The face of a genius, in addition to, only a mother can love.And the shitstorm happening in the mathematics community.
Poincare Conjecture is a very difficult subject. How difficult? it takes more than a hundred years before some Russian or Chinese can solve it. To me, it's just as difficult as say understanding how a dishwasher works.
Did Grigori Perelman complete the proof? Or rather team Xi-Ping Zhu/Hui-dong Cao/Shing-Tung Yau completed what Perelman left unfinished?
When Stephen Hawking visited Beijing, everybody and his dog were paying attention to Hawking. Little did we pay attention to Shing-Tung Yau's talk on Poincare Conjecture until lately I guess. Or except the mathematicians.
Here's what Dr. Perelman say, as reported in the New Yorker's article. And I quote
“It is not people who break ethical standards who are regarded as aliens,” he said. “It is people like me who are isolated.” We asked him whether he had read Cao and Zhu’s paper. “It is not clear to me what new contribution did they make,” he said. “Apparently, Zhu did not quite understand the argument and reworked it.” As for Yau, Perelman said, “I can’t say I’m outraged. Other people do worse. Of course, there are many mathematicians who are more or less honest. But almost all of them are conformists. They are more or less honest, but they tolerate those who are not honest.”
He's not outraged all right, but he is totally bitter no doubt.
Philip Greenspun's weblog
The New Yorker's article
New York Times on Hawking's trip t o China.
New York Times on Perelman and Poincare.
Any problem or conjecture or whatever that involves the fifth dimension and above is beyond me.
ReplyDeleteThe parents of Dr Terence Tao, a professor of mathematics at the University of California, Los Angeles, emigrated to Australia from HK. Dr Tao has an IQ of 221 and went to university when he's nine. He got his doctorate at the age of 21.
Dr Perelman has no interest in a prize money of US$1 million offered by the Clay Mathematics Institute in Cambridge, Mass., for the first published proof of the Poincaré conjecture. He sure is a strange man. The money-chasers in HK and all over the world have a lot to learn from his example. Solving the Poincaré conjecture was no mean achievement and he did not do that for money
Sid
Are you freaking telling me, any fourth dimension and below is a piece of cake TO you?
ReplyDeleteI read somewhere that the 3rd dimension is actually the hardest (as opposed to the higher numbers the hardest) and that's why it takes more than 100 years for someone to come up with something.
Anyway, those articles I read are written by Westerners so I don't know if it's biased or not. But there seems no dispute that Hamilton made initial great contribution (Ricci flow or something) and so was Dr. Perelman. Problem is did Perelman actually complete everything? Or like Yau claimed his proof lacks detail and is not considered complete ....
I am with an open mind here. That's a bit open to the Russian guy.
Thanks for the articles. Awesome! I spent the last hour and a half reading them. Right now I know something I didn't know an hour and a half ago. For my part, I don't care who got it f'irst. We humans have our weaknesses. But the th'irst for knowledge is always there.
ReplyDeleteVincent
Hey, you sounded familiar. Yes, you must the kind of conformist that Dr. Perelman was talking about.
ReplyDeleteThe New Yorker is for cultural elite and whenever I feel like being a cultural elite I will read it, just an article or two.
I am glad you find the hyperlinked articles worth your time.
There's no doubt that Dr Perelman solved the Poincaré conjecture, from a reading of the New Yorker article. Hamilton had blazed a trail and Perelman came up with the solution or a solution. Yau, his students and other mathematicians have at best helped explain Perelman's solution that was "published" on the Internet rather than an academic journal. In mathematical parlance, these other guys have reconstructed the proofs from Perelman's conclusions. They did not solve the Poincaré conjecture. Dr Perelman was willing to share what he knew and he's not after fame or money. What a strange man indeed!
ReplyDeleteSid
Some thoughts here:
ReplyDeleteThe Jews are very smart.
Secondly, the Chinese are very dumb. Reading the Chinese language papers, they never told me what the Poincare Conjecture is. Instead they only stressed the ethnicity of the winner. Anyway that guy is an Australian doing work in the States. What's more, I am interested to know that Henri was actually the nephew of Raymond, the president of France during the WWI.
Vincent
Henri was actually a cousin of Raymond. These days, everybody loves Raymond.
ReplyDeleteVincent
Everybody Loves Raymond, 1996 - 2005. The love is over. Now the series is in syndication and forever in TVs landscape in rerun land. American TV can be fucking boring, 10 years from now, there is still Seinfeld showing. I personally like Seinfeld better. I might have seen one or 2 episodes of Everybody Loves Raymond.
ReplyDeleteI am only intested in figures of Football gambling and Triple Trio, but in Sep, I have to teach the motherfucking "Contemporary Econ", I don't know what's the diff between "Contemporay" and "Classical".
ReplyDeleteAnd Lin Zhiling as well as Gillian Chung, too. William, if you search classical economics at Wikipedia, you'll find out what contemporary economics is. Anything that doesn't belong to classical economics should belong to contemporary economics, I think, unless there are other economics as well.
ReplyDeleteFor me, any Economics, no matter Stool Economics or Ass hole Economics is the same
ReplyDelete