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Science's Breakthrough of the Year
johkir writes "Last year, evolution was the breakthrough of the year; We found it full of new developments in understanding how new species originate. But we did get a complaint or two that perhaps we were just paying extra attention to the lively political/religious debate that was taking place over the issue, particularly in the United States.
Perish the thought! Our readers can relax this year: Religion and politics are off the table, and n-dimensional geometry is on instead. This year's Breakthrough salutes the work of a lone, publicity-shy Russian mathematician named Grigori Perelman, who was at the Steklov Institute of Mathematics of the Russian Academy of Sciences until 2005. The work is very technical but has received unusual public attention because Perelman appears to have proven the Poincaré Conjecture (Our coverage from earlier this year), a problem in topology whose solution will earn a $1 million prize from the Clay Mathematics Institute. That's only if Perelman survives what's left of a 2-year gauntlet of critical attack required by the Clay rules, but most mathematicians think he will.
There is also a page of runner-ups. Many of which have been covered here on Slashdot."
Did Grigori Perelman turn up to collect his 1 million, I remember at the time there was some speculation on the matter.
I hope he isn't living in poverty when things are available to him, but if he is who do I speak to about claiming the unclaimed prize?
liqbase
I've got karma to burn, so let's use some up.
You stop right there, mister.
I don't care what kind of "proof" this seedy Perelman character says he has. In Leviticus, The Bible makes it clear that in a closed 3-mainfold, there non-spherical loops that can be continually tightened to a point. Who are you going to believe, Grigori Perelman, or God? If you even try to put this proof in my kid's math book, I'm going to demand more stickers! Slashdot obviously wants the terrorists to win!
Apologies to any real mathematicians out there, that was the best twisting of Poincaré Conjecture I could come up for the sake of this joke based on Wikipedia's article. And while I hope that while everyone realizes that I'm kidding, I also hope that some folks realize that I'm kinda not. The vast majority of people who insist that such things as evolution aren't true sound to me pretty much like I just did, because the vast majority of people who I argue with over the subject start from the premise, "It says in Genesis..."
...as I recall was published in 1859. Not only was it not a breakthrough of this year, it was a breakthrough of near 150 years ago. As they say, "What exactly are you smoking, sir?"
Crow T. Trollbot
Maybe this is worthy of honorable mention: Cure for Diabetes
Sounds like a breakthrough to me.
Some sort of math thingee has been proven by some Russian crazy guy.
The world is a better place. It's all I hear about. Hooray
I am now gagging for an opportunity start making crap up about nonvanishing continuous tangent vectors the next time hairy balls come up in conversation.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
I think I'm going to start my own replies to this sort of argument with this reply: Is this from the same Bible which is missing a whole book? Not just a testament, like Luke, but a whole book. After all, unless you're a Roman Catholic, you very likely do not have a bible which has the Apocrypha in it. And if your Bible is missing that entire book, how can you be sure of what is actually said in so much as a single chapter and verse?
Not that I expect to ever win such an argument, but it makes for some fun when they look at you as if you've just grown an extra head, and then realize you're being serious.
GPL made simple: What was my stuff is now our stuff. If you improve our stuff, please keep it our stuff.
I think this one should take the cake! http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/314/580 7/1850a/F4
nothing
In case you were sick that day in remedial English 101, noun-adjective compounds - attorney general, mother-in-law, runner-up - are made plural by pluralizing the noun: attorneys general, mothers-in-law, runners-up.
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
Well, I'm really pushing the karma, so I swear, I'll leave this thread completely alone after this, and feel free to mod it down if you want. (My preferred mod tag is "Off-Topic," because that's what this post is, as it's pretty much solely intended for its parent post. I'm not trolling, so get it right.)
Before I get into any sort of argument about evolution these days, I ask a pretty simple question that will determine whether or not it's worthwhile to go any further: Is there anything whatsoever, any evidence in any scientific field, that, if discovered, could possibly convince you that that the story of creation in Genesis is not the literal truth?
If the answer is no, then going any further is pointless. If they won't believe decades of rigorous scientific research and overwhelming compelling evidence, they sure as hell aren't going to believe you, and trying to convince them isn't really arguing about the subject, it's more like pointless bickering.
In Leviticus, The Bible makes it clear that in a closed 3-mainfold, there non-spherical loops that can be continually tightened to a point.
Clear? As in the Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, or 15th century English version of Leviticus?
And are these African or European non-spherical loops?
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
This all comes from the 22 December issue of the journal Science, in case that wasn't clear from the original posting. All of the stories from the issue are indexed here; to get access to the articles I believe you need to register with the site. There's also a podcast, which doesn't require registration.
