Chinese Nationalists Steal Credit for Perelman's Proof of Poincare's Conjecture

[DanS]

There is a fascinating story in the New Yorker about why Perelman, the Russian mathematician who proved Poincare's conjecture, turned down the recently-awarded Fields Medal. Perelman is the first mathematician to refuse the award.

It turns out that he got disgusted with the politics of two groups of Chinese mathematicians who are fighting over who gets credit for the proof. One group of Chinese mathematicians, led by the mathematician Yau, is claiming much credit for the proof. The other group more fully described Perelman's proof, and seems to give more credit to Perelman. Meanwhile, Hamilton, the American mathematician on whom Perelman's work is based and who will be apportioned a great deal of credit in any event, appears to be above the fray and more interested in wine and women.

There are a number of quirks to this story that make it lots of fun to read. At heart, the squabble seems more about who is to lead Chinese mathematics (as if it needs only one leader) than anything else. Most of these top-flight Chinese mathematicians study and work in the US. Yau grew up in Hong Kong, has worked much of his life in the US, and has been on the mainland rarely. Nonetheless, he was all chummy with Zemin and fashions himself something of a grand burnisher of Chinese academic prestige. All of this irony makes me chuckle.

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060828fa_fact2

[Dinner]

I thought this thread was about the KMT.

[Combat Ingrid]

The Fields Medal held no interest for him, Perelman explained. “It was completely irrelevant for me,” he said. “Everybody understood that if the proof is correct then no other recognition is needed.”

As for Yau et al., it's a shame to see that also math is infested by competitive jerks

[Tingkai]

Yau is an American so I doubt he belongs to the KMT.

[DanS]

If that is so, then why does he try so hard to be the head of Chinese mathematics?

(I note that his nationality is debatable. Some news article that I read described most of the Fields Medal winners as Americans and others described few of them as Americans. I guess that the Nobel Prize has similar questions, except that it has fallen into more of a pattern.)

[DanS]

Though Yau had not spent more than a few months at a time on mainland China since he was an infant, he was convinced that his status as the only Chinese Fields Medal winner should make him Chern’s successor. In a speech he gave at Zhejiang University, in Hangzhou, during the summer of 2004, Yau reminded his listeners of his Chinese roots. “When I stepped out from the airplane, I touched the soil of Beijing and felt great joy to be in my mother country,” he said. “I am proud to say that when I was awarded the Fields Medal in mathematics, I held no passport of any country and should certainly be considered Chinese.”

[civman2000]

This article is actually fairly controversial. Several mathematicians quoted in it have written angry responses saying they were misquoted or quoted completely out of context and have apologized to Yau. See http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blo...25121696282523 for more details. Here's a particular example:

State University of New York at Stony Brook professor Michael Anderson's email to Yao:

Dear Yau,
I am furious, and completely shocked, at what Sylvia Nasar wrote. Her quote of me is completely wrong and baseless. There are other factual mistakes in the article, in addition to those you pointed out. I have left her phone and email messages this evening and hope to speak to her tomorrow at the latest to clear this up. I want her to remove this statement completely from the article. It serves no purpose and contains no factual information; I view it as stupid gossip unworthy of a paper like the New Yorker. At the moment, the print version has not appeared and so it might be possible to fix this still. I spent several hours with S. Nasar on the phone talking about Perelman, Poincare, etc but it seems I was too naive (and I'm now disgusted) in believing this journalist would report factually. I regret very much this quote falsely attributed to me and will do whatever I can to have it removed. I will keep you informed as I know more.

Yours, Michael

*************************************

Michael Anderson's further announcement:

Many of you have probably seen the New Yorker article by Sylvia Nasar and David Gruber on Perelman and the Poincare conjecture. In many respects, its very interesting and a pleasure to read. However, it contains a number of inaccuracies and downright errors. I spent several hours talking with Sylvia Nasar trying to dissuade her from incorporating the Tian-Yau fights into the article, since it was completely irrelevant and I didn't see the point of dragging readers through the mud. Obviously I was not successful. The quote attributed to me on Yau is completely inaccurate and distorted from some remarks I made to her in a quite different context; I made it
explicit to her that the remarks I was making in that context were purely speculative and had no basis in fact. I did not give her my permission to quote me on this, even with the qualification of speculation. There are other inaccuracies about Stony Brook. One for instance is the
implication that Tian at MIT was the first to invite Perelman to the US to give talks. This is of course false - we at Stony Brook were the first to do so. I stressed in my talks with her the role Stony Brook played, yet she focusses on the （single） talk Grisha gave at Princeton, listing a collection of eminent mathematicians, none of whom is a geometer/topologist. I was not given an opportunity to set the record straight with the New Yorker before publication; this was partly because I was travelling in Europe at the time this happened, and there was a rush to publish; the publication date is the same as the announcement date of the Fields Medals I think. I was not sent an advance copy of the article for checking. I spoke with Sylvia on the phone this morning, to no avail. I've also had some email correspondence with Yau on the matter over the last day. I apologized to him and expressed my anger and frustration about what was done, confirming to him the quote attributed to me is false and baseless. The email to Yau is now already posted on a Chinese blog site!）. I've learned my lesson on dealing with the media the hard and sour way and am still considering what path to pursue to try to rectify the situation, to the extent still possible.

