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2006 Fields Medalists Announced
otisaardvark writes "The 2006 Fields medals, awarded every four years and described as the Nobel Prize for Mathematics, have been awarded at the International Congress of Mathematicians. The winners are Grigory Perelman (famous for the ideas underlying the proof of the Poincare and Thurston geometrization conjectures) — who declined the prize, Terence Tao (a child prodigy famous for proving there are arbitrarily long arithmetic progressions of primes, but who works mainly in nonlinear partial differential equations and harmonic analysis), Wendelin Werner (a probabilist working on links with 2D conformal field theories), and Andrei Okounkov (who works on the interface between algebraic geometry and physics)." Yours Truly wrote to mention that Grigory Perelman actually refused his Fields Medalist, on the grounds that he 'doesn't want to be seen as a figurehead'.
Am I the only one who read Zonk's tagline and saw "I like meth"?
Fixed link for Terence Tao
Something doesn't add up here.
I think Perelman declined the medal because his solution was so obvious. I mean, who among us hasn't proven those theorems while eating a donut and idly scribbling on our napkins?
As for declining the million bucks though, well, maybe "genius" is too strong a word for this guy. I think a much wiser course of action for him to take would be to accept that prize and donate the money to a worthy charity such as, for example, me.
When did Professor Frink get his medal? You know, for yelling out loud in a convention that Pi is exactly 3. Such profound minds should be properly appreciated and congratulated.
It'd look like a publicity stunt if it were anyone other than our very own resident hermit Perelman...he's one of the very few truly quiet geniuses in the world.
TFA also says he's not too interested in the $1 million for the Poincare business...now that is insane. Sure, fame is a bit overrated, but money? At least he could buy himself a really, really nice hermit shack in the mountains.
The heavens do not fall for such a trifle.
Alan Smithee. That guy makes good films!
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
I hereby call dibs on Grigory Perelman's medal.
Go ahead, check the comment history. I am the first, therefore (omiting some trivial intermediate steps)... the medal is mine.
See you at the top, non-figureheads!
By refusing the award, Grigory Perelman is actually turning himself into an even more notable figure than if he'd just accept it quietly. This way he becomes a quirky genius mathematician that fits right into a common stereotype. Everyone loves to call attention to those who fit their stereotypes.
Hexy - a strategy game for iPhone/iPod Touch
International Congress of Mathematicians... I bet that conference is a BABE-fest!!!
how about you shut up, and let the man do what he wants to do.
... if it meant wearing scarves with your tweed jacket every frickin' day of the year, like that insufferable professor in "Good Will Hunting." He won the Fields, too.
--- I stand corrected ---
I don't think he's trying to show humility. To me, it seems like he's just so interested in math that he wants to move on to the next challenge. Awards are just a distraction.
It's scary being a Flash and Flex developer on Slashdot. You guys are unnaturally rabid.
I know they say our generation is growing up much slower than previous generations, but calling a 31 year-old a child might be a bit excessive:P
(%i1) factor(777353);
(%o1) 777353
You don't know very many mathematically-inclined people, do you? One trait that many of the true geniuses share is that they care little for material possessions. That includes money, and medals or awards. What matters to them is their work.
Such an idea may conflict horribly with your American money-is-everything attitude. But, yes, there are people out there who do care more about things other than money and fame.
Elaine: Would you like something to read?
Lady: Do you have anything light?
Elaine: How about this leaflet, "Famous Jewish Sports Legends?"
Anyway, it is nice to see another BIG problem solved. Also, it maybe good to start to ask the best in the field to submit some high quality problems while solve others. :-)
^(oo)^pig~
Way to make me feel dumb.
ICM gold before age 13, SAT math score of 760 at age 8, seriously, what the hell.
I wonder if he ever appeared for the Putname exams.
... having demonstrated that winning the Fields medal is possible, Perelman thereafter felt no need to bother actually receiving it, as the effort would have been redundant and pointless. Instead, he immediately set about theorizing a higher-order space in which Fields medals exist in multiple dimensions. He is even now working on an analysis of the connectedness of prize sets in the topology of the n-medal space.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Ze Frank says it best.
"Known as the Nobel Prize of Mathematics, the prestigious Fields Medal was awarded to four people under the age of forty that you wouldn't want to get trapped on an elevator with...."
He then goes on to disprove some of Grigory Perelman's more famous conjectures using a donut.
... to refuse a major math prize. Alexander Grothendieck also won the Fields medal but turned down the Crafoord price, a similar but less prestigious award for mathematical achievement.
John Paul Sartre also turned down a Nobel Prize because he did not want himself associated with institutions or prizes.
I wonder if in the future an individual will turn down one of these major prizes on the grounds that the bulk of his/her knowledge was discovered, developed, and perpetuated by the work of people in society as a whole.
I can see this argument being made in Mathematics, where any serious and insightful contribution is necessarily based on dozens, if not hundreds, of years of complex and insightful mathematical discoveries. During my mathematical education I truly felt like I was a history class and only the insane math olympiad types ever managed to catch up with the present. (This is true except for fluid dynamics and combinatorics -- those fields are still wide open because fluid dynamics is extraordinarily hard and combinatorics is fairly new as a serious mathematical discipline.)
I personally still think that some people deserve special recognition for advancing the whole field as a whole -- I believe the hypothetical argument above is not very compelling.
Perelman, Wiles, and most other serious mathematicians like to be left alone. I'm not sure that Perelman will like it if NPR is calling him for comment about the latest mathematical discovery. I think his argument against becoming a figurehead is fairly sound; it is good that the Clay institute and the Fields people are not taking his refusals as a sign of disrespect.
