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Mathematician Claims New Yorker Defamed Him

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the smile-when-you-say-that dept.

An anonymous reader writes, "Last month the New Yorker ran the article 'Manifold Destiny' (slashdotted here), by Sylvia Nasar, author of 'A Beautiful Mind.' Now a renowned Harvard mathematics professor, Dr. Shing-Tung Yau, is claiming the article defamed him. His attorney wrote the New Yorker a letter (PDF) threatening that Yau will have 'no choice but to consider other options' if Nasar, her co-author, and the New Yorker fail to undo the damage done."

14 of 212 comments (clear)

  1. undo the damage done by gEvil+(beta) · · Score: 3, Funny

    I thought it was the mathematics and physics guys who'd be bringing us the time machine, not the New Yorker...

    --
    This guy's the limit!
  2. It could be worse... by InterruptDescriptorT · · Score: 4, Funny

    At least the New Yorker didn't denormal him...

    --
    Karma: Excellent Birds (mostly as a result of listening to Laurie Anderson)
  3. Cool by Anon-Admin · · Score: 5, Funny

    This looks like a well calculated attack and response by a few mathematicians with a lawyer thrown in to check the work.

    Ill give 2:1 odds that the lawyer has checked the proofs and found that the math is wrong because no one else added in the cash coefficient. He will keep the cash for him self and may give a small percentage of the proceeds to the mathematician if the mathematician can figure it out.

    1. Re:Cool by joe270 · · Score: 2, Funny

      Maybe President Bush can double check...he apparently saved taxpayers millions by catching an error in some calculations over at Fermi labs.

      --
      "Scientists discover the world that exists; engineers create the world that never was." --Theodore von Karman
  4. I need 10ccs of Dammitol, stat! by spun · · Score: 4, Funny

    Nah, Tom, you just need better drugs, then all this will become completely fascinating. I've found that old coots like us need a high dose of dammitol and gedawfmaielauntin just to get through boring crap like this.

    --
    - None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
  5. Sounds like paranoia by ishmalius · · Score: 4, Funny
    Parts i, ii, and iii are saying, basically:
    1. Everything you say is all lies
    2. All of the events you quote were staged for the purpose of generating all lies
    3. Everything everyone else says is all lies, or, if it is true, is taken out of context in such a way as to become all lies
    While I, of course, speak only the truth.
    1. Re:Sounds like paranoia by kfg · · Score: 2, Funny

      In other words, he's accusing her of being . . .a journalist!

      KFG

  6. Re:sue! by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Well, mathematically, the probability of winning or getting a large cash settlement must be high. Unless this guy flunked gambling theory. Either way, the lawyer will walk away richer anyway.

  7. Yau is a big jerk! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    In other news, Dr. Yau is suing Slashdot and OSTG for damage done to his reputation by an Anonymous Coward who reportedly stated, "Yau is a big jerk!" in a recent posting.

  8. Just shrug it off by SigmoidCurve · · Score: 4, Funny

    New Yorkers defame me all the time. You just have to build a thick skin to live here, that's all.

    --
    Dictionaries are for loosers.
  9. Say it ain't so. by WED+Fan · · Score: 3, Funny

    A professor rides the back of his students' work and findings?! Say it ain't so.

    Nope, never been there. Never ever had a prof do that...o.k., maybe...I'm not bitter.

    --
    Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
  10. Haiki version by mac-diddy · · Score: 2, Funny

    For those who don't want to read the entire article, try the much shortened haiku version. It's the fourth haiku down.

  11. Re:Hey! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Suing journalists is high-profile and attracts attention. The effect of these Chinese politics on journal publishing in differential geometry in the US, particularly for young mathematicians forced to tread on egg-shells and play off one ego against another, happens behind the scenes but is far more damaging for our subject in the long-run.

    Fitting "insightful" mod. Really, is the mercurial pop-culture glory that A Beautiful Mind brings to math worth the price?

  12. here's why yau et al are not great mathemeticians by Jazwiecki · · Score: 2, Funny
    funniest part of the original NYer article:
    By early June, Yau had begun to promote the proof publicly. On June 3rd, at his mathematics institute in Beijing, he held a press conference. The acting director of the mathematics institute, attempting to explain the relative contributions of the different mathematicians who had worked on the Poincaré, said, "Hamilton contributed over fifty per cent; the Russian, Perelman, about twenty-five per cent; and the Chinese, Yau, Zhu, and Cao et al., about thirty per cent." (Evidently, simple addition can sometimes trip up even a mathematician.) Yau added, "Given the significance of the Poincaré, that Chinese mathematicians played a thirty-per-cent role is by no means easy. It is a very important contribution."