclopedia
The International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) is the largest conference for the topic of mathematics
. It meets once every four years, hosted by the International Mathematical Union
(IMU).
The Fields Medal
s, the Nevanlinna Prize
, the Gauss Prize
, and the Chern Medal are awarded during the congress' opening ceremony. Each congress is memorialized by a printed learned Proceedings
recording academic papers based on invited talks intended to be relevant to current topics of general interest.
and Georg Cantor
are credited with putting forward the idea of an international congress of mathematicians in the 1890s. The first International Congress of Mathematicians was held in Zurich in August 1897. The organizers included such prominent mathematicians as Luigi Cremona
, Felix Klein
, Gösta Mittag-Leffler, Andrey Markov
, and others. The congress was attended by 208 mathematicians from 16 countries, including 12 from Russia and 7 from the U.S.A.
During the 1900 congress in Paris
, France
, David Hilbert
announced his famous list of 23 unsolved mathematical problems
, now termed Hilbert's problems
.
At the 1904 ICM Gyula Kőnig delivered a lecture where he claimed that Cantor's famous Continuum Hypothesis
was false. An error in Kőnig's proof was discovered by Ernst Zermelo
soon thereafter. Kőnig's announcement at the congress caused considerable uproar, and Klein had to personally explain to Grossherzog of Baden (who was a financial sponsor of the congress) what could cause such an unrest among mathematicians.
During the 1912 congress in Cambridge
, England, Edmund Landau
listed four basic problems about prime number
s, now called Landau's problems
. The 1924 congress in Toronto
was organized by John Charles Fields
, initiator of the Fields Medal
; it included a roundtrip railway excursion to Vancouver
and ferry to Victoria
. The first two Fields Medals were awarded at the 1936 ICM in Oslo.
In the aftermath of World War I
, at the insistence of the Allied Powers
, the 1920 ICM in Strasbourg and the 1924 ICM in Toronto excluded mathematicians from the countries formerly comprising the Central Powers
. This resulted in a still unresolved controversy as to whether to count the Strasbourg and Toronto congresses as true ICMs. At the opening of the 1932 ICM in Zurich, Hermann Weyl
said: "We attend here to an extraordinary improbable event. For the number of n, corresponding to the just opened International Congress of Mathematicians, we have the inequality 7 ≤ n ≤ 9; unfortunately our axiomatic foundations are not sufficient to give a more precise statement”. As a consequence of this controversy, from the 1932 Zurich congress onward, the ICMs are not numbered.
For the 1950 ICM in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Laurent Schwartz
, one of the Fields Medalists for that year, and Jacques Hadamard
, both of whom were viewed by the U.S. authorities as communist sympathizers, were only able to obtain U.S. visas after the personal intervention of President Harry Truman.
The first woman to give an ICM plenary lecture, at the 1932 congress in Zurich, was Emmy Noether
. The second ICM plenary talk by a woman was delivered 58 years later, at the 1990 ICM in Kyoto, by Karen Uhlenbeck
.
The 1998 congress was attended by 3,346 participants. The American Mathematical Society
reported that more than 4,500 partipants attended the 2006 conference in Madrid, Spain. The King of Spain presided over the 2006 conference opening ceremony. The 2010 Congress took place in Hyderabad, India
on August 19–27, 2010. The ICM 2014 will be held in Seoul, South Korea.
Following the end of World War I
, the Allied Powers established in 1919 in Brussels the International Research Council (IRC). At the IRC's instructions, in 1920 the Union Mathematique Internationale (UMI) was created. This was the immediate predecessor of the current International Mathematical Union
. Under the IRC's pressure, UMI reassigned the 1920 congress from Stockholm to Strasbourg and insisted on the rule which excluded from the congress mathematicians representing the former Central Powers
. The exclusion rule, which also applied to the 1924 ICM, turned out to be quite unpopular among mathematicians from the U.S. and Great Britain. The 1924 ICM was originally scheduled to be held in New York, but had to be moved to Toronto after the American Mathematical Society
withdrew its invitation to host the congress, in protest against the exclusion rule. As a result of the exclusion rule and the protests it generated, the 1920 and the 1924 ICMs were considerably smaller than the previous ones. In the run-up to the 1928 ICM in Bologna, IRC and UMI still insisted on applying the exclusion rule. In the face of the protests against the exclusion rule and the possibility of a boycott of the congress by the American Mathematical Society
and the London Mathematical Society
, the congress' organizers decided to hold the 1928 ICM under the auspices of the University of Bologna rather than of the UMI. The 1928 congress and all the subsequent congresses have been open for participation by mathematicians of all countries.