I think you are a little off. The Apocrypha isn't a book, it is a collection of books, and a couple different versions of books existing in the canonical bible. At the time of Jesus the Apocryphal books were debated in the Jewish community, and in the modern world, besides a couple of extremely small Judaism sects, I believe only the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches use it, but could be wrong. The reason the Apocrypha is not included in the normal canon of the bible is usually accredited to lacking authenticity, or conflicting with established books.
Computers allow humans to make mistakes at the fastest speeds known, with the possible exception of tequila and handguns
It's spelled sense, not sence. (Not to be a grammar nazi; you asked me to correct it)
And if your Bible is missing that entire book, how can you be sure of what is actually said in so much as a single chapter and verse?
Personally, I though GP was being sarcastic, but you do have a very serious point about religion.
If one were to take religion seriously, you must really consider the problem of the nature of Holy Books and man's interaction with them.
Unless you believe much like Kings of the Medieval era that if god didn't want you to do something he wouldn't have made you king.
As in... If god didn't want you to read this particular set of books rather then another set a books in even a different language and context then he would have done so.
So the question if god is all powerful then why does he fail at communication unless he tried several times and humans didn't get it right, which means the only group that is right is Islam considering they were the last of the big three (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) to get their word of god and they actually claim to have gotten their book directly from god and the book says you have to read it in Arabic to interpret it.
So... Unless you believe the Pope at the time was the mouthpiece of god and that god was indeed telling him what books were go into the gospel and what language to translate it in (Latin) then perhaps they got it wrong.
There was actually a Christian sect of Agnostics called the Cathars who actually believed the bible was not holy and it was simply man's attempt to understand god (they also believed the Judaic old testament was actually evil). The Pope did not approve so he set about and killed them all off.
So what if the Cathar's were right and that the Catholic Bible was simply a political tool of the Papacy to bring the incorrect version of God's word to man. Obviously man has free will to do what he pleases (unless you believe in predestination like certain sects do) so the possibility that over the age's that man disobeyed God's will and changed the Bible to of man's own choosing is possible.
Disregarding science versus religion, there is a possibility the modern Bible is indeed not really God's true will and many Christians are actually worshiping it as an idol rather than what God really wants them to do.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Is this from the same Bible which is missing a whole book?
Every religion define their own truth. If it's not there, it's because it's not meant to be there. In a way, Christianity is very loosely defined because Jesus never made writings so anything authentic about his words or actions is fair game. You could actually invert that statment and say "Is this from the same Bible that included a whole false book?".
In contrast, you have the Qur'an, which there is exactly one definitie version of, written down at the time of Muhammed (though not in person) and is generally considered to be the direct words of Allah.
Fortunately, since the Bible's already an interpretation that also makes it a lot more "interpretable" which generally means that we'll ignore the parts we don't like. Trust me, Christian fundies that take the Bible literally could be just as bad as muslim fundies.
Unfortunately there's so many more of the latter kind, because of the shape of the Qur'an. There's no ambiguity, no conflicting stories, no missing context. That kind of religious conviction frightens me, because there's no discussing controversial topics on a secular basis.
"Is this section of Sharia law fair and just?" "It is the word of Allah. QED." "Homosexuality?" "Sura 66, Ayat 44. QED." "Premarital sex?" "Sura 43, Ayat 32. QED." "Equality of the sexes?" "Sura 23, Ayat 54. QED." "Female sexuality and dress code?" "Sura 57, Ayat 12. QED." That kind of "immortal truth" means society is stuck at whereever it was at 600AD.
If you look through the Bible, you'll find the same sort of stuff, we just ignore it. And for the most part, we leave religious punishments to the divine - sure you might burn in Hell but you don't get stoned on Earth. Makes it a lot safer for the rest of us.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Mathematics is not science, my impressionable little Slashdoters.
That geometry thing is great and all, but math is not science; science is not math.
The main article should be changed to read: Mathematics' Breakthrough of the year.
Not trying to be picky, but there is a substantial difference between Science and Mathematics (although that might be a surprise to some people, it is true).
While this is a wonderful recognition of some fantastic work, the Slashdot editors should bear in mind that science and mathematics are not the same thing. To call solving the Poincarre Conjecture a breakthrough in Science (breakthrough of the year, no less!) is disrespectful to both scientists and mathematicians.
There have been some breakthroughs in Mathematics that were simultaneously notable in Science (solving the 4 Colors Problem, for example, the first time a computer was used to experimentally and exhaustively validate the results of a theorem), but these are rare. To the limits of my mathematical knowledge, this was not one of them, despite it being remarkable work.
