Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Perelman and the mathematical community

The BBC has a very good entry on this year’s Field’s Medals (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5274040.stm) that follows below. There is also a good profile of Grigory Perelman who declined the award (and the money that goes with it). In addition to various things mentioned in different sites about his attitude towards the mathematical community, I found interesting the acknowledgement in his 2002 paper (math.DG/0211159, http://arxiv.org/find/math/1/au:+Perelman_Grisha/0/1/0/all/0/1), in which he states that “I was partially supported by personal savings accumulated during my visits to the Courant Institute in the Fall of 1992, to the SUNY at Stony Brook in the Spring of 1993, and to the UC at Berkeley as a Miller Fellow in 1993-95. I'd like to thank everyone who worked to make those opportunities available to me”. ...continues here!

Wendelin Werner from University of Paris-Sud and Andrei Okounkov of UC Berkeley, win this year's Fields Medal

A Probabilist wins the Fields Medal for the first time! (I think). The spotlight, though, will be on Grigory Perelman who refused it. (The other winners are Andrei Okounkov of the University of California, Berkeley (http://math.berkeley.edu/~okounkov), Terence Tao from the University of California, Los Angeles, and Wendelin Werner of the University of Paris-Sud in Orsay, France). ...continues here!

Monday, August 21, 2006

Polygamist rally in Salt Lake City

Reuters today provides a news item about a social group I did not know it existed in organized form.

SALT LAKE CITY (Reuters) - More than a dozen children of polygamist families spoke publicly at a Utah rally for the first time on Saturday about their lifestyle and called for more understanding. "I'm the 14th child in a large family and I have several moms," said Mary, 18. "All my mothers love me." ...continues here!