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In April 2002, media all
over the world reported on the purported solution to the Poincaré
Conjecture, a feat which later proved to be untrue. However, a year
later, the conjecture again made the news when a reclusive Russian
mathematician, Grigori Perelman, correctly proved the Poincaré
Conjecture. In the world of math, the Poincaré Conjecture is a holy
grail and George G. Szpiro Ph.D. relates the quest for it in his new
book, POINCARÉ’S PRIZE: The Hundred-Year Quest to Solve One of
Math's Greatest Puzzles, to be published by Dutton on June 21,
2007.
POINCARÉ’S PRIZE is the story of a mathematical theorem, from its proposal
over a century ago by Frenchman Henri Poincaré through its apparent
solution in the Spring of 2003. In 1904, Frenchman Henri Poincaré
formulated a conjecture about a seemingly simple problem. Imagine an ant
crawling around on a large surface.
How would it know whether
the surface is a flat plane, a round sphere, or a bagel-shaped object?
The ant would need to lift off into space to observe the object, so how
could you prove the shape was spherical without actually seeing it?
Simply, this is what Poincaré sought to solve. The Poincare Conjecture
directly informs how we understand gravity and the shape of the
universe.
Poincaré believed he
solved the problem back at the turn of the twentieth century but soon
realized his mistake and after four more years’ work, he gave up. Across
the generations, from
China
to Texas, great minds stalked the solution. Among them was Grigory
Perelman, a mysterious Russian who seems to have stepped out of a
Dostoyevsky novel. Grigory Perelman looks like Rasputin, lives in
poverty with his mother, refuses prizes, and avoids almost everyone
including the press. In 2003 Perelman dropped three papers onto the
Internet that not only proved the Poincaré Conjecture but enlightened
the universe of higher dimensions, solving an array of even more
mind-bending math with implications that will take an age to unravel.
The Poincaré Conjecture is
the only one of seven Millennium problems listed by the Clay Institute
that has been solved,
but Perelman has yet to fulfill the requirements to claim the one
million dollar prize. After years of review, Perelman’s proof has won
him a Fields Medal (the “Nobel of math”), awarded only once every four
years. With no interest in fame, he refused to attend the ceremony, was
the first person to decline the medal, and stayed home to watch
television. Perelman is a St. Petersburg hero, devoted to an ascetic
life of the mind.
POINCARE’S PRIZE is the story of an enigma in the shape of space, part
history, part math, and a fascinating tale of the most abstract kind of
creativity. |
