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

[PuddlewatchHQ]

The money changes people. Even many professors and researchers. The ability to generate vast amounts of capital with Initial Public Offerings and the like means that scientists can fund their programs with much more ease and assurance then the more traditional grant process. The issues associated with cuts in funding for basic research by Big Government and the overall lack of interest in hard science on the part of many college students or college bound students today means that there are fewer and fewer alumni to turn to to help with these funding issues.

And their is no having to go through the peer review process to get the money to fund research if an IPO takes off. There is no shortage of investors willing to jump on the IPO bandwagon for the next promising biotech startup. Which is one of the reasons many of your fellow scientists may be acting more like sports "professionals" and less like academic professionals. I would suggest the presence of so many more business people at universities and college campuses working on "business/technology investment" and "public/private" partnership ventures or whatever name they are given is another reason many universities feel less like places of learning and more like just another business office.

[DanS]

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.

I am more perplexed by this phenomenon than tired of it. I don't have a strong sense about how widespread it is. I'm more understanding of some mixed feelings from 1st generation immigrants, but wonder whether it drifts to the 2nd generation and so on. Pretty suspicious of "citizens of the world", etc.

[civman2000]

Re: So has anyone here read the proof itself?

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

I highly doubt anyone here has the background to understand the proof, but by now it's almost universally accepted as valid. I'm not sure what you mean by "useful"--it's a proof of one of the biggest open problems in mathematics, what more do you want?

I know someone who was at the ICM (the conference where the Fields Medals were awarded), and he says that at least there, there was virtually no doubt that Perelman deserved full credit for the proof.

[Tingkai]

Re: So has anyone here read the proof itself?

Originally posted by PuddlewatchHQ
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.

Uh huh, and do you ***** about the Jewish Americans who care deeply about the Israel, or the Palestinian Americans who want a Palestinian state? Do you ***** about Americans whose families immigrated from Ireland hundreds of years ago, but still think of Ireland as the old homeland?

If you hate all of these people then you must be filled with hate.

[Combat Ingrid]

Where did he specify that he 'hates' those people?

[DanS]

A good friend of mine had an EU passport due to Irish ancestry, even though she had set foot in Ireland maybe once in her life. I didn't like the fact that she had it. I had a co-worker from Kuwait who once made the joke that "it's just a piece of paper" with regard to her U.S. citizenship that she acquired. I guess I wasn't in the mood for that type of joke.

Point being, it extends to all of the groups that you mention, although there is more comfort with some groups versus others.

[Tingkai]

Forget it.

[DanS]

I went into this discussion accounting for my own biases. I'm no fool in that regard.

But my biases are based on ideals rather than some dewey-eyed notions of race or ethnicity.

[pchang]

Get on the winning side

Originally posted by DanS


I am more perplexed by this phenomenon than tired of it. I don't have a strong sense about how widespread it is. I'm more understanding of some mixed feelings from 1st generation immigrants, but wonder whether it drifts to the 2nd generation and so on. Pretty suspicious of "citizens of the world", etc.

We figure the Chinese will take over the world. If we pay them some lip service now, we might be able to avoid the re-education camps when the time comes. In the meantime, there's really no downside.

[VetLegion]

Not only Yau: is Perelman a Jewish mathematician, a Russian one or an American one?

It's funny but it's true how countries always want to "posess" famous scientists, and how since scientists are usually by the nature of their work prone to traveling and living in a couple of places during their lifetime, often more than one makes a claim.

We have it here also, with Tesla being Croatian born, ethnically Serbian, but worked in USA and can easily be thought of as an American scientist.

[DanS]

If we pay them some lip service now, we might be able to avoid the re-education camps when the time comes.

Planning ahead.

[PuddlewatchHQ]

I haven't seen the proof and my math training is a distant memory.

I'll just google the proof but I know i'll only vaguely understand it if left to my own mathematics education. I was hoping someone here would explain it as I know some of you have had much more study in mathematics.

By useful I just meant is this going to be something to watch for highly interesting applications such as mapping software or navigation systems or some such. The article I read ( maybe from CNN? I can't remember) mentioned the conjecture had to do with determining the shape of an object in a three dimensional space or some such. The article had stated the proof would provide solutions to the possible shape of the universe or some wording to that effect. It was all very vague and of course I don't expect a mainstream media outlet like CNN to publish the whole proof or even the conjecture but I expect them to show at least a few equations to wet one's appetite for further reading in the topic. I was expecting too much or perhaps the science desk wasn't the department that ran the story. And by department I mean the handful of new reporters who get stuck with the science assignments. Minus the very view journalists at mainstream news companies who have science backgrounds or who may be consultants. Or did this story break over the weekend in the US? If it did break on Friday or Saturday then likely the there will be more coverage of it in the mainstream press tonight or well at some point this week.


I haven't seen any word yet from an astrophysicist yet on what this proof might mean for their work. I think that's the part the annoys me the most. I have to confess I am a bit impatient to hear what they have to say.

[DanS]

Vet: Yes, that's an important aspect of this. It should be stressed that the US is one of the few countries not based on ethnicity or race. Rather, it is based mostly on British enlightenment ideals whose borders have been secured by a war here and there. Harder to get your arms around it and harder to make an objective claim other than declared citizenship. It isn't very easy to swallow the fact that Yau is kowtowing to the commiebastards in Beijing, if he is basing himself in the U.S.

But it also illuminates why scientists have always been welcomed here and have found ample opportunity. It is important to the US to create this type of atmosphere. In the end, it doesn't seem that this motivates Perelman, so the U.S. has no claim on him, even though he worked several years here.

[VetLegion]

USA is probably the closest thing the world ever had to true meritocracy, for that I admire it

[PuddlewatchHQ]

I do not hate any of the Chinese scientists working on this proof.

I do not make a point of hating any Chinese individual.

I had just assumed that Yau was somehow lauding the Chinese Government for it's scientific achievements. At least that's what I understood the reporter to be saying in the article. Of course I shouldn't have assumed any such thing given the state of politics and the media in the United States.

Being a first generation American citizen of course he has strong attachments to the country of his birth, as all or at least must of us would in his place.

I apologize for thinking anything untoward about Mr. Yau. Obviously patriotism should not be the primary concern in a debate on the Poincare Conjecture.

Apologies also to the those of Chinese heritage who read these boards. I know it can't be easy for many of you especially if you are US citizens who travel to China. I was just voicing my own frustration at something I've seen the past decade in the US. I did not mean to call into question the character of Chinese Americans.

Edited for grammar, spelling and the fact that Poincare has only one "E".