Re: Fields awardee Shing-Tung Yau lied in Chinese media about Poincare conjecture proof's attribution

In article <1149490925.527163.180660@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
<yaoziyuan@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On June 4, every Chinese media reported that "two Chinese
mathematicians finally solved Poincare's conjecture." (
http://english.people.com.cn/200606/04/eng20060604_270860.html )

Shing-Tung Yau and another Chinese mathematician Yang Le are the
principal endorsors of the two mathematicians Zhu and Cao's claim. In
Chinese versions of the news, Yang Le even boasted that "The American
Hamilton contributed over 50%, the Russian Perelman about 25%, and the
Chinese Yau, Zhu and Cao et al about 30%." (
http://www.popyard.com/cgi-mod/npost.cgi?num=90542&r=0 )

First accounts of mathematics-related events in Western news media are
often inaccurate. I don't know if the Chinese media are better at this.
But it seems there is such a paper in Vol. 10 #2 of the Asian Journal of
Mathematics, and its abstract can be found at
<http://www.intlpress.com/AJM/p/2006/10_2/AJM-10-2-165-498-Abstract.php>
Yes, it does claim to provide a complete proof of the Poincaré and the
geometrization conjectures. I didn't find a preprint in arXiv.org, or
on Cao's website.

Yau also pointed out that "Cao and Zhu's work has much more value than
proving Goldbach's conjecture." (
http://www.popyard.com/cgi-mod/npost.cgi?num=90584&r=0 ) I think his
mention to Goldbach's conjecture is because a Chinese mathematician
Chen Jinrun made real contribution to it in the 60's and was since well
known by every ordinary Chinese.

I think the Chinese audiences' minds are heavily hijacked by Yau's
irresponsible words. Can some independent Western mathematicians stand
out and talk back?

If Cao and Zhu's claim is correct, and I have no particular reason to
doubt it, I would not be at all surprised if this paper was very
valuable indeed. And Yau would be in a good position to comment
on this. But in some sense Yau's statement is rather strange:
these are completely different areas of mathematics, and since we don't
have a proof of Goldbach's conjecture how can he speculate on how
valuable such a proof might be? It might turn out to involve techniques
that could be applied to all sorts of other problems. It might be
fair to say, though, that Chen's work, though a great achievement, has
not led to such applications.

Robert Israel israel@xxxxxxxxxxx
Department of Mathematics http://www.math.ubc.ca/~israel
University of British Columbia Vancouver, BC, Canada



.

Relevant Pages

  • Yau versis Perelman
    ... On the evening of June 20th, several hundred physicists, including a Nobel laureate, assembled in an auditorium at the Friendship Hotel in Beijing for a lecture by the Chinese mathematician Shing-Tung Yau. ... The subject of Yau’s talk was something that few in his audience knew much about: the Poincaré conjecture, a century-old conundrum about the characteristics of three-dimensional spheres, which, because it has important implications for mathematics and cosmology and because it has eluded all attempts at solution, is regarded by mathematicians as a holy grail. ... He also mentioned Grigory Perelman, a Russian mathematician who, he acknowledged, had made an important contribution. ...
    (sci.fractals)
  • Re: Fields awardee Shing-Tung Yau lied in Chinese media about Poincare conjecture proofs attribu
    ... mathematicians finally solved Poincare's conjecture." ... Shing-Tung Yau and another Chinese mathematician Yang Le are the ... principal endorsors of the two mathematicians Zhu and Cao's claim. ... Chinese versions of the news, Yang Le even boasted that "The American ...
    (sci.math)
  • Chinese mathematicians added the final brick to Poincares Conjecture?
    ... Recently it is massively hyped on Chinese news media that "two Chinese ... mathematicians added the final brick to Poincare's Conjecture". ... Do these Chinese mathematicians really make a critical ...
    (sci.math.research)
  • Fields awardee Shing-Tung Yau lied in Chinese media about Poincare conjecture proofs attribution
    ... every Chinese media reported that "two Chinese ... mathematicians finally solved Poincare's conjecture." ... Shing-Tung Yau and another Chinese mathematician Yang Le are the ... principal endorsors of the two mathematicians Zhu and Cao's claim. ...
    (sci.math)
  • Re: Origin of Chinese spoken languages
    ... > SJ> Despite language barriers, scientists and mathematicians ... of feelings such as warmth or coldness. ... this is the situation where modern Chinese speaking people ...
    (sci.lang)