Sylvia Nasar and David Gruber got the only media interview of Perelman, by dint of actually going to Saint Petersburg and asking him for one. But the real subject of their article in the latest issue of the New Yorker, Manifold Destiny, A legendary problem and the battle over who solved it, is Shing-Tung Yau, who (if the article is to be believed) has systematically downplayed the significance of Perelman’s contribution. Reading the article, it’s hard to figure out what Yau’s motivation would be: possibilities seem to be his friendship with Richard Hamilton, a desire to emphasize his own contribution or that of his proteges. The article also reports on a feud that Yau had with Gang Tian in Chinese newspapers.
I don’t have any first-hand knowledge of any of this (I had seen some rumors here and there on the internet, but I’ve seen rumors that Iran would nuke the United States as of yesterday, which demonstrates the incredible reliability of internet rumors), but if the article is right, then I do see one motivation for Yau that I would even find admirable (though probably wrong-headed): to fight the growing tendency of considering an theorem proven if experts can fill in the details. “Experts” can mean fewer people than can fill a jury. In theory, you could just become an expert, but in any sufficiently technical field there will be results that “everyone knows” but won’t be published anywhere, so unless you are part of “everyone”, it will be difficult for you to fill in the gaps without a great deal of rediscovery. (I don’t know if that is the case with Perelman’s proof.)
Perelman comes across better in the article than I had expected, though his motivation for turning down the Fields seems to be less because of otherworldliness, and more because he feels hard done by the mathematics establishment. Amazingly, he really does live with his mother, and is currently unemployed (though retired might be a better way to describe it). He claims to have quit mathematics, but without an actual substitute, it’s easier to quit smoking.
(The article quotes a post by an unidentified Brazilian blogger. On a whim, I tracked the quote down in Google to this post by Victor Rivelles.
Link to New Yorker article via an anonymous commenter to Scott Aaronson’s blog.
[...] Update: В “Нью-Йоркере” появилась интересная статья ситуации вокруг доказательства гипотезы Пуанкаре, прежде всего в “человеческом” аспекте (найдена по ссылке из блога Ars Mathematica). Помимо прочего, авторы статьи объясняют, почему Яу в своей лекции так сдержанно говорит о вкладе Перельмана. Это, по-видимому, единственная публикация, основанная на реальном интервью с Перельманом (журналисты “Нью-Йоркера” ездили в Питер, чтобы встретиться с ним). Опубликовано 22/08/2006 [...]
“He claims to have quit mathematics, but without an actual substitute, it’s easier to quit smoking.”
I’m enchanted by the image of Perelman, living again at home and having to sneak outside his mother’s house late at night in the cold, in order to secretly complete another proof!
[...] Quoting Walt from Ars Mathematica. [...]
[...] There has been intensive discussion of Nasar and Gruber’s Manifold Destiny at Not Even Wrong, in these threads: Latest on Poincare, 2006 Fields Medal Winners, and Some Links. The controversy centers around whether Nasar and Gruber are unfair to Yau, but has taken an interesting turn: some of the commenters accuse the article of perpetuating stereotypes of Chinese mathematicians. The existence of a stereotype of Chinese mathematicians is news to me (ironically given the situation, there is a well-developed stereotype of Russian mathematicians that I have heard people invoke), so I’m curious if anyone else has ever heard any such stereotyping. [...]
[...] Did anyone else recieve a press release from Shing-Tung Yau’s lawyer? With no explanation, I was sent this press release from Howard Cooper, Yau’s lawyer, denying the version of events described in Nasar and Gruber’s New Yorker article, Manifold Destiny. There’s nothing in the e-mail, other than press release, so as far as I know they either a) sent it to me because I linked to the New Yorker article, b) sent it to everyone with an e-mail address on this site, or c) everyone in the world. (In fact, I almost deleted the mail as spam without reading it.) [...]
I find it interesting that after all this time, Yau threatened, but never took any legal action. Looks like his lawyers and PR firms were a ploy to distract from the plagiarism in the Cao/Zhu paper.
[...] *Thanks to Ars Mathematica for the link to this article [...]
Yes, Yau’s behavior has been certainly most embarrassing to us here at Harvard. But, I am very glad the truth prevailed and Yau was not successful at smearing the author of a Beautiful Mind. I hear Manifold Destiny has been chosen by NTY’s Gina Kolata for The Best American Science Writing 2007. An honor well deserved!