Beaten to the punch.Byline: The Register-Guard Let's just say that the Russian mathematician Grigory Perelman didn't need to rush to publish his proof of Poincare's conjecture on our account. We still had a long way to go before solving the 100-year-old mathematical conundrum. Perelman beat us to the punch fair and square, and fully deserves to become one of four people to win the mathematics world's top prize, the Fields Medal. Perelmen is also eligible to receive a million-dollar prize given by the Clay Mathematics Institute The Clay Mathematics Institute (CMI) is a private, non-profit foundation, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Institute is dedicated to increasing and disseminating mathematical knowledge. It gives out various awards and sponsorships to promising mathematicians. . The Clay outfit offers $1 million for the solution to any of seven long-standing puzzles in mathematics, and the Poincare conjecture is one of them. We'll have a hard time choosing among the remaining six problems. Which one first: the Reimann hypothesis, or the Navier-Stokes equations The Navier-Stokes equations, named after Claude-Louis Navier and George Gabriel Stokes, describe the motion of fluid substances such as liquids and gases. These equations establish that changes in momentum in infinitesimal volumes of fluid are simply the sum of dissipative viscous ? No, wait - there's still the Yang-Mills theory, which would involve figuring out the mathematical foundation for quantum physics quantum physics n. (used with a sing. verb) The branch of physics that uses quantum theory to describe and predict the properties of a physical system. quantum physics See quantum mechanics. . That would be cool. We'd better get started, though. Perelman's achievement comes close on the heels of Andrew Wiles's proof of Fermat's last theorem Fermat's last theorem Statement that there are no natural numbers x, y, and z such that xn + yn = zn, in which n is a natural number greater than 2. , in 1995. Fermat's theorem The works of 17th century mathematician Pierre de Fermat engendered many theorems. Fermat's theorem most commonly refers to one of the following theorems:
Or maybe not. Kurt Godel Noun 1. Kurt Godel - United States mathematician (born in Austria) who is remembered principally for demonstrating the limitations of axiomatic systems (1906-1978) Godel proved 70 years ago that in any logical system, including basic arithmetic, some theorems can't be proved. That must explain why we could never crack that sixth-grade story problem about one train leaving Baltimore at 40 mph and another leaving Chicago at 60 mph. Godel gives us an excuse to say they could pass each other in either Columbus or Cleveland, it all depends. He also gives us confidence that mathematics will never be "solved" - that as long as there are mathematicians, there will be questions for them to answer. Perelman, a reclusive re·clu·sive adj. 1. Seeking or preferring seclusion or isolation. 2. Providing seclusion: a reclusive hut. genius, declined to show up at the Fields Medal ceremony in Spain and says he may quit mathematics altogether to focus on other research. He certainly deserves a break - take it from us, that Poincare conjecture is a tough one. It involves topology in three dimensions: Can an object with a hole, such as a doughnut or a teacup, be deformed into a sphere? Perelman, using a technique called Ricci flow In differential geometry, the Ricci flow is a process which deforms the metric of a Riemannian manifold in a manner formally analogous to the diffusion of heat, thereby smoothing out irregularities in the metric. that mathematically smooths the surfaces of 3-D objects, showed that the answer is no, it cannot. Why didn't we think of that? It seems so obvious now. |
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