Moreover, the Clay Institute intends to use the $1m dollars to promote Mathematics education in Russia. I think all parties are winners here.
Mathematics is abstract truth. Who gives a shit what the mathematical community thinks? He made the discovery and is under no obligations to interact with them should he accept the prize.
+++ATH0
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Mel Gibson will not be happy with your comments.
...babes I ever dated was a math Phd and worked at JPL when she wasn't being a Uni professor. Curvy redhead. *Quite* the imagination and energy level. Quite.
...one of the russian geeks should go over to this dudes house and tell his MOM about the million bucks. He isn't working and she gets 30 clams a month pension?? and that's it? In russia? What's just the heat bill there? Maybe he doesn't want the money but I bet his Mom does! Or at least split it with the institute there.
Well,snark out a grand,too,hire a hooker and just give her the address and send her over, this guy sounds like he might need to loosen up a bit.
It's a pseudonym used by directors who want to be disassociated with a film for which they no longer want credit. The only reason I know this is that my wife is a film geek. Here's the wikipedia article for more info. Fascinating, really. To use the name, you basically have to prove to the DGA that the film has been taken over by someone else and you no longer have creative control.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Seriously, how often do you meet an average person who's even heard of a Field's medal (say vs the people who've heard of the Nobel)? But now that this story is all over the place, the words Field's medal will enter common vernacular again. BTW, if you read carefully, it sounds like Andrei Okounkov's work is the most interesting of all the nominees. He tied together "Probability"
(<intended pun>probably</intended pun> meaning measure theory), representation theory and algebraic geometry. This is about as cool as cool can get in math.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Last I Heard he'd gone bush somewhere in Russia. Let's face it this guy is just not interested in Awards/Prizes, he just wants to play with his math and be left alone.
Fair enough I say.
God was my co-pilot, but then we crashed and I was forced to eat him.
Wow I knew this guy was smart when I had him for undergrad analysis at UCLA... but a fields medal!!!1 wooohoo i got an A from someone who won a fields medal
Give the money to his mom - the dude hangs out at her basement all the time and she hasn't even kicked him out. My mom don't even let me visit her.
Send Billy Clinton to hand over the check to the long-suffering mom: "Mam, I feel you pain..."
Every thing about Grigori perelman is so fascinating. He is called the most cleverest living on earth today. Yet, he has zero bank balance and lives his mother. Not interested in money or fame. Collects mushrooms for hobby. Is he human ?. I sincerely wish he has lots of sex with lots of beautiful, young Russian women and have lots of children to pass on his good genes. This world needs lot of Grigori perelmans ......
I'm in the same boat. Say I quit my job, sell off all the junk and buy a few acres near Tupper Lake. Then I build my small, energy efficient off grid hermit shack and live off the land. But how the heck do I pay my property taxes for the next 30-40 years. Surely there is a way to live completely independently of anyone and everything. Well, except for my wife, but she's the one putting these crazy ideas in my head anyways. 'Course that makes it more love shack than hermit shack.....
Perelman was more than happy to accept the Fields Medal, he only objected to the configuration of the medal itself. "A disk shaped medal is not to my liking..." Perelman was heard to say, "...I prefer a spherical one. I've explained to the committee that the two are topologically equivalent, but they refuse to listen to reason. It's barbaric! Tell them to call me when they can do something in three dimensions" he said in disgust.
Soylent Green is peoplicious!
Experiment I: He placed an empty bucket in the first corner of a room, opposite to the second corner which had a tap. Then in a third corner he had some combustible material. His instructions to them were: "I will start a fire in the third corner by burning the stuff. Your task is to put it out." Well, both the physicist and the mathematician did the obvious thing when their turn came -- they took the bucket from the first corner, went to the second where the tap was, filled it with water and then rushed to the third corner and poured it onto the fire.
Experiment II: He then said to them: "For the next experiment, I will vary the initial conditions of the first experiment and you solve the same problem." He then placed the bucket, but now already filled with water, in the first corner -- nothing else changed. He then started the fire as before. The physicist solved the problem by taking the bucket directly to the fire and put it out with the water.
When the experiment was repeated for the mathematician, he picked up the bucket of water and emptied it on the spot, and put it down. He then announced, "I'm done", despite the now raging fire in the third corner.
When the psychologist asked him to explain, the mathematician said "Well, as you can see, I have just reduced the second problem to the first, for which I had shown there is a trivial solution.
In wartime... truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies. (Churchill)
...he'd shown that the Fields Medal award system had no holes and was therefore topologically equivalent to a sphere, as per the Poincare Hypothesis that he had proved earlier. However, as he had proved that since cows are spherical, it follows that the medal must also be topologically the same as a cow, since the transform works both ways. A cow can weight 850 lbs. Clearly this is utterly impractical to carry, never mind wear as a medal. Besides which, it would obviously exceed the maximum weight for carry-on luggage.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I cannot believe that Colbert was not rewarded for his groundbreaking research into new techniques for transforming donuts into balls without tearing them. This is an absolute travesty and demonstrates with crystal clarity that the terrorists have already won.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
If anyone wants a pdf of the New Yorker article on the conflict between Yau and Perelman, send an email to
nld2thx at yahoo dot com
As of this morning, the NYer hadn't posted the article online, so it is either this or go buy the hard copy...uggggh
I am pretty sure he is now going by the name Andrei Arlovski and is fighting in the UFC. --SMD over and out
See The New Yorker for a good article on Perelman and his proof.
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http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/06