Chapter 837: Luxurious reviewer lineup
Wiles, who was not too worried about watching the excitement, suddenly felt a little impatient.
There is a high probability that he will not understand this paper.
So you need to find a professional.
Even so-called professionals cannot understand it right away.
But at least I can confirm whether there are any obvious omissions.
Of course Perelman cannot be a civilian, but there have been many instances in history where mathematicians thought they had solved an important problem, only to find it discovered very early on. Something went wrong.
Especially judging from the extraordinary length of this paper, I am afraid it will involve some new theoretical frameworks.
Generally speaking, thanks to the great development of academic journals and the Internet, even if today’s mathematicians need to invent the wheel from scratch, they still have enough opportunities to take out the wheel separately for everyone to see first, so as to avoid There is a situation like "only to find out that the wheels are square after building the car".
But the situation in front of us is obviously unusual.
According to Wiles's speculation, the two authors may have been working hard in this direction to prove the Poincaré conjecture for many years.
The paper in front of me should be the sum of all their work.
As for the previous article in the "Annual Review of Mathematics"...
Most likely it was just published casually so that the author named Chang Haonan would not appear too obtrusive. .
Well, that must be the case.
Thinking of this, Wiles looked around and asked Koncevich next to him:
"I remember...Richard Hamilton came here today, right?"
Just now When he opened the paper, he noticed that the concept of "Ricci flow" was mentioned many times in the abstract section at the beginning.
Even if Wiles did not study topology, he knew who was an expert in this field.
“I think I’ve seen him on the other side of the venue before.”
Koncevich replied.
“Let’s go find him.”
Wiles didn’t care that Arthur Jeff was still on stage answering questions at this time, and immediately left his seat with his laptop in hand, pulled Koncevich walked towards the other side from the aisle in the middle of the venue.
Arash was a little confused by the scene in front of him, but he could only choose to follow his mentor quickly.
Fortunately, there were thousands of people attending the meeting on the upper and lower floors today, and everyone’s focus was on the front, so not many people noticed the two dignified Fields. The award winner was like a thief, running around in the middle of the venue with his back bent...
Koncevic has a good memory.
Under his leadership, it didn’t take the three of them long to find Hamilton, who was sitting in the second row on the right side of the venue.
The latter listened with pleasure to Arthur Jeff's explanation of why the famous Goldbach's conjecture was not included in the seven major questions, and was obviously in a good mood.
After all, I have always firmly believed that using the Ricci flow equation, it will be possible to prove Thurston's geometrization conjecture and Poincaré's conjecture.
"Professor Wiles? Professor Koncevich?"
Hamilton subconsciously wanted to get up.
These two still have a status in the world of mathematics.
Especially Andrew Wiles.
Although some people believe that his method of proof does not meet Fermat's description of "exquisite", so there may be other ways to prove Fermat's last theorem.
But in any case, this problem that lasted for 350 years and stumped Gauss, Euler, Hilbert and other big guys finally ended in the hands of Wiles.
This alone makes him one of the most influential mathematicians of his time.
However, Wiles had quick eyesight and quick hands, and quickly stopped Hamilton's actions:
"Professor Hamilton, this morning, to be precise, just now, my student saw a paper."
He said, opening the laptop and placing it on the small table in front of him.
Hamilton thought to himself that he couldn't wait a while to read the paper, so he had to come to me at this time, but when he turned around, he saw the title of the paper.
"Any simply connected, closed three-dimensional manifold must be homeomorphic to a three-dimensional sphere"
?
He was just thinking about the proof of the Poincaré conjecture, but now a paper came out saying that it had been proved?
“Which publisher received this submission?”
Hamilton asked almost subconsciously before looking at the specific content.
Wiles looked at Arash beside him, and then shook his head:
"It's not a publishing house, it's the arXiv website. Maybe you should have heard of it."
"Of course I do. You know, the upper left corner of the document is marked with the URL of the website."
Hamilton pointed to the computer screen, and then continued:
"I mean, the author is linking the article to arXiv. At the same time, you have to submit your article to a magazine, right?”
There was silence.
Obviously, no one can give an answer.
It is already abnormal for such a paper to appear on arXiv, and it is normal for other more abnormal things to happen later...
Hamilton had no choice but to scroll down the document.
Then, I saw a familiar name.
Not Perelman, but Chang Haonan.
About half a year ago, he saw this author's article while reviewing for the "Annals of Mathematics".
Hamilton can even remember the content of that article clearly.
One of the conclusions is that topological surgery using Ricci flow can be used to construct geometric structures, thereby changing irregular manifolds into regular manifolds.
That conclusion played a considerable role in promoting his status in the academic circle.
