Poincare solved by reclusive Russian
I can see why he's reclusive..incidentallly, there's a really good book about another mathematical puzzle. It's called Fermat's Last Enigma.
MADRID, Spain (AP) -- A reclusive Russian won an academic prize Tuesday for work toward solving one of history's toughest math problems, but he refused to accept the award -- a stunning renunciation of accolades from his field's top minds.
Grigory Perelman, a 40-year-old native of St. Petersburg, was praised for work in the field known as topology, which studies shapes, and for a breakthrough that might help scientists figure out nothing less than the shape of the universe.
But besides shunning the medal, academic colleagues say he also seems uninterested in a separate, $1 million prize he might be awarded for his feat. It had proved a theorem about the nature of multidimensional space that has stumped people for 100 years.
The Fields Medal was announced at the International Congress of Mathematicians, an event held every four years, this time in Madrid.
Three other mathematicians -- another Russian, a Frenchman and an Australian -- also won Fields honors this year. 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," said John Ball, president of the International Mathematical Union, which is holding the convention.
Perelman's work is still under review, but no one has found any serious flaw in it, the union said in a statement.
Ball later told The Associated Press he did not interpret Perelman's decision to shun the medal as an insult to the world's top math brains. "I am sure he did not mean it that way," he said.
"He has his reasons," Ball added, without saying what they might be.
The riddle Perelman tackled is called the Poincare Conjecture, which essentially says that in three dimensions, a doughnut shape cannot be transformed into a sphere without ripping it, although any shape without a hole can be stretched or shrunk into a sphere.
The prize money will be decided in about two years by a private foundation, the Clay Mathematics Institute, after other academics have analyzed Perelman's work.
If his proof stands, Perelman will win all or part of the $1 million prize money. In 2000, the institute announced bounties for seven unresolved, historic math problems, including the Poincare.
Two weeks ago, academics began analyzing Perelman's work, which draws heavily from a technique developed by another mathematician, Richard Hamilton of Columbia University. The institute says it could conceivably share the money.
MADRID, Spain (AP) -- A reclusive Russian won an academic prize Tuesday for work toward solving one of history's toughest math problems, but he refused to accept the award -- a stunning renunciation of accolades from his field's top minds.
Grigory Perelman, a 40-year-old native of St. Petersburg, was praised for work in the field known as topology, which studies shapes, and for a breakthrough that might help scientists figure out nothing less than the shape of the universe.
But besides shunning the medal, academic colleagues say he also seems uninterested in a separate, $1 million prize he might be awarded for his feat. It had proved a theorem about the nature of multidimensional space that has stumped people for 100 years.
The Fields Medal was announced at the International Congress of Mathematicians, an event held every four years, this time in Madrid.
Three other mathematicians -- another Russian, a Frenchman and an Australian -- also won Fields honors this year. 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," said John Ball, president of the International Mathematical Union, which is holding the convention.
Perelman's work is still under review, but no one has found any serious flaw in it, the union said in a statement.
Ball later told The Associated Press he did not interpret Perelman's decision to shun the medal as an insult to the world's top math brains. "I am sure he did not mean it that way," he said.
"He has his reasons," Ball added, without saying what they might be.
The riddle Perelman tackled is called the Poincare Conjecture, which essentially says that in three dimensions, a doughnut shape cannot be transformed into a sphere without ripping it, although any shape without a hole can be stretched or shrunk into a sphere.
The prize money will be decided in about two years by a private foundation, the Clay Mathematics Institute, after other academics have analyzed Perelman's work.
If his proof stands, Perelman will win all or part of the $1 million prize money. In 2000, the institute announced bounties for seven unresolved, historic math problems, including the Poincare.
Two weeks ago, academics began analyzing Perelman's work, which draws heavily from a technique developed by another mathematician, Richard Hamilton of Columbia University. The institute says it could conceivably share the money.
posted by Basil Epicurus at 3:12 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home