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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."

32 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. Hey! by AltGrendel · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Doesn't this prove the article's point?

    --
    The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination

    - Douglas Adams

    1. Re:Hey! by Raindance · · Score: 3, Informative

      In my mind, yes. Using these kinds of tactics is precisely what the New Yorker accused Yau of doing.

    2. Re:Hey! by littlem · · Score: 4, Informative

      It's true that the Chinese pair did contribute something highly non-trivial in filling in the details left by Perelman, so in this sense it's not unreasonable for Yau to claim a certain amount of credit for this. However, given the past history, he looks an awful lot like someone vociferously aggrieved to have been accused of robbing a bank in New York when he was actually robbing a bank in Chicago at the time.

      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.

    3. Re:Hey! by the-empty-string · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Doesn't this prove the article's point?
      Actually, no. He claims the authors distorted the facts, and he provides his own account of said facts as he sees them. How does this prove anything? What you're saying is no different from "I think this guy really raped that girl, because he acted too outraged when we accused him."

      I actually read the original article in the New Yorker at the time, and found it to be a fascinating look into the inner workings of science at the highest level. Having no direct knowledge of any of the people involved, my impresion of their roles in the story (and ultimately of their character), was shaped entirely by what the article authors have said. In particular, Dr. Yau did come across as a deeply flawed, manipulative individual obsessed by his place in history, which I thought was very sad indeed, given his apparently uncontested mathematical genius and his achievements formaly acknowledged by having been awarded his very own Fields Medal.

      However, after reading the letter, I am not so sure anymore. Don't forget that he who frames the discussion controls the outcome. Once this article has been out there, people already formed their perceptions. The deck is stacked against the defendant. Remember how Al Gore took credit for inventing the Internet? Oh, wait, he didn't.

      What if the thrust of the story is in fact false? The letter states rather convincingly that the interviews were conducted under false pretenses, that certain critical quotes were distorted or outright fabricated, and that important pieces of information that would have painted a different picture were simply left out. Yeah, he "looks" guilty in the original article, but why should we consider that version of the facts true, and discard the letter as "proving the point"? That's not how we arrive at the truth.

  4. 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.

  5. Yau by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shing-Tung_Yau and the New Yorker piece. Yau supposledy tried to take credit for Perelmans work on the Poincare conjecture, publishing a solution after Perelman published his on arxiv, calling Perelmans 'incomplete' and saying he and his students didn't understand it.

    I'm not far enough along in my math studies (will I ever be?) to understand their papers, but if it's true Yau is pretty sleazy.

    1. Re:Yau by Timesprout · · Score: 3, Insightful

      While I dont even begin to understand the math it looks a little more murky than blatantly just trying to steal Perelmans credit. No one seems to have found significant error in Perelmans work but also no one seems to understand completely how he actually arrived at his solution. Now I remember from my math class that if you could not show how you arrived at your answer it was treated as a guess and thrown out.

      I am not saying Perelman did not solve the conjecture but his approach to publishing his work in a piecemeal and incomplete manner was a poor choice and left him wide open to what has happened (note he does come across as somewhat eccentric in the article). Yau does appear to be filling in gaps though after someone else did all the grunt work for him so while he has completed the work by doing so he has proved that Perelman was in fact correct.

      --
      Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
      What truth?
      There is no dupe
    2. Re:Yau by Coryoth · · Score: 4, Informative
      I'm not far enough along in my math studies (will I ever be?) to understand their papers, but if it's true Yau is pretty sleazy.

      There's a blog called the Poincare project that is seeking to build up enough math, from the ground up, to understand the proof. So far it's only just past stating the conjecture (which still takes a lot of work if you're going to cover all the technical material required to state it properly), but it's pretty god work and understandable by most anyone.
      --
      Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
    3. Re:Yau by Andy+Dodd · · Score: 4, Informative

      "And so, modern mathematics, unwilling to give the Fields medal to the intuative but not pedatic Perelman, but unable to give it to the super garbled Morgan and Tian, instead had to give it to Yau. But since Yau hadn't actually added anything but formality to the proof, and the other team and only added more, they had to give the medal to Perelman as well. They would have preferred to have just given it to Morgan and Tian, so they're bitter now and blaming Yau for publishing so soon."

      I can't comment on the rest of your post, but you got at least one critical fact wrong:

      Perelman won the Fields medal, but refused to accept it. The article essentially claimed that all of this corruption and bickering was why Perelman refused the medal - He seemingly wants nothing more to do with the field of mathematics in its current state.