The statutes of the UMI expired in 1931 and at the 1932 ICM in Zurich a decision to dissolve the UMI was made, largely in opposition to IRC's pressure on the UMI.
At the 1950 ICM the participants voted to reconstitute the International Mathematical Union (IMU), which was formally established in 1951. Starting with the 1954 congress in Amsterdam, the ICMs are held under the auspices of the IMU.
sent 27 participants to the 1928 ICM in Bologna and 10 participants to the 1932 ICM in Zurich. No Soviet mathematicians participated in the 1936 ICM, although a number of invitations were extended to them. At the 1950 ICM there were again no participants from the Soviet Union, although quite a few were invited. Similarly, no representatives of other Eastern Bloc
countries, except for Yugoslavia, participated in the 1950 congress. Andrey Kolmogorov
had been appointed to the Fields Medal selection committee for the 1950 congress, but did not participate in the committee's work. However, in a famous episode, a few days before the end of the 1950 ICM, the congress' organizers received a telegram from Sergei Vavilov
, President of the USSR Academy of Sciences. The telegram thanked the organizers for inviting Soviet mathematicians but said that they are unable to attend "being very much occupied with their regular work", and wished success to the congress' participants. Vavilov's message was seen as a hopeful sign for the future ICMs and the situation improved further after Joseph Stalin
's death in 1953. The Soviet Union was represented by five mathematicians at the 1954 ICM in Amsterdam, and several other Eastern Bloc countries sent their representatives as well. In 1957 the USSR joined the International Mathematical Union
and the participation in subsequent ICMs by the Soviet and other Eastern Bloc scientists has been mostly at normal levels.
However, even after 1957, tensions between ICM organizers and the Soviet side persisted. Soviet mathematicians invited to attend the ICMs routinely experienced difficulties with obtaining exit visas from the Soviet Union and were often unable to come. Thus of the 41 invited speakers from the USSR for the 1974 ICM in Vancouver, only 20 actually arrived. Grigory Margulis
, who was awarded the Fields Medal at 1978 ICM in Helsinki, was not granted an exit visa and was unable to attend the 1978 congress. Another, related, point of contention was the jurisdiction over Fields Medals for Soviet mathematicians. After 1978 the Soviet Union put forward a demand that the USSR Academy of Sciences approve all Soviet candidates for the Fields Medal
, before it was awarded to them. However, the IMU insisted that the decisions regarding invited speakers and Fields medalists be kept under exclusive jurisdiction of the ICM committees appointed for that purpose by the IMU.
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
. It meets once every four years, hosted by the International Mathematical Union
International Mathematical Union
The International Mathematical Union is an international non-governmental organisation devoted to international cooperation in the field of mathematics across the world. It is a member of the International Council for Science and supports the International Congress of Mathematicians...
(IMU).
The Fields Medal
Fields Medal
The Fields Medal, officially known as International Medal for Outstanding Discoveries in Mathematics, is a prize awarded to two, three, or four mathematicians not over 40 years of age at each International Congress of the International Mathematical Union , a meeting that takes place every four...
s, the Nevanlinna Prize
Nevanlinna Prize
The Rolf Nevanlinna Prize is awarded once every 4 years at the International Congress of Mathematicians, for outstanding contributions in Mathematical Aspects of Information Sciences including:...
, the Gauss Prize
Carl Friedrich Gauss Prize
The Carl Friedrich Gauss Prize for Applications of Mathematics is a mathematics award, granted jointly by the International Mathematical Union and the German Mathematical Society for "outstanding mathematical contributions that have found significant applications outside of mathematics". The award...