Sincerely,
Mike

[DanS]

Michael Anderson's response is very interesting and unguarded. Basically, he confirms much of the story. But he's wrong in saying that the Tian-Yau fight is irrelevant. It might be irrelevant to the mathematics, but it appears to be wholly relevant to the question of why Perelman turned down the Fields Medal and sheds some light on what drives some of these Chinese (American?) expats.

[VetLegion]

Thanks, interesting article. I generally like reading about history of science (and biogaphies of scientists), so unlike Combat Ingrid I am not the least surprised about there being squabbles and fighting over who gets credit for what. There's been tons of that in the past, most famous probably being the dispute over who was the first to discover calculus, Newton or Leibnitz.

Perelman's refusal to accept the Fields prize seems like childish spiting to me. Everyone I've ever known wants to be recognized, but this guy wants to be begged to accept a recognition?

Give it to Yau's guys instead I say

[civman2000]

Originally posted by DanS
Michael Anderson's response is very interesting and unguarded. Basically, he confirms much of the story. But he's wrong in saying that the Tian-Yau fight is irrelevant. It might be irrelevant to the mathematics, but it appears to be wholly relevant to the question of why Perelman turned down the Fields Medal and sheds some light on what drives some of these Chinese (American?) expats.

I think Anderson's point is that the scale and importance of the Tian-Yau fight is vastly exaggerated in the article for sensationalistic purposes (which, according to everything I've heard, is true). From what I've heard, most mathematicians are annoyed with Yau's machinations, but think it's a minor issue that pales in comparison with the great mathematics that he has produced.

Thanks, interesting article. I generally like reading about history of science (and biogaphies of scientists), so unlike Combat Ingrid I am not the least surprised about there being squabbles and fighting over who gets credit for what. There's been tons of that in the past, most famous probably being the dispute over who was the first to discover calculus, Newton or Leibnitz.

It's worth noting, however, that in general there tends to be considerably less squabbling in math than in other fields. That's part of why this story is interesting.

[DanS]

Originally posted by VetLegion
...so unlike Combat Ingrid I am not the least surprised about there being squabbles and fighting over who gets credit for what...

I read Combat Ingrid's response as that he isn't surprised. Rather, he is well aware of the petty politics in science because that's his line of work. Rather, he is lamenting the fact that these petty politics also exists in math.

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by DanS In a speech he gave at Zhejiang University, in Hangzhou, during the summer of 2004, Yau reminded his listeners of his Chinese roots. “When I stepped out from the airplane, I touched the soil of Beijing and felt great joy to be in my mother country,” he said. “I am proud to say that when I was awarded the Fields Medal in mathematics, I held no passport of any country and should certainly be considered Chinese.”

Yau is an American. The proof of this is that he was awarded the National Medal of Science which can only be given to American citizens.

When he won the Fields Medal, back in the 80s, he was a citizen of Hong Kong. The Brits refused to give Hong Kong people British citizenship, hence his comment about not having a national passport, and that at that time, in the 1980s, he should be considered Chinese rather than British.

As for why he wants to be considered the pre-eminient Chinese mathematician, it's all about ego. And these types of egos and these squabbles are a dime a dozen in universities and community filled with the best of a field.

This has nothing to do with race or nationality. I suspect that if you knew Yau was an American before you started this thread, you would not have done so.

[Combat Ingrid]

Originally posted by VetLegion
unlike Combat Ingrid I am not the least surprised about there being squabbles and fighting over who gets credit for what.

No, I'm not very surprised either. As DanS suggested, I just find it sad that even fields like math have this kind of crap going on. As for biosciences (which is my field), it's getting less scientific every year (and increasingly political and commercial). It would have been very nice if there were still some fields around where people acted like scientists

[PuddlewatchHQ]

So has anyone here read the proof itself?

Has it been verified yet that it is valid and how useful might this work be?

And I am getting tired of Chinese Americans who identify more strongly with the regime in China then the country in which they have lived the majority of their lives.

Edited because the "T" key is really hard to find.

[DanS]

This has nothing to do with race or nationality. I suspect that if you knew Yau was an American before you started this thread, you would not have done so.

On the contrary, this is the heart of the discussion and I would have done the thread no matter. For my part, I would wish to claim Yau as American, because even if he is an egotistical bastard, nobody questions that he is an eminent mathematician (which should count for something, after all). But if Yau doesn't view himself as American, then what am I to say? Why does he care overmuch about what the Chinese think, if he is an American? This isn't Canada, after all.