      --
      retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
    4. Re:Yau by aufumy · · Score: 5, Informative

      From this page http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/2006/08/fruitcak e-fields.html are published clarifications from Nasar's interviewees denouncing her and claiming that she falsely quoted and purposefuly miscontrued their statements.

      a Clarification from MIT mathematician Dan Stroock:

      I, like several others whom Sylvia Nasar interviewed, am shocked and angered by the article which she and Gruber wrote for the New Yorker. Having seen Yau in action during his June conference on string theory, Nasar led me to believe that she was fascinated by S-T Yau and asked me my opinion about his activities. I told her that I greatly admire Yau's efforts to support young Chinese mathematicians and to break down the ossified power structure in the Chinese academic establishment. I then told her that I sometimes have doubts about his methodology. In particular, I told her that, at least to my ears, Yau weakens his case and lays himself open to his enemies by sounding too self-promoting.

      As it appears in her article, she has purposefully distorted my statement and made it unforgivably misleading. Like the rest of us, Yau has his faults, but, unlike most of us, his virtues outweigh his faults. Unfortunately, Nasar used my statement to bolster her case that the opposite is true, and for this I cannot forgive her.

      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 what ever 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 firs t 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 Yor

    5. Re:Yau by zen-theorist · · Score: 4, Informative
      another critical mistake:
      And so, modern mathematics, unwilling to give the Fields medal to the intuative but not pedatic Perelman, but unable to give it to the super garbled Morgan and Tian, instead had to give it to Yau. But since Yau hadn't actually added anything but formality to the proof, and the other team and only added more, they had to give the medal to Perelman as well. They would have preferred to have just given it to Morgan and Tian, so they're bitter now and blaming Yau for publishing so soon.
      Yau did not receive the (2006) Fields medal for this body of work. he received the Fields medal back in 1982 for his contribution to resolving the Calabi conjecture and other related work. Calabi-Yau manifolds come up in string theory, the new hotbed of expository physics.
  6. I'm not totally surprised by igb · · Score: 4, Insightful
    When I read the original article it struck me that either they had very good sources, or they were confident he wouldn't sue, or they were happy to get embroiled in one of those venue shopping disputes. Given The New Yorker is sold in newsagents in the UK, and people here have subscriptions (I do, for example), and mathmatics is an international field, it's hard to see how a UK court would object to being the venue for a libel action such as this. And, on the face of it, the guy wouldn't have problems showing the words were capable of admitting a defamatory reading, which is the basic test, or that it would lower him in the eyes of a reader, which is another. They'd have to plead justification, and that's hard.

    Hell hath no fury like an academic with his reputation scorned.

    ian

    1. Re:I'm not totally surprised by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Hell hath no fury like an academic with his reputation scorned.
      Probably because academics seldom have more than a reputation. It's their legacy and what they leave in the world, they don't accumulate toys to show status at the end but instead rest in peace knowing their papers added to mankind's knowledge.
    2. Re:I'm not totally surprised by gatzke · · Score: 5, Interesting


      Reminds me of

      "The competition is so fierce because the stakes are so low."

  7. 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
  8. Nash unhappy with Sylvia too by peter303 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    He complained she wrote too much about his sex life, with some of it exaggerated. If you believe Sylvia's book he had lots of girlfriends and few boyfriends too.

    Whats Nash up to these days?

  9. Defamation by jefu · · Score: 4, Informative

    While the New Yorker article was not particularly favorable to Dr. Yau, it didn't seem to me that it could be called defamation. Indeed, to the extent that it says negative things about him, they seem to be coming from his peers in mathematics - and not from the writer of the article. Is that a sufficient defense against a legal claim of defamation? I guess that is for the courts to decide.

    More importantly, by suing for defamation, Dr. Yau appears to be manifesting exactly the kind of behavior that he was described as having in the article. One mathematician is quoted as saying "Yau wants to be the king of geometry. He believes that everything should issue from him, that he should have oversight. He doesn't like people encroaching on his territory.". Another says : "This is a guy who did magnificent things... He won every prize to be won. I find it a little mean of him to seem to be trying to get a share of this as well."

    1. Re:Defamation by kabocox · · Score: 3, Informative

      While the New Yorker article was not particularly favorable to Dr. Yau, it didn't seem to me that it could be called defamation. Indeed, to the extent that it says negative things about him, they seem to be coming from his peers in mathematics - and not from the writer of the article. Is that a sufficient defense against a legal claim of defamation? I guess that is for the courts to decide.

      More importantly, by suing for defamation, Dr. Yau appears to be manifesting exactly the kind of behavior that he was described as having in the article.

      Did no one else read Dr. Yau's website and his pdf letter to the New Yorker? In that letter Dr. Yau's agents have contacted most of those sources and according to Dr. Yau's letter they were all misquotes or slated in a manner to make him look bad. Read his pdf letter http://www.doctoryau.com/9.18.06.pdf . It is only 12 pages, but it is quiet calmly written. I would hope that if the facts are on Dr. Yau's side then the New York will fire on so called reporter and have to pay heavy damages to this individual.