, and the Chern Medal are awarded during the congress' opening ceremony. Each congress is memorialized by a printed learned Proceedings
Proceedings
In academia, proceedings are the collection of academic papers that are published in the context of an academic conference. They are usually distributed as printed books either before the conference opens or after the conference has closed. Proceedings contain the contributions made by researchers...
recording academic papers based on invited talks intended to be relevant to current topics of general interest.
History
Felix KleinFelix Klein
Christian Felix Klein was a German mathematician, known for his work in group theory, function theory, non-Euclidean geometry, and on the connections between geometry and group theory...
and Georg Cantor
Georg Cantor
Georg Ferdinand Ludwig Philipp Cantor was a German mathematician, best known as the inventor of set theory, which has become a fundamental theory in mathematics. Cantor established the importance of one-to-one correspondence between the members of two sets, defined infinite and well-ordered sets,...
are credited with putting forward the idea of an international congress of mathematicians in the 1890s. The first International Congress of Mathematicians was held in Zurich in August 1897. The organizers included such prominent mathematicians as Luigi Cremona
Luigi Cremona
Luigi Cremona was an Italian mathematician. His life was devoted to the study of geometry and reforming advanced mathematical teaching in Italy. His reputation mainly rests on his Introduzione ad una teoria geometrica delle curve piane...
, Felix Klein
Felix Klein
Christian Felix Klein was a German mathematician, known for his work in group theory, function theory, non-Euclidean geometry, and on the connections between geometry and group theory...
, Gösta Mittag-Leffler, Andrey Markov
Andrey Markov
Andrey Andreyevich Markov was a Russian mathematician. He is best known for his work on theory of stochastic processes...
, and others. The congress was attended by 208 mathematicians from 16 countries, including 12 from Russia and 7 from the U.S.A.
During the 1900 congress in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, David Hilbert
David Hilbert
David Hilbert was a German mathematician. He is recognized as one of the most influential and universal mathematicians of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Hilbert discovered and developed a broad range of fundamental ideas in many areas, including invariant theory and the axiomatization of...
announced his famous list of 23 unsolved mathematical problems
Hilbert's problems
Hilbert's problems form a list of twenty-three problems in mathematics published by German mathematician David Hilbert in 1900. The problems were all unsolved at the time, and several of them were very influential for 20th century mathematics...
, now termed Hilbert's problems
Hilbert's problems
Hilbert's problems form a list of twenty-three problems in mathematics published by German mathematician David Hilbert in 1900. The problems were all unsolved at the time, and several of them were very influential for 20th century mathematics...
.
At the 1904 ICM Gyula Kőnig delivered a lecture where he claimed that Cantor's famous Continuum Hypothesis
Continuum hypothesis
In mathematics, the continuum hypothesis is a hypothesis, advanced by Georg Cantor in 1874, about the possible sizes of infinite sets. It states:Establishing the truth or falsehood of the continuum hypothesis is the first of Hilbert's 23 problems presented in the year 1900...
was false. An error in Kőnig's proof was discovered by Ernst Zermelo
Ernst Zermelo
Ernst Friedrich Ferdinand Zermelo was a German mathematician, whose work has major implications for the foundations of mathematics and hence on philosophy. He is known for his role in developing Zermelo–Fraenkel axiomatic set theory and his proof of the well-ordering theorem.-Life:He graduated...
soon thereafter. Kőnig's announcement at the congress caused considerable uproar, and Klein had to personally explain to Grossherzog of Baden (who was a financial sponsor of the congress) what could cause such an unrest among mathematicians.
During the 1912 congress in Cambridge
Cambridge
The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...
, England, Edmund Landau
Edmund Landau
Edmund Georg Hermann Landau was a German Jewish mathematician who worked in the fields of number theory and complex analysis.-Biography:...
listed four basic problems about prime number
Prime number
A prime number is a natural number greater than 1 that has no positive divisors other than 1 and itself. A natural number greater than 1 that is not a prime number is called a composite number. For example 5 is prime, as only 1 and 5 divide it, whereas 6 is composite, since it has the divisors 2...
s, now called Landau's problems
Landau's problems
At the 1912 International Congress of Mathematicians, Edmund Landau listed four basic problems about primes. These problems were characterised in his speech as "unattackable at the present state of science" and are now known as Landau's problems...
