Rio world math capital, Fields medals key

Two years after receiving the greatest athletes on the planet at the 2016 Olympic Games, Rio de Janeiro welcomes from August 1st to 9th the best of mathematics, gathered for a Congress in which will be awarded the Fields medals, equivalent of the Nobel.

Brazil is the first country in Latin America to host the International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM), held every four years since the end of the 19th century.

"When the first edition took place in 1897 there was practically no mathematics in Brazil and the fact that we are entrusted with the organization of the congress makes it possible to measure all the progress made, "says Marcelo Viana, head of the organizing committee and director of the Institut de France. m Pure and Applied Athematic (Impa).

This innovative Rio-based institute, in an architectural gem nestled in the heart of the Tijuca Rainforest, is at the forefront of research in Brazil, but also initiatives to make it more popular a discipline often considered austere.

The Arta Avila, a Franco-Brazilian winner of the Fields medal in 2014, who was currently sharing his time between Brazil and the France, where he is director of research at CNRS

Two to four medals are awarded at each edition of the congress. In Rio, they will be handed out Wednesday, during the opening ceremony.

Last January, Brazil was promoted to the world elite of mathematics, becoming the 11th member of the very select group 5 of the International Mathematical Union (IMU), which brings together the countries at the forefront of research like France, the United States or China

In 2017, Rio had already hosted the International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO), with more than 600 participants from 111 countries.

– Accessible language –

For Marcelo Viana, the congress is a "pretext for popularizing mathematics among young people"

"In 2006, the ICM took place in Madrid and all my Spanish colleagues 'have said that mathematical culture has since leaped up all over the country,' he recalls.

In order to leave a lasting legacy for the entire population, the congress will be overflowing with events destined for the world.

"Normally, we are asked to organize lectures in more accessible language, which can be understood by all mathematicians, but we have gone further by requiring that these lectures be so comprehensible to children", The director of the Impa

To further democratize the event, the Serrapilheira Institute, another spearhead of the support of mathematical research in Brazil, funded the participation of 19 black mathematicians and two he Indian tribes at the Congress

They will take part in a round table on gender disparities in the discipline.

If Brazil has become a leader in research, the situation of maths at school is far less brilliant.

"Our education system is too heterogeneous, with huge differences between public and private. Public teachers are not trained well enough and are not paid well enough, "says Marcelo Viana.

In the Pisa benchmark, which evaluates the education systems of 70 countries every three years, Brazil only occupied the 65th position with respect to maths at the last edition, 2015.

Research in Brazil has also suffered severe budget cuts following the historic recession of 2015 and 2016, and the brain drain

"In other countries, such as China, it is in times of crisis that the research budget increases to create new sources of prosperity for the economy. Here, in Brazil, the government has preferred austerity, it does not make sense, "criticizes the director of the Impa.

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