      It sounds like the article was set out to discredit this guy. I'd honestly want more sources than either the New Yorker, this guy's website or wikipedia. Honestly, I don't really care about it that much except that I hope that the facts come out and that the New Yorker will be punished if they are in the wrong. Actually, I'm thrilled that some is standing up to "the press" for a change. I'd think that if the content of the article was actually true, then he'd have a difficult time when under peer review of his future papers.

    2. Re:Defamation by cool_arrow · · Score: 3, Insightful

      When you speak negatively about someone, however true it may be, how likely are you to confess to it when asked by that person (or his reps) whether it was true. Human nature being what it is.

  10. 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.
  11. 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.

  12. 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.

  13. 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.
  14. 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.
  15. Sigh... as usual, Slashdotters don't ever rtfa... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Whee... I love Slashdot readers! As usual, nobody feels obliged to read the original article, or the response, before blasting thier commentary. Dr. Yau isn't just some Harvard mathematician; he's heavily connected into Chinese politics and education. The article, if true, suggests that he's built that base on stealing the work of others. This isn't defaming his math career; this is going to cause enormous damage politically, if it's true.

    I'm not claiming it's true or not -- there are two totally opposing views, neither with particularly good evidence. But before you're all "lol lawyerz are teh suck", figure out what's going on.

  16. Re:sue! by Wavicle · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why cant we all get along

    Because there is more money to be made in not getting along.

    --
    Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.
    Edward Everett (1794 - 1865)
  17. mod parent down by Henk+Postma · · Score: 3, Informative
    Mod parent down, he has no idea what he is talking about.

    Yau is an extremely brilliant mathematician who has proven, amongst others, The positive energy theorem and has received the Fields medal (the Nobel prize of math) for his work.

    I can't believe you were modded +5 Interesting for this, but then again, this is slashdot, where shortsighted blanket statements are more interesting than hard facts. Sigh ...

  18. Does anyone actually doubt that Yau is a theif? by chaboud · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This isn't the first time that he's used failure to understand portions of proofs to piggyback on others by collaborating to fill non-holes in proofs.

    Part of this is due to the obscenely political state of modern mathematics. Part of it is the silly amount of credit given to people willing to do the grunt work of filling out proofs, even though it's important. Still, a great deal of this has to be put on Yau and his strong-arm, slap-dash tactics. It doesn't help that the accusation of the portrayal of a racial stereotype is contained within fulfillment of the accused behavior, but Nasar never said that Chinese mathematicians are dirty, cheating bastards. She said that Yau is.

    Yau's press-release shows how much he believes he represents Chinese mathematics. A statement disparaging Yau does the same for Chinese mathematicians?

    Please.

    There's nothing racial about someone spending the latter half of his life manipulating a broken system when his actual intellect is insufficient.

  19. Brilliant piece of journalism by greppling · · Score: 4, Interesting
    I agree with you halfway, for example some of the dementis are so lukewarm ("Sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you with that remark.", another more or less saying "Sorry, we know both it's true but I was REALLY trying to persuade here to leave this out from the article."...) that they pretty much emphasize the point...

    However, what I find more interesting is the light it shed on how Nasar did her excellent research for this article; it's not like it is easy to get scientists speak openly about one of their most famous and influential peers. Giving them some quotes by Yau, etc. (Yau's claim that she misled them is baseless, IMO -- nobody makes a statement to a journalist about someone he has know well for 30 years just based on a single reported quote; it's just that she got them to talk openly.)

    I found it funny how Yau believed she would be captivated by being able to talk with Hawking - something many uninformed journalists would get excited about, whereas Nasar knew well that Hawking didn't have any insights relevant to her article. I just loved to read how she cleverly played along with the cliche... (I don't know why journalists, and slashdot included, still blow Hawking so much out of proportion, but that's another story...)

  20. Lawsuit sounds meritless by TheGuano · · Score: 4, Informative
    As a graduating law student, I've read a number of these. Yau makes a lot of claims, which may very well be true, but what struck me was the section about how there has been "no battle" over priority for the Poincare proof.

    In it, he claims there was never any battle, and that his paper merely established the "first complete proof applying [Perelman's] and Professor Hamilton's work." But if I understand my mathematics nomenclature correctly, isn't that the exact act of trying to establish priority? He's actually saying, "I've (or my students have) PROVED the theorem, Perelman and Hamilton have both done work allowing me to do so." Of course, since what Perelman did is considered by many mathematicians to actually BE the first complete proof, Yau's letter essentially confirms what he's being accused of doing. The fight is about who has the first complete proof, not how much recognition Perelman should have been received in the paper.

    Legally, this sounds like a lot of hot air. The letter isn't a legal document, and well-established precedents in defamation law protect journalists in cases such as this where the event is easily newsworthy and the people involved have become public figures. Yau is relying less on any legal basis he has, and more on being able to use the letter as evidence that he's outraged by his portrayal in the article.