. The 1924 congress in Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
was organized by John Charles Fields
John Charles Fields
John Charles Fields, FRS, FRSC was a Canadian mathematician and the founder of the Fields Medal for outstanding achievement in mathematics...
, initiator of the Fields Medal
Fields Medal
The Fields Medal, officially known as International Medal for Outstanding Discoveries in Mathematics, is a prize awarded to two, three, or four mathematicians not over 40 years of age at each International Congress of the International Mathematical Union , a meeting that takes place every four...
; it included a roundtrip railway excursion to Vancouver
Vancouver
Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...
and ferry to Victoria
Victoria, British Columbia
Victoria is the capital city of British Columbia, Canada and is located on the southern tip of Vancouver Island off Canada's Pacific coast. The city has a population of about 78,000 within the metropolitan area of Greater Victoria, which has a population of 360,063, the 15th most populous Canadian...
. The first two Fields Medals were awarded at the 1936 ICM in Oslo.
In the aftermath of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, at the insistence of the Allied Powers
Allies of World War I
The Entente Powers were the countries at war with the Central Powers during World War I. The members of the Triple Entente were the United Kingdom, France, and the Russian Empire; Italy entered the war on their side in 1915...
, the 1920 ICM in Strasbourg and the 1924 ICM in Toronto excluded mathematicians from the countries formerly comprising the Central Powers
Central Powers
The Central Powers were one of the two warring factions in World War I , composed of the German Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Bulgaria...
. This resulted in a still unresolved controversy as to whether to count the Strasbourg and Toronto congresses as true ICMs. At the opening of the 1932 ICM in Zurich, Hermann Weyl
Hermann Weyl
Hermann Klaus Hugo Weyl was a German mathematician and theoretical physicist. Although much of his working life was spent in Zürich, Switzerland and then Princeton, he is associated with the University of Göttingen tradition of mathematics, represented by David Hilbert and Hermann Minkowski.His...
said: "We attend here to an extraordinary improbable event. For the number of n, corresponding to the just opened International Congress of Mathematicians, we have the inequality 7 ≤ n ≤ 9; unfortunately our axiomatic foundations are not sufficient to give a more precise statement”. As a consequence of this controversy, from the 1932 Zurich congress onward, the ICMs are not numbered.
For the 1950 ICM in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Laurent Schwartz
Laurent Schwartz
Laurent-Moïse Schwartz was a French mathematician. He pioneered the theory of distributions, which gives a well-defined meaning to objects such as the Dirac delta function. He was awarded the Fields medal in 1950 for his work...
, one of the Fields Medalists for that year, and Jacques Hadamard
Jacques Hadamard
Jacques Salomon Hadamard FRS was a French mathematician who made major contributions in number theory, complex function theory, differential geometry and partial differential equations.-Biography:...
, both of whom were viewed by the U.S. authorities as communist sympathizers, were only able to obtain U.S. visas after the personal intervention of President Harry Truman.
The first woman to give an ICM plenary lecture, at the 1932 congress in Zurich, was Emmy Noether
Emmy Noether
Amalie Emmy Noether was an influential German mathematician known for her groundbreaking contributions to abstract algebra and theoretical physics. Described by David Hilbert, Albert Einstein and others as the most important woman in the history of mathematics, she revolutionized the theories of...
. The second ICM plenary talk by a woman was delivered 58 years later, at the 1990 ICM in Kyoto, by Karen Uhlenbeck
Karen Uhlenbeck
Karen Keskulla Uhlenbeck is a professor and Sid W. Richardson Regents Chairholder in the Department of Mathematics at The University of Texas in Austin. In 1998 she was selected to be a Noether Lecturer. In 2000, she became a recipient of the National Medal of Science...
.
