Verses read: Psalm 101
Tomorrow is a rare free day for me. Better make full use of it before it disappears! Have to attend a meeting at the Bible House tomorrow. Tomorrow night is also the UDS, but I’m no longer in NUS, so I don’t think I will go down. Furthermore, don’t think I am prepared to go down.
The Fields Medal was presented yesterday to four (or is it three) young mathematicians. Was informed by A/P Fan during the tutorial today. He brought up the issue of the young 31 year old full professor at UCLA who got the medal and how he was a child prodigy and all and how me must spot such talent when we are in school and all.
Went home to read up on what happened, and what impressed me the most is not this 31 year old guy but the Russian mathematician who did not accept his medal! He’s mad! He was awarded the medal for a “proof” of the Poincare Conjecture. The “proof is still being refereed. I thought the Riemann hypothesis would fall before this one.
The conjecture states that every simply connected closed three-manifold is homeomorphic to the three-dimensional sphere. Amazingly, I actually understand that; not just that, it actually seems obvious, but yet has remained unproven for a hundred years, maybe till now. Well, if the proof is correct, he will be a million dollars richer. Even then, he was already awarded the Fields Medal. But his proof is actually even better, it proofs a generalisation of the Poincare conjecture. That’s pretty amazing.
But I’m still a little disappointed that this one fell before the Riemann Hypothesis. The effects of the Riemann Hypothesis would be more immediate compared to this one.
Anyway, another medal was awarded for bridging probability, representation theory and algebraic geometry! A relationship between the latter two I can see, but between probability? That’s quite amazing! That will certainly change the texture of how probability is taught. Perhaps Bertrand’s paradox will be solved next!