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
It's Science Magazine's "Breakthrough of the Year."
Not the entire endeavor of Science.
(Those breakthroughs are noted by the Ig Nobel Prizes.)
This one's by far the most important. We all knew it, but now the data is in.
3 SHRINKING ICE
Glaciologists nailed down an unsettling observation this year: The world's two great ice sheets--covering Greenland and Antarctica--are indeed losing ice to the oceans, and losing it at an accelerating pace.
thegodmovie.com - watch it
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060 828fa_fact2
Heh, only the majority of all Christians use it, as Catholics and Orthodox comprise the majority of Christians in the world.
http://www.adherents.com/adh_rb.html#International
All that is necessary for the triumph of good is that evil men do nothing.
Last time I checked, math and science were two different subjects in school. Why didn't they pick the invention of Gorilla Glue, that stuff's like magic! Oh wait, that wasn't invented this year...hmmm...well they still could have picked a cooler scientific breakthrough.
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
This mathematical proof is clearly interesting from a mathematics-proofs-point-of-view. But I'm surprised it's considered the breakthrough of the year. Its very difficult for most people to relate to. I'm a scientist, and I try and keep up (at a basic level) with many fields of research other than my own (by reading articles in Science), but I think the nature of this proof is very difficult to keep up with. Not to mention it is difficult to even be sure that the proof works (since it can really only be evaluated by highly specialized experts). If this breakthrough pans out, mathematicians need to do a much better job of public relations, like most other sciences do. I for one think the data from the Mars Rovers, the Cassini spacecraft, and the comet material recovery mission represent (collectively) the breakthrough of the year. The amount we have learned about our solar system this past year is extraordinary. I say this even though I am a biologist, and we've done some marvelous things in biology this year. But the unmanned space program really came through this year, and is far more captivating than the math proof, no offense.
A special report on the most interesting, amazing, and important science news of the year DISCOVER Vol. 28 No. 01 | January 2007 - Check it out!
Perhaps you haven't been paying attention. Religion has always been a political tool. It's a convenient mechanism used to control people, and has worked beautifully for thousands of years. If you need an example, see the current U.S.A.
I have nothing to say.
TO MATHEMATICIANS, GRIGORI PERELMAN'S proof of the Poincare conjecture qualifies at least as the Breakthrough of the Decade. But it has taken them a good part of that decade to convince themselves that it was for real. In 2006, nearly 4 years after the Russian mathematician released the first of three papers outlining the proof, researchers finally reached a consensus that Perelman had solved one of the subject's most venerable problems. But the solution touched off a storm of controversy and drama that threatened to overshadow the brilliant work.
Perelman's proof has fundamentally altered two distinct branches of mathematics. First, it solved a problem that for more than a century was the indigestible seed at the core of topology, the mathematical study of abstract shape. Most mathematicians expect that the work will lead to a much broader result, a proof of the geometrization conjecture: essentially, a "periodic table" that brings clarity to the study of three-dimensional spaces, much as Mendeleev's table did for chemistry.
While bringing new results to topology, Perelman's work brought new techniques to geometry. It cemented the central role of geometric evolution equations, powerful machinery for transforming hard-to-work-with spaces into more-manageable ones. Earlier studies of such equations always ran into "singularities" at which the equations break down. Perelman dynamited that roadblock.
"This is the first time that mathematicians have been able to understand the structure of singularities and the development of such a complicated system," said Shing-Tung Yau of Harvard University at a lecture in Beijing this summer. "The methods developed ... should shed light on many natural systems, such as the Navier-Stokes equation [of fluid dynamics] and the Einstein equation [of general relativity]."
Unruly spaces
Henri Poincare, who posed his problem in 1904, is generally regarded as the founded of topology, the first mathematician to clearly distinguish it from analysis (the branch of mathematics that evolved from calculus) and geometry. Topology is often described as "rubber-sheet geometry," because it deals with properties of surfaces that can undergo arbitrary amounts of stretching. Tearing and its opposite, sewing, are not allowed.
Our bodies, and most of the familiar objects they interact with, have three dimensions. Their surfaces, however, have only two. As far as topology is concerned, two-dimensional surfaces with no boundary (those that wrap around and close in on themselves, as our skin does) have essentially only one distinguishing feature: the number of holes in the surface. A surface with no holes is a sphere: a surface with one hole is a torus; and so on. A sphere can never be turned into a torus, or vice versa.