The 1998 congress was attended by 3,346 participants. The American Mathematical Society
American Mathematical Society
The American Mathematical Society is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, which it does with various publications and conferences as well as annual monetary awards and prizes to mathematicians.The society is one of the...
reported that more than 4,500 partipants attended the 2006 conference in Madrid, Spain. The King of Spain presided over the 2006 conference opening ceremony. The 2010 Congress took place in Hyderabad, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
on August 19–27, 2010. The ICM 2014 will be held in Seoul, South Korea.
ICMs and the International Mathematical Union
The organizing committees of the early ICMs were formed in large part on an ad hoc basis and there was no single body continuously overseeing the ICMs.Following the end of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, the Allied Powers established in 1919 in Brussels the International Research Council (IRC). At the IRC's instructions, in 1920 the Union Mathematique Internationale (UMI) was created. This was the immediate predecessor of the current International Mathematical Union
International Mathematical Union
The International Mathematical Union is an international non-governmental organisation devoted to international cooperation in the field of mathematics across the world. It is a member of the International Council for Science and supports the International Congress of Mathematicians...
. Under the IRC's pressure, UMI reassigned the 1920 congress from Stockholm to Strasbourg and insisted on the rule which excluded from the congress mathematicians representing the former Central Powers
Central Powers
The Central Powers were one of the two warring factions in World War I , composed of the German Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Bulgaria...
. The exclusion rule, which also applied to the 1924 ICM, turned out to be quite unpopular among mathematicians from the U.S. and Great Britain. The 1924 ICM was originally scheduled to be held in New York, but had to be moved to Toronto after the American Mathematical Society
American Mathematical Society
The American Mathematical Society is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, which it does with various publications and conferences as well as annual monetary awards and prizes to mathematicians.The society is one of the...
withdrew its invitation to host the congress, in protest against the exclusion rule. As a result of the exclusion rule and the protests it generated, the 1920 and the 1924 ICMs were considerably smaller than the previous ones. In the run-up to the 1928 ICM in Bologna, IRC and UMI still insisted on applying the exclusion rule. In the face of the protests against the exclusion rule and the possibility of a boycott of the congress by the American Mathematical Society
American Mathematical Society
The American Mathematical Society is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, which it does with various publications and conferences as well as annual monetary awards and prizes to mathematicians.The society is one of the...
and the London Mathematical Society
London Mathematical Society
-See also:* American Mathematical Society* Edinburgh Mathematical Society* European Mathematical Society* List of Mathematical Societies* Council for the Mathematical Sciences* BCS-FACS Specialist Group-External links:* * *...
, the congress' organizers decided to hold the 1928 ICM under the auspices of the University of Bologna rather than of the UMI. The 1928 congress and all the subsequent congresses have been open for participation by mathematicians of all countries.
The statutes of the UMI expired in 1931 and at the 1932 ICM in Zurich a decision to dissolve the UMI was made, largely in opposition to IRC's pressure on the UMI.
At the 1950 ICM the participants voted to reconstitute the International Mathematical Union (IMU), which was formally established in 1951. Starting with the 1954 congress in Amsterdam, the ICMs are held under the auspices of the IMU.
Soviet participation
The Soviet UnionSoviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
sent 27 participants to the 1928 ICM in Bologna and 10 participants to the 1932 ICM in Zurich. No Soviet mathematicians participated in the 1936 ICM, although a number of invitations were extended to them. At the 1950 ICM there were again no participants from the Soviet Union, although quite a few were invited. Similarly, no representatives of other Eastern Bloc
Eastern bloc
The term Eastern Bloc or Communist Bloc refers to the former communist states of Eastern and Central Europe, generally the Soviet Union and the countries of the Warsaw Pact...
countries, except for Yugoslavia, participated in the 1950 congress. Andrey Kolmogorov
Andrey Kolmogorov
Andrey Nikolaevich Kolmogorov was a Soviet mathematician, preeminent in the 20th century, who advanced various scientific fields, among them probability theory, topology, intuitionistic logic, turbulence, classical mechanics and computational complexity.-Early life:Kolmogorov was born at Tambov...
had been appointed to the Fields Medal selection committee for the 1950 congress, but did not participate in the committee's work. However, in a famous episode, a few days before the end of the 1950 ICM, the congress' organizers received a telegram from Sergei Vavilov
Sergey Ivanovich Vavilov
Sergey Ivanovich Vavilov -Biography:Vavilov founded the Soviet school of physical optics, known by his works in luminescence. In 1934 he co-discovered the Vavilov-Cherenkov effect, a discovery for which Pavel Cherenkov was awarded a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1958...