And since Chang Haonan chose the Annual Journal of Mathematics for submission last time, this time, even if it is based on inertia, it seems reasonable to continue to choose the Annual Journal of Mathematics...
Hamilton even wanted to take out his mobile phone directly. Give Mikael Lagerstedt a call and ask if such an article could be submitted.
But in the end I held back.
On the one hand, we are all scholars after all, so we should be more reserved.
More importantly, he has now seen the paper.
And the publisher, no matter which one it is, obviously hasn't seen it yet.
Otherwise for such a big matter, we should have directly contacted all well-known scholars in related fields.
This means that compared to his peers such as John Morgan, Bruce Kleiner, and Valentin Benahou, he has already won at the starting line.
When an editor saw it and found someone to review it, as a representative of the geometric topology route, he saw the paper earlier than others.
There is a high probability that you can be the leader of the review team.
No need to add extraneous details. With this thought in mind, Hamilton returned his attention to the computer screen.
This is how academic work is. The author of the paper only needs to immerse himself in scientific research, but the reviewer has many things to consider...
However, it didn’t pass for how long.
Hamilton’s smile gradually froze on his face——
Although Ricci flow has been mentioned many times in the abstract and introduction, and his achievements in introducing Ricci flow into topology were even quoted, but...
It is different.
"How's it going, Professor Hamilton?"
Looking at Hamilton's unpredictable expression on his face, Wiles asked.
“Something’s wrong…”
Hamilton muttered.
Wiles was stunned, thinking that the other party had discovered the error in the paper:
"Oh...surely there is still a problem..."
Although it is It's expected, but it's still a bit of a pity.
First of all, I couldn’t really witness history.
Secondly, I didn’t have the fun of seeing the seven major math problems turn into the six major problems live.
However, Hamilton shook his head:
“It’s not that there’s a problem with the paper.”
Three doubtful eyes were thrown at him.
"I have a problem..."
"Ah?"
Wiles was a little confused by this sentence:
"Aren't you the founder of Ricci flow theory?"
"Yeah ...I used to think so too.”
Hamilton still stared at the screen intently:
"But I'm not sure now..."
"What...what do you mean?"
Koncevich, who had not spoken just now, looked puzzled.
Hamilton shook his head in distress:
"Although Ricci flow was also used, their ideas... were completely different."
"Look here, they constructed the Ricci flow in Lindelof space."
"And here, they performed surgery on the Ricci flow to find the singularity before it occurs, and give it to Eliminated, this is what I have been working on for the past ten years..."
"..."
In just the first five pages of the paper, Hamilton has listed A dozen key points were discussed.
They are all differences between the paper’s ideas and existing theories.
It can be said that this is a completely different theoretical framework.
“But...”
Wiles frowned:
“The speed you turned the pages just now... was like reading a paper written by yourself. Same. "
"I mean, if they really proposed a new theoretical framework, shouldn't it be very difficult to understand? "
Hearing this question, Hamilton finally raised his head:
“If this paper was written by Perelman alone, I believe it would be the case.”
“But another person The author, Chang Haonan, I found when I reviewed the manuscript last time that the ideas of the paper he wrote are very different from ordinary people, but every step can be written in a place that is not easy for us to understand. "
The same goes for Koncevich. Surprised:
“Can there be such a person?”
Of course he knows that understanding something himself and letting others understand it are two completely different things.
In fact, one of the major problems currently facing the mathematics community is that as research fields continue to be subdivided and the depth of research in a single field increases, it is increasingly difficult for top mathematicians to understand other people. the results achieved.
For a truly influential paper, the review cycle often stretches to several years.
It may not even be possible to find out.
But the ability of Chang Haonan mentioned by Hamilton is completely refreshing in today's context.
"Anyway...what do you think is the probability that they are right?"
Wiles asked.
Hamilton did not answer immediately, but just lowered his head, rubbing his eyebrows and closing his eyes to think.
“I’m afraid no one dares to draw a conclusion on this matter alone.”
After a long time, he finally opened his eyes again:
“Need to ask other people’s opinions.”
“Who?”
“Sergey Novikov, Michael Friedman, Simon Donaldson, Jeff Chigurh, Valentin Benahou..."
He said nearly ten names in a row.
Wiles was secretly frightened when he heard this.
Basically covers all topology experts of the previous generation and this generation.
Including three Fields Medal winners.
But it’s not over yet.
After a slight pause, Hamilton suddenly turned his head:
“In addition, their proof mentioned a lot of physics related to 'energy', 'entropy' and 'temperature'. concept, so we need a mathematician with a background in theoretical physics.”
"Professor Koncevich, I hope you can join us..."
"Okay, now there are four..."
Wiles thought to himself:
"Maybe there is a fifth one..."
(End of this chapter)