In 1992, during my graduate studies, I took a course named `Nonlinear functional analysis', given by Ernest Fontich. As an end of term exercise I was given the job of finding an inverse function theorem which covered at the same time those appearing in [Zeh,75] and [L-Z,1979]. Later I came to know that the same exercise had been given (and done with different degrees of success) to several students both at my university and at the Autonomous University of Barcelona during the last years. The exercise involved dropping a condition on the set of spaces that was considered, and after a while I solved it by adding a condition on the behaviour of the function.
My resolution of the problem must have been successful as, after Fontich gave it to Carles Simó, which is (and likes to be called) the Big Boss of the Applied Mathematics section, it ended up in the hands of Jean Christophe Yoccoz. Yoccoz was, by that time, always told as one of those few that were close, but not quite, to obtain a Fields Medal, as one can read in some reviews of that time. Yoccoz had been looking, unsuccessfully, for such a theorem in order to prove some results on the behaviour of one dimensional dynamical systems. The fact that some of the Ph. D. students in Barcelona were put to work on a problem which was precisely what Yoccoz needed strikes me as something quite peculiar.
I wasn't (have never been officially) told any of this, not even that my exercise had circulated. Thus Fontich (and hereby Simó) were giving exercises to their pupils for purposes different to the one of evaluating them. It must be said that they never claimed that the solution was theirs. Apparently they always told who was the author of the exercise, even if they never said a word to the author. I assume that part of the problem was that while I was taking courses both in Analysis and Applied Maths, I took an Analysis subject to get my Ph. degree.
Thus in 1994, under the presidency of J. L. Lions, the I.M.U. awarded Fields Medals to P. L. Lions, J. Bourgain, Zelmanov, and J. C. Yoccoz. Incidentally, the president of the comite was ??????. To understand this choice, it is clarifying to read [Sch,1977], p. 320. There, one can read that ``...Pierre-Louis Lions et Jean-Chistophe Yoccoz (de la même promotion de Normale, et même camarades de taupe), []. J'ai déjà fait remarquer que la recherche, en raison du système universitaire, avait tendance en France à devenir héréditaire: les deux derniers sont les fils du physicien Yoccoz et du mathématicien Jacques-Louis Lions''.
I first met J. C. Yoccoz in Barcelona, where I attended a short course on small divisors he was giving at the U.A.B.. He never said a word to me (in fact we have never talked), and, as I did not know by then any of the things that I have just explained, I never thought of talking to him. The curious fact is that, from the events that followed two years later one can see that he believed that I knew everything. I found the course very interesting, but not in my area of knowledge (in fact, I was labelling it as `applied maths', following the spanish legalese that treats dynamical systems as such). Thus none of what I have told influenced me when I decided to go to Paris. By that time I had begun my Ph. thesis, on a several complex variables subject. The subject was very classical, even a bit outdated, but it was as good as any other one for the purpose of introducing myself into the several complex variables area.
At the beginnings of 1997, when I was close to finish my dissertation, I began to consider where to spend a posdoctoral year. I considered three possibilities: Madison, Ann Arbor, and Paris. Madison was the tradicional place for S.C.V. people in Barcelona to go, but precisely because of that (I could reach the people in Madison easily using my contacts in Barcelona, so there was no need of being there) I thought it would be better to go somewhere else, for a change. Ann Arbor was a rising star for S.C.V., and there one could find both Stenssones (who had done some things related to my dissertation in which I was interested) and Fornaess (working on dynamical systems in S.C.V.). I considered Paris at least partly because my sister had spent some time there, and also because of its active cultural scene. I did not make any step in that direction yet, partly because finishing a dissertation takes more effort (typing, correcting typos) than you think, and partly because I had no economic urgency to do so. I had a contract that, even if the salary is not high, allows you to spend a posdoctoral year with full salary.
My original plan was to defend my dissertation by the month of May, and to begin a postoctoral year in September. Several delays forced me to postpone the defense until September. Thus I had to wait until the first term was finished to depart. In the meantime I had a conversation with Joaquim Bruna on my future plans. He made me a proposition on contacting Sibony, which he knew, to see whether he would accept me as a postdoc. As Sibony was interested, I made my plans to go to Paris.