, President of the USSR Academy of Sciences. The telegram thanked the organizers for inviting Soviet mathematicians but said that they are unable to attend "being very much occupied with their regular work", and wished success to the congress' participants. Vavilov's message was seen as a hopeful sign for the future ICMs and the situation improved further after Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
's death in 1953. The Soviet Union was represented by five mathematicians at the 1954 ICM in Amsterdam, and several other Eastern Bloc countries sent their representatives as well. In 1957 the USSR joined the International Mathematical Union
International Mathematical Union
The International Mathematical Union is an international non-governmental organisation devoted to international cooperation in the field of mathematics across the world. It is a member of the International Council for Science and supports the International Congress of Mathematicians...
and the participation in subsequent ICMs by the Soviet and other Eastern Bloc scientists has been mostly at normal levels.
However, even after 1957, tensions between ICM organizers and the Soviet side persisted. Soviet mathematicians invited to attend the ICMs routinely experienced difficulties with obtaining exit visas from the Soviet Union and were often unable to come. Thus of the 41 invited speakers from the USSR for the 1974 ICM in Vancouver, only 20 actually arrived. Grigory Margulis
Grigory Margulis
Gregori Aleksandrovich Margulis is a Russian mathematician known for his far-reaching work on lattices in Lie groups, and the introduction of methods from ergodic theory into diophantine approximation. He was awarded a Fields Medal in 1978 and a Wolf Prize in Mathematics in 2005, becoming the...
, who was awarded the Fields Medal at 1978 ICM in Helsinki, was not granted an exit visa and was unable to attend the 1978 congress. Another, related, point of contention was the jurisdiction over Fields Medals for Soviet mathematicians. After 1978 the Soviet Union put forward a demand that the USSR Academy of Sciences approve all Soviet candidates for the Fields Medal
Fields Medal
The Fields Medal, officially known as International Medal for Outstanding Discoveries in Mathematics, is a prize awarded to two, three, or four mathematicians not over 40 years of age at each International Congress of the International Mathematical Union , a meeting that takes place every four...
, before it was awarded to them. However, the IMU insisted that the decisions regarding invited speakers and Fields medalists be kept under exclusive jurisdiction of the ICM committees appointed for that purpose by the IMU.
List of Congresses
| Year | City | Country |
|---|---|---|
| 2014 | Seoul Seoul Seoul , officially the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea. A megacity with a population of over 10 million, it is the largest city proper in the OECD developed world... |
 South KoreaSouth Korea The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south... |
| 2010 | Hyderabad |  IndiaIndia India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world... |
| 2006 | Madrid Madrid Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan... |
 SpainSpain Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula... |
| 2002 | Beijing Beijing Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's... |
 ChinaChina Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture... |
| 1998 | Berlin Berlin Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union... |
 GermanyGermany Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate... |
| 1994 | Zürich Zürich Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich... |
 SwitzerlandSwitzerland Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition.... |
| 1990 | Kyōto Kyoto is a city in the central part of the island of Honshū, Japan. It has a population close to 1.5 million. Formerly the imperial capital of Japan, it is now the capital of Kyoto Prefecture, as well as a major part of the Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto metropolitan area.-History:... |
 JapanJapan Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south... |
| 1986 | Berkeley Berkeley, California Berkeley is a city on the east shore of the San Francisco Bay in Northern California, United States. Its neighbors to the south are the cities of Oakland and Emeryville. To the north is the city of Albany and the unincorporated community of Kensington... |
 United StatesUnited States The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district... |
| 1982 (met during 1983) | Warsaw Warsaw Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most... |
 PolandPoland Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north... |
| 1978 | Helsinki Helsinki Helsinki is the capital and largest city in Finland. It is in the region of Uusimaa, located in southern Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic Sea. The population of the city of Helsinki is , making it by far the most populous municipality in Finland. Helsinki is... |
 FinlandFinland Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside... |
| 1974 | Vancouver Vancouver Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,... |