Three-dimensional objects with 2D surfaces, however, are just the beginning. For example, it is possible to define curved 3D spaces as boundaries of 4D objects. Human beings can only dimly visualize such spaces, but mathematicians can use symbolic notation to describe them and explore their properties. Poincare developed and ingenious tool called the "fundamental group," for detecting holes, twists, and other feature in spaces of any dimension. He conjectured that a 3D space cannot hide any interesting topology from the fundamental group. That is, a 3D space with a "trivial" fundamental group must be a hypersphere: the boundary of a ball in 4D space.
Although simple to state, Poincare's conjecture proved maddeningly difficult to prove. By the early 1980's, mathematicians had proved analogous statements for spaces of every dimension higher than three - but not for the original one that Poincare had pondered.
To make progress, topologists reached for a tool they had neglected: a way to specify distance. They se
Should have received the science breakthrough of the year, not this IMHO.
that, and there's only four corners of the world. Irenaeus argued that there should only be four gospels as those ones were good, but also because there are four corners of the world, four winds, animals have four legs, etc. The choice was really quite arbitary.
henry -- the human evolution news relay
or provide a reason why this is useful to science.
Mathematics is one of the purest representations of Science, of all time.
Your argument might just be valid... if the Bible actually talked about a closed 3-mainfold and non-spherical loops.
But it doesn't.
It does mention a little something about the first humans, though.
The title of the magazine is Science. The magazine announced its breakthrough of the year. So: Science's Breakthrough of the Year.
And how fast can they move unladen?
Isn't the Apocrypha by definition all bible books that are not part of the Canon? I.e. the ones like Jesus Sirach (which is my favourite btw) and this new Judas gospel I haven't even read yet?
To be, or not to be: isn't that quite logical, Slashdot Beta?
Open up any handy dandy 3D modeling program...
Import various meshes with no holes passing through them... ('cuz if they had holes, they'd be toroids or knot structures of some sort.)
Now let's see how it pans out...
Step 1: Tighten all vertices by some amount.
Step 2: Inflate by some amount.
Step 3: Repeat steps 1 and 2 until you have a sphere.
Ummm... I'll have to get back to you on that...
And another question that should be asked: Why is the math behind making virtual 3-D balloon animals (by animating the process played in reverse) worth $1 million?
It looks as if he's not trying to support a family or raise children. Dedicating oneself purely to science and parenting many offspring are both laudable objectives. There's no need and really, no logical way to play them against each other.
OMFG, the rod up your ass must have a rod up its ass.
That said, you need to distinguish between "the Apocrypha", which the RCC holds to be a second canon, and various other apocryphal and pseudepigraphical books.
And if your Bible is missing that entire book, how can you be sure of what is actually said in so much as a single chapter and verse?
Personally, I though GP was being sarcastic, but you do have a very serious point about religion.
He doesn't actually. It is a huge jump to go from "there's a book missing" (which is entirely possible) to "every single chapter and verse is in doubt" which is nonsense given that we have thousands of copies of those chapters and verses, some of them dated to the early 2nd century AD. The New Testament documents can be reliably said to be intact, more than 99% so, and of those bits in doubt (a sentence here or there), none have the slightest effect on its major teachings.
If one were to take religion seriously, you must really consider the problem of the nature of Holy Books and man's interaction with them.
I couldn't agree more. Luckily there are established practices for studying all ancient literature - not just the Holy Books - and they include textual criticism, archaeology, sociology and dating methods.
So the question if god is all powerful then why does he fail at communication unless he tried several times and humans didn't get it right, which means the only group that is right is Islam considering they were the last of the big three (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) to get their word of god and they actually claim to have gotten their book directly from god and the book says you have to read it in Arabic to interpret it.
There's a credibility problem though. It's dead easy for someone to disappear and then return and claim "God appeared to me and here is his will for all of you." The problem with that is there's no way to check it out. Far more reliable would be multiple eyewitness testimonies composed over many years and thoroughly cross-checked with both friendly and hostile sources.
So what if the Cathar's were right and that the Catholic Bible was simply a political tool of the Papacy to bring the incorrect version of God's word to man. Obviously man has free will to do what he pleases (unless you believe in predestination like certain sects do) so the possibility that over the age's that man disobeyed God's will and changed the Bible to of man's own choosing is possible.
No it's not. I can compare my copy of the New Testament in Greek with the earliest dated copies of it (somewhere around 110AD) and bingo - they're the same. Case closed.
Disregarding science versus religion, there is a possibility the modern Bible is indeed not really God's true will and many Christians are actually worshiping it as an idol rather than what God really wants them to do.
How exactly could Christians know what God wants them to do if the Bible doesn't contain statements about what God wants them to do? Should they just make stuff up and follow that? On second thoughts, don't answer that...
--- Hot Shot City is particularly good.