To do so, I had to ask my department for a one year leave, starting at the beginning of 1998. This is always a formal step, and the leave had never been denied to anyone. But here the first weird thing happened: the departament head (which had been my Ph.D. adviser) denied it to me. He has yet to explain me his reasons, of which at that time I had no idea. Thus, to get my leave, I had to put the subject in front of the departament council. There were only four (secret) votes against my leave, and thus I got it.
When I arrived at Orsay, Sibony behaved as if he was not really expecting me, even though I had told him an e-mail saying the date at which I would be there. He was very kind, though, and counselled my in every aspect of the dayly life there. He installed me in the office room that was face by face with his. This office room was ussually occupied by Guy David, but he was spending a sabatic year in the States. It was rather small, and I assumed that it was for this reason that it was prepared for just one person. It was practical but not luxurious. Some months later, when I had seen some of the other offices, I realized that it was a privilege to have it, but by then (and judging by the standards of the University of Barcelona) I did not see anythingh especial about it.
There I spent the first three weeks of my stay at Orsay. I said hi! to everybody I met at the corridors, and no one returned my salute, but I assumed that this was the standard behaviour there (people have later told me that it is almost standard). But no. There was some revolt going on underground. To understand it, some facts need to be known. Sibony was by that time the head of the Harmonic Analysis team. I assumed that this meant that the team had voted him for that position, but in France this is not so. The heads of the research teams are nominated by the CNRS, which is the one who pays. Sibony had never been a very popular person. His straight and sometimes harsh way of saying truths has gained him some unpopularity. Now anybody who gets a commanding position with a certain load of unpopularity is likely to increase the load every time he makes a decision. Moreover, some time before I arrived at Orsay there was a vacant professorship which was to be covered by one of the Met. de Conf. from there (as a promotion). But it was considered that no one fit the requirements, so that the position was left uncovered. And now some kid was treated as if he were a professor!
So there was a revolt. One day, Kahane came to my office and threw me out of there. And at that point Sibony let me down. I do not blame him for that, it was his only possibility of controlling what was going on. Retrospectively, I can understand such as revolt, but I do not see what I had to do with it. The result for me was that all the people belonging to the harmonic analysis team refused to talk to me, three weeks after I arrived there and without having tried to talk to me even once.
It was decided that I was to move to the section were the graduate students were. This was in another building (n. 430), and appart from the graduate students there were some parts of the statistics and topology groups. There there was a small room which was formally for invited visitors, but was then unused. Moreover, in order that I did not have the room for myself alone (which still could be seen as a privilege) they had to move another invited person there, a girl who had arrived some two weeks before and had been installed somewhere else up to then.
Thus, three weeks after arriving at Orsay the situation was as follows: I was being treated as a student (and, as in Barcelona all graduate students are workers, it had been six years since I had been treated as such for the last time), I could not speak to anyone but Sibony on my research group, and moreover the whole incident had gained me an aura of weirdness I did not think I deserved. My first idea was that I had to get out of there as soon as possible, and my mistake was not to follow my instincts. I though that if I departed, the incidents would be even more notorious, and I did not want any kind of notoriety, lest such kind, to be cast upon me. So I stayed, thinking that with some effort I would be able to manage the situation. I was wrong.
This state of things lasted from the beginnings of February to the end of March. I felt that the ambiance was opressing. During the month of February, the dominating feeling was the fear that I ran away. It was not without cause. I did not feel at ease there, had no friends, and there was also the fact that my scarce knowledge of french language shortened my ability to communicate. A stupid incident made things more difficult for me. Massart got the impression that I was trying to intrude into his harem, and since then he began to make fun of me in any way he could.
Towards the beginnings of March, the atmosphere began to change. The sense of expectation began to overcome the fear. Any thing that I could do was observed with interest. It was then that people, even professors, sat by my side at the computer room and started to look at what I was doing. In that time I wrote to a friend that I had the impression of being in a concentration camp. By that time Douady began to try to be friendly. The 25th of March (Wednesday) I crossed someone I did not know and he told me `good luck'. On the same day, Massart's harassment stopped at once, and people began to look at my face as if they expected to find idontknowwhat. I should have been happy for this change, but I was not. What I felt was that things were getting weirder, instead of less weird, and that worried me.