 CanadaCanada Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean... |
| 1970 | Nice Nice Nice is the fifth most populous city in France, after Paris, Marseille, Lyon and Toulouse, with a population of 348,721 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Nice extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of more than 955,000 on an area of... |
 FranceFrance The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France... |
| 1966 | Moscow Moscow Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent... |
 Soviet UnionSoviet Union The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991.... |
| 1962 | Stockholm Stockholm Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area... |
 SwedenSweden Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund.... |
| 1958 | Edinburgh Edinburgh Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area... |
 United KingdomUnited Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages... |
| 1954 | Amsterdam Amsterdam Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population... |
 NetherlandsNetherlands The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders... |
| 1950 | Cambridge Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Cambridge is home to two of the world's most prominent... |
 United StatesUnited States The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district... |
| 1936 | Oslo Oslo Oslo is a municipality, as well as the capital and most populous city in Norway. As a municipality , it was established on 1 January 1838. Founded around 1048 by King Harald III of Norway, the city was largely destroyed by fire in 1624. The city was moved under the reign of Denmark–Norway's King... |
 NorwayNorway Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million... |
| 1932 | Zürich Zürich Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich... |
Switzerland Switzerland Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition.... |
| 1928 | Bologna Bologna Bologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of Northern Italy. The city lies between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, more specifically, between the Reno River and the Savena River. Bologna is a lively and cosmopolitan Italian college city, with spectacular history,... |
 ItalyItaly Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and... |
| 1924 | Toronto Toronto Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from... |
Canada Canada Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean... |
| 1920 | Strasbourg Strasbourg Strasbourg is the capital and principal city of the Alsace region in eastern France and is the official seat of the European Parliament. Located close to the border with Germany, it is the capital of the Bas-Rhin département. The city and the region of Alsace are historically German-speaking,... |
France France The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France... |
| 1912 | Cambridge Cambridge The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the... |
United Kingdom United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages... |
| 1908 | Rome Rome Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half... |
Italy Italy Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and... |
| 1904 | Heidelberg Heidelberg -Early history:Between 600,000 and 200,000 years ago, "Heidelberg Man" died at nearby Mauer. His jaw bone was discovered in 1907; with scientific dating, his remains were determined to be the earliest evidence of human life in Europe. In the 5th century BC, a Celtic fortress of refuge and place of... |
 German EmpireGerman Empire The German Empire refers to Germany during the "Second Reich" period from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.The German... |
| 1900 | Paris Paris Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region... |
France France The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France... |
| 1897 | Zürich Zürich Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich... |
Switzerland Switzerland Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition.... |
Further reading
- Guillermo Curbera. Mathematicians of the World, Unite!: The International Congress of Mathematicians: A Human Endeavor. AK Peters, 2009. ISBN 1568813309
- Olli Lehto. Mathematics without borders: a history of the International Mathematical Union. Springer-Verlag, 1998. ISBN 0387983589
- Donald J. Albers, Gerald L. Alexanderson, Constance Reid. International Mathematical Congresses: An Illustrated History, 1893-1986, Springer-Verlag, 1986. ISBN 0387964096
- Yousef Alavi, Peter Hilton and Jean Pederse. Let's Meet at the Congress. The American Mathematical Monthly, Vol. 93, No. 1 (Jan., 1986), pp. 3–8
External links
- International Mathematic Union's page on ICM
- ICM Proceedings 1893-2006, International Mathematical UnionInternational Mathematical UnionThe International Mathematical Union is an international non-governmental organisation devoted to international cooperation in the field of mathematics across the world. It is a member of the International Council for Science and supports the International Congress of Mathematicians...
- ICM 1998 (Proceedings)
- ICM 2002 (Proceedings available on the arXiv)
- ICM 2006 (Proceedings)
- ICM 2010
- List of all ICM talks