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Title: Russian refuses math's highest honor
Source:
Yahoo AP
URL Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060822/ap_on_re_eu/spain_math_genius_4
Published: Aug 22, 2006
Author: DANIEL WOOLLS
Post Date: 2006-08-22 17:38:48 by Starwind
Keywords: None
Views: 155
Comments: 12
A reclusive Russian won the math world's highest honor Tuesday for solving a problem that has stumped some of the discipline's greatest minds for a century - but he refused the award. Grigory Perelman, a 40-year-old native of St. Petersburg, won a Fields Medal - often described as math's equivalent of the Nobel prize - for a breakthrough in the study of shapes that experts say might help scientists figure out the shape of the universe. John Ball, president of the International Mathematical Union, said that he had urged Perelman to accept the medal, but Perelman said he felt isolated from the mathematics community and "does not want to be seen as its figurehead." Ball offered no further details of the conversation. Besides shunning the award for his work in topology, Perelman also seems uninterested, according to colleagues, in a separate $1 million prize he could win for proving the Poincare conjecture, a theorem about the nature of multidimensional space. The award, given out every four years, was announced at the mathematical union's International Congress of Mathematicians. Three other mathematicians - Russian Andrei Okounkov, Frenchman Wendelin Werner and Australian Terence Tao - won Fields medals in other areas of mathematics. They received their awards from King Juan Carlos to loud applause from delegates to the conference. But Perelman was not present. "I regret that Dr. Perelman has declined to accept the medal," Ball said. Perelman's work is still under review, but no one has found any serious flaw in it, the math union said in a statement. The Fields medal was founded in 1936 and named after Canadian mathematician John Charles Fields. It come with a $13,400 stipend. Perelman is eligible for far more money from a private foundation called The Clay Mathematics Institute in Cambridge, Mass. In 2000, the institute announced bounties for seven historic, unsolved math problems, including the Poincare conjecture. If his proof stands the test of time, Perelman will win all or part of the $1 million prize money. That prize should be announced in about two years. The Poincare conjecture essentially says that in three dimensions you cannot transform a doughnut shape into a sphere without ripping it, although any shape without a hole can be stretched or shrunk into a sphere. Proving the conjecture - an exercise in acrobatics with mindboggling imaginary doughnuts and balls - is anything but trivial. Colleagues say Perelman's work gives mathematical descriptions of what the universe might look like and promises exciting applications in physics and other fields. "It is very important indeed because it really gives us an insight into geometry and in particular the geometry of the space we live in," said Oxford University math professor Marcus du Sautoy. "It does not say what the shape (of the universe) is. It just says, 'look, these are the things it could be.'" Academics have been studying Perelman's proof since he left the first of three papers on it on a math Web site in Nov. 2002. Normal procedure would have been to seek publication in a peer-approved journal. Three separate teams have presented papers or books explaining the details of Perelman's work, which draws heavily from a technique developed by another mathematician, Richard Hamilton of Columbia University. The Clay Mathematics Institute says the two men could conceivably share the Poincare money. Ball said he asked Perelman if he would accept that money. Perelman said that if he won, he would talk to the Clay institute. Perelman is believed to live with his mother in St. Petersburg. Repeated calls over many days to a telephone number listed as Perelman's went unanswered. Acquaintances refused to give out his address or the number they use to contact him, saying he did not want to talk to the media. This undated photo released by the International Mathematician Congress shows Grigori Perelman, from Russia, who was awarded with a prestigious Fields Medal at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Madrid, Tuesday, Aug. 22, 2006. Perelman, a reclusive Russian genius who says he's cracked one of history's toughest math problems won the equivalent of a Nobel prize Tuesday, but refused to accept it _ a stunning renunciation of accolades from the top minds in his field. Perelman, a 40-year-old native of St. Petersburg, was praised for work that might help scientists figure out the shape of the universe. But besides shunning the medal, colleagues say he also seems uninterested in a separate, million-dollar prize he might be due over his feat of wizardry: proving a theorem about the nature of multidimensional space that has stumped very smart people for 100 years. (AP Photo/International Mathematicians Congress)
Poster Comment: Perelman said he felt isolated from the mathematics community and "does not want to be seen as its figurehead." Yeah. I can empathize with his plight.
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#2. To: All (#0)
Century-old brain-twister now solved It essentially says that in three dimensions you cannot transform a doughnut shape into a sphere without ripping it, although any shape without a hole can be stretched or shrunk into a sphere. There is a catch: the space has to be finite. Imagine an ant crawling on an apple in a straight line. It can only walk so far before it's back where it started. Even though the apple has three dimensions, its surface is two-dimensional. The ant can walk backward, forward and sideways on the surface but not up and down. In three dimensions, shapes are harder to determine because people cannot directly 'see' them and there are many more possible types of holes. The conjecture is named for French mathematician and physicist Henri Poincare, who proposed it in 1904. An analogous conjecture was proved for spaces of more than three dimensions over 20 years ago. But the specific 3-D case flummoxed mathematicians for years. In 1982, Columbia University's Richard Hamilton developed a technique called Ricci flow that mathematically ironed out wrinkles in 3-D surfaces and provided a blueprint for cracking the Poincare conundrum. A problem was posed by puzzling, dense spots called singularities, which exhibited sudden, uncontrolled change. Perelman's breakthrough was to understand how to analyze these singularities, essentially neutralizing them for a while and allowing the Ricci flow to proceed smoothly and show what a given space is really like, topologically speaking.
I don't see why this can't be done. Maybe he doesn't want to accept the medal because he knows his proof has flaws that haven't been discoverd yet.
It might depend on whether the doughnut is glazed or chocolate, and the presence or absence of sprinkles. Jelly doughnuts obviously should work.
There are no replies to Comment # 9. End Trace Mode for Comment # 9.
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest MADRID, Spain - The Poincare conjecture involves topology, a branch of math that studies shapes.
#5. To: all (#2)
It essentially says that in three dimensions you cannot transform a doughnut shape into a sphere without ripping it, although any shape without a hole can be stretched or shrunk into a sphere.
#9. To: RickyJ (#5)
I don't see why this can't be done. Maybe he doesn't want to accept the medal because he knows his proof has flaws that haven't been discoverd yet.
Replies to Comment # 9.