It happened on Friday the 27th of March, even if it took me some time to know what `it' was. The day had been particularly calm, there was hardly anybody arround, and all the building was in silence. It was mid afternoon, hence, being Friday, close to the time to go home. I heard someone locking or unlocking Yoccoz's office. That must be the brazilian going home, maybe I should do the same thing, I thought. A few moments later I heard the voice of the Topology section secretary saying: `Vous avez venu parce que Jaume ...?'. She did not finish the sentece, but just from this one could deduce a few things. First, just from the `vous', that the newcomer was Yoccoz. Then, that something important related to me had been decided. It was unusual for Yoccoz to come to his office, yet on Friday afternoon. And about what had been decided, I had absolutely no idea, but given the evolution of the events, it was bound to be bad news. One of the possibilities I considered was that I was to be sacked. In any case, I envisaged troubles. But then, some minutes later, Yoccoz locked the door and went away. So that I must have misunderstood something, thankfully. Then a quarter of an hour later I went home.
During the next week, Yoccoz came to his office twice: first on Tuesday and then another day, but, since he spent his time talking with his students, I had no reason to suspect anything. I noticed, though, that (yet again) I must be doing something wrong, as people began to look at me as if I were crazy. I even went to the bathroom to look at my face (I had no mirror at home) in case there was some problem with it. However, and given the general attitudes I had found up to then in people there, I was not surprised.
By the middle of the next week, after Yoccoz had come twice again, it became obvious that Yoccoz was trying to tell me something. Every time he appeared arround, there was some kind of expectation filling the air, and people observed my movements. Moreover, this was not bad news. Bad news travels fast, they say, and I would have known by then. Thus I had to recapitulate, by recalling past and recent events, until I got a reasonable conclusion. It took me up until well past midnight. The conclusion I arrived at was that I had been given a Fields Medal (I got it confirmed, many months later, when the information was less useful).
At this point some questions should me answered.
Yes. It does not mean that I was willing to do anything to get it, but whenever I do anything, I like do it the best I can, and I am an ambitious person. In any case, Arnold is an example of the fact that you do not need a FM to be considered one of the best. But I also knew that a FM would simplify my life much, so I though it useful to have one.
Well, I did not think so. I recognize that my dissertation was done with that idea in mind. But I thought that in that sense my dissertation had fell short for it. A definitive result, a characterization or something similar, was needed to make the dissertation round. Thus, and without the knowledge that some previous result of mine (that inverse function theorem) was also on the balance (I came to know that on October) I did not expect it. And by now I believe that even with that I did not deserve it by then. Anyhow, in that I was in the same position as were more or less half of the medalists that have received the FM since the number of medals grew from two to four per congress. In any case, for me the FM was by then more something to think about in four years that something I was considering for that year.
Obviously not. Carles Simó should have told me at some time, but this would probably forced him to tell me also about his previous misdoings with my job. I would have put no trouble to him about that, though. But in any case he decided not to tell me. In that way he (either realizing it or not) he put me in a situation hardly sustainable, as I lacked the necessary information on what was going on. On the other hand, it was not until I read [Sch,1977] that I knew that such decisions were taken so much time in advance; I thought that this kind of things were decided just before the ICM.
Once I came to that conclusion, I had to decide what to do next. If I had any conclusive information I would have gone to see Yoccoz. Even if this were not the normal way of behaving, I realized that by then he would be wondering whether I was crazy or simply stupid. In order that I did that it would have been enough if someone had told me that Yoccoz wanted to see me. But I hope you understand that I could not simply go to Yoccoz and tell him: `Hey, I have deduced that you want to see me. Why?'. This option did not seem sound to me. So that what I did was the following: I went to my office and left the door opened. Then I sat and waited (whithout stopping from working, obviously).
He never came.
Well, in fact, he did come two times more during the next week and a
half. But he ignored me. Whether he considered that he had right to
have some fun on me by then or that he had a face to recover after
loss I can not tell. In any case, I was still waiting when, the other
week (that is, four weeks after the comission had made their
decisions) I discovered that Yoccoz had gone to the States for some
month and a half, and he would not be back until the beginnings of
June. That got me angry. He was playing with me.
Nothing relevant to my case happened until the end of June. My french improved steadily, and this allowed me to better understand the conversations that took place in the coffee room. It was during one of these conversations that I knew that the FM had attached a small amount of money (60.000 francs, in case you wondered). I kept waiting, but (for my mental sanity) I decided not to just be there statically expecting an apparition. I did a more or less normal life. For most people there, though, I still was some kind of circus freak. But I managed to relate to those few that realized that I was just this normal guy.
Eventually, Yoccoz came back from the States. This made no difference. The few (very few) times that Yoccoz showed up there, he just ignored me.
