Very complicated Poincaré conjecture

What does math have anything to do with drama? We can find the answer by reading the very intensive, dramatic article in New Yorker “MANIFOLD DESTINY”. The story talks about the political struggle in the mathematic community to fight the credit of proving the century-old math problem Poincaré conjecture. Similar to the fairy tale Cinderella, there is a Cinderella-type pure heart, Russian mathematic genius Grigori Perelman. Of course, there is also the stepmother (prominent mathematician Shing-Tung Yau 丘成桐) who fought to rob away the handsome prince (Fields Medal, the Nobel Prize for mathematicians) for the ugly stepsisters (Yau’s disciples).

This New Yorker article is written by Sylvia Nasar, the author of A Beautiful Mind, the story of Nobel laureate John Nash. I guess Nasar is writing another novel about the life of Perelman, which I am sure is more fascinating than Nash's. (Just read of a few news reports: Russian may have solved great math mystery, 7/1/2004; Meet the cleverest man in the world (who's going to say no to a $1m prize) 8/16/2006; World's top maths genius jobless and living with mother, 8/20/2006. Actually, the titles tell the story well.)

Note that Yau has accused New Yorker of defamation on Sep. 20 (see his campaign website). Some mathematicians interviewed by Nasar condemned her distortion of their statements. Sounds like MANIFOLD DESTINY was made too dramatic.Many people defend Yau by attacking each of Nasar's accusation. However, the disturbing review process of Yau's disciples' research paper that claimed to completely solve the problem is still unanswered. I am deeply troubled by this because Yau had been my hero for decades. Apparently all mathematicians are smart in some ways, and crazy in other ways.

Image: New Yorker Issue of 2006-08-28.