By the end of June, I began to read [Sch,1977]. Thanks to it I discovered that I was supposed to give a talk on some subject during the ICM. That got me angrier. Now, if you are assumed to go to the ICM and take the price you just do it. To do that, you could even be warned the day before. I mean that this needs no preparation. But if you are assumed to give a conference before an audience of (let's say) 2000 people, things change. You need to do a lot of work to prepare such a talk properly. And I was being deprived of the necessary time to do that work.
I spent the first week of July at a congress. Then I spent the second week of July at Orsay, waiting. By the end of that week I realized that this situation was unsustainable. After delaying his duties for three months, nothing indicated that Yoccoz was ready to fulfil them. On the other hand, it was obvious that in order that I went to the ICM (scheduled to begin the 16th of August) I had to be invited. There was no point in going there uninvited. But for as long as I stayed at Orsay, the person in charge of inviting me would be Yoccoz, who did not plan to do so. Thus, I decided that I had to go away.
I came to Barcelona where I stayed at the UB perfectly localizable. No person tried to get in touch with me, though. I do not know what precisely was what Yoccoz told to Y. Manin, the president of the FM comission, but I am shure that he lied. In any case, the comission (or his president alone) decided to turn down my FM, and to give it to Curtis McMullen (who works in the same area and is friends with Yoccoz, by the way). I am not sure about it, but I find it hard to believe that McMulled accepted the medal without knowledge of the facts that I am telling you.
The setup of such a falsification was difficult, though. First, the list of the medalists had been widely circulated, at least in Paris. The organization of the ICM had made press releases that, even though had no names in them, made a close description of the FM to be. Moreover, the candidate they found did not fill the age requirements (the FM have to be under 40). Some things could not be set up, though. McMullen had to give a talk in a sectorial meeting during the conference (whereas Fields Medalists never do) that could not be unscheduled. Steve Smale had to patronize McMullen in the same way that Yoccoz was assumed to patronize me, but for whatever the reason (I give Smale some credit on that) he (Smale) does not appear on the picture (you can look at the ICM Book for that, it is on the web).
So these are the reasons why I left Orsay. And I want no make it clear that in no way I assumed that by doing that I was renouncing to the FM. I am aware that some people (including Yoccoz) explain a more romantic version of the facts, but they have told that in order to cover themselves up. True, I had a special relationship with one of the students there, and that relation was severely damaged by this affair, but it does not mean that one thing had to do with the other (and, on the other hand, this is not the place to disgress about my private life). It is also true that I am sort of a radical, and I do not believe much in medals (if I wanted medals I would have become a military man). But I am also a practical guy, and I am aware of how useful some small pieces of metal can be in some circumstances (at least for Yoccoz they were). Thus I did not refuse a Fields Medal then; the only thing I refused was being held as an hostage of Yoccoz's pride. I am (by writing this letter) refusing the possibility of ever having a FM, though. I am pretty tired of this thing and of the consequences it has brought to my life and career.
On August 16th I waited to see the FM list. By then I expected the
list to have three names on it, but I saw four of them. At the
beginnings of September I discovered which one was the fake one. It
did not surprise me that the name was the one who was friend and
colleague of Yoccoz. Then I came back to Orsay, for several reasons:
first, in order to discover what exactly had happened (and I succeeded
partially; I knew about my graduate student exercise and Yoccoz, but up
to now I do not know what did Yoccoz tell to Manin). But also, I went
in order not to lose face and to show that I was alive and well.
On the other hand, I was still on a postdoctoral leave and I had
nothing better to do.
Ever since then this story has brought me problems. Many people either hate me or think me crazy because of something (refusing a Fields Medal) that I never did. Maybe I should have, but I did not. In particular, I have had problems for publishing my work. Now, I do not believe in the publishing system: the anonimity of the referee puts the author in a position of indefension, among other problems (more on it elsewhere). But when I tried to publish a paper at a journal that was well below the level of the article, it was refused without getting to a referee. A look at the editorial board (something I should have done in advance) showed what had happened.
I have to say that I tried to talk with E. Fontich and C. Simó on the things that I have explained, but they have refused to talk, on the argument that I had no proofs of any of this.
My list of complaints is the following:
Barcelona, 28th September, 2001.
1The learned reader will notice that
this letter is modeled on the ``J'accuse'' written by Zola in 1898.