Chapter 1040: Can I still win three awards at once?
This result exceeded almost everyone’s expectations, including Chang Haonan.
According to 1998, the Gauss Prize will be awarded to scholars who have made great contributions in the field of applied mathematics.
Although Chang Haonan has made many achievements in the field of applied mathematics, he has almost never published his results in the form of papers, and the Poincaré conjecture does not seem to be easily related to applied mathematics.
However, Paris seemed to have no intention of further explanation. He just put down the envelope and paper in his hand and motioned for the winner to come to the stage to receive the award.
There's nothing unusual about this.
The difference between mathematics and applied mathematics itself is not so clear.
Especially since technology has developed to this day, it is really not easy to find the so-called pure mathematics that is completely "simple and useless".
Including those unpopular number theory directions that were considered to be of only interest value a century ago, after the advent of the information age, they have each found their own fields of application.
So, I have to say that Chang Haonan and Perelman have contributed to the application field...
No one can refute that.
Of course, there will definitely be some scholars in the field of real applied mathematics who have some opinions on this, but at most they are just grumbling in their hearts.
Even if you want to question it, you can only wait until the next session to see the situation——
If it is still awarded to a scholar who is more theoretical, and the other party does not have the hard core of Poincaré’s theorem As a result, it’s not too late to sort things out together.
And in fact, after hearing that Chang Haonan and Perelman won the Gauss Prize, there was a group of people who were very happy.
That is, several other scholars who are also candidates for the Philippine Prize.
This is easy to understand.
A total of four awards will be presented today.
The Newanglina Award is completely irrelevant to most people’s research directions.
There are three more.
You two have already claimed two of them together.
As a matter of fact, it’s someone else’s turn to be the last one, right?
The scope of competition for the Philippine Awards is inherently very narrow, and the number of possible winners in each session is no more than two hands.
The denominator is missing two at a time, which is great news for others.
After all, we are all competitors, so it would be very honorable not to step on each other and stab each other.
It can only be called human nature to rejoice in the misfortune of two people who have a high probability of being eliminated. There is nothing to criticize.
In short, amidst the thunderous applause and the attention of the audience, Chang Haonan and Perelman, who were still a little dazed, had to leave their seats and after each paying tribute to the surroundings, Walk up to the stage.
The Gauss Medal is also a round golden medal, but its shape is much simpler. It only has Gauss's portrait, full name, awarding organization, and three lines of letters "For Applied Mathematics" printed on it.
Not to mention a strange person like Perelman who refused to accept the Philippine Award in another timeline, even Chang Haonan did not have any psychological fluctuations about this.
In fact, even he began to feel that he might miss this Fields Medal.
Therefore, in his acceptance speech, he directly changed the content he prepared for the Philippine Prize and said it:
“I am very grateful to the International Mathematical Union and the German Mathematicians Union for their support of me. The affirmation of the research results is the Poincaré conjecture, that is, "a simply connected closed three-dimensional manifold is a three-dimensional sphere." This concept itself is pure and abstract, and does not seem to have any practical value. In fact, because its description is too simple and intuitive, it is often It gives people who are not majoring in mathematics an illusion that they are complaining for nothing.”
When he said this, everyone in the audience, including Paris and Perelman, who had already spoken next to him, showed understanding. Smile——
The abstract nature of Poincaré’s conjecture and the simplicity of its description form an extreme contrast.
So much so that in the absence of sufficient professional training, it is impossible to understand the conjecture itself simply by relying on the textual meaning of the conjecture.
This also makes civil science rarely able to touch this research direction.
This is in sharp contrast to the field of number theory, which is eager to receive 10,000 spam submissions every day.
After a slight pause, Chang Haonan continued:
“However, Thurston’s geometric program presented the scenery of three-dimensional manifolds to the world, and Hamilton’s Ricci flow was The Riemann metric constructed by curvature provides a powerful tool. In the process of proving the Poincaré conjecture, with the development of computer technology, the development cycle from pure theory to applied algorithm is getting shorter and shorter. Also benefiting from the development of computer technology, pure theory The boundaries between mathematics and applied mathematics are gradually beginning to be broken..."
"..."
"In practice, the application of Ricci flow on two-dimensional surfaces has gradually begun, and our research has proven that the application of Ricci flow on three-dimensional manifolds is more profound and powerful. Although the topology of three-dimensional manifolds and geometric knowledge are far from universal, but as a faithful depiction of natural truths, we believe that this mathematical tool will become a powerful weapon in rewriting the historical process in the future..."
"..."
Although he looked calm on the surface, after actually returning to his seat with the medal, Chang Haonan discovered that his shirt was almost soaked with sweat. Obviously, in this situation, it would be a lie to say that I was not nervous at all.
At this time, Charles Feiffman, who just wanted to play a prank, came over again.
"Chang, don't worry, you are too young. I believe you will win the award in 4 years..."
Chang Haonan lowered his head and looked at the Gauss Medal in his hand for a while, then closed the box and raised his head. Look Fefferman straight in the eye.
After watching for a while, he was sure that the other party was indeed here to comfort him.
It’s just that the method of comfort is a bit unreasonable...
"Okay, thank you for your... blessing."
Chang Haonan sighed.
Deligne also interjected at this time:
"Actually, Fefferman is very optimistic about you, he just... is not very good at organizing language."
He is very familiar with Feifman's mouth.
If I don’t follow up with an explanation, there might be some misunderstanding.
It's not like it hasn't happened in the past.
"Yes, I also bet $1,000 on you to win the prize...I'm afraid it's going to be in vain now..."
Feffman continued, just because he was half-joking Chang Haonan's tone made it difficult to guess whether it was true or false.
But the other party has no ill intentions, that’s for sure.
While the three of them were chatting back and forth, Paris once again came on stage holding an envelope of the same style.
This time, it has to be the Fields Medal anyway.
However, perhaps it is because we have already experienced a round of crying wolf just now.
It may also be that after removing the two competitors, there are only four candidates with clear prospects left.
Although the venue became quiet again, the atmosphere was no longer as depressing and anxious as last time.
Everyone waited for the final announcement of the results with a more relaxed attitude.
"Ahem——"
Paris deliberately coughed twice to show off.
But he also knows that today’s participants have been dragged away for too long.
So he soon returned to his original solemn and calm voice:
“From the moment he was born out of the sky to the groundbreaking moment, what he pursued was to realize the magnificence of geometric structure and the truth of nature. Profound..."
"In his research on differential geometry and topology, he provided new tools for people to understand the shape of the world and the universe..."
"..."
At the beginning, people still I heard it with great interest.
But as time went on, everyone felt that something was not right.
This description...why does it feel a bit familiar?
I don’t know when, but the first gaze looked in the direction of Chang Haonan and Perelman again.
Immediately afterwards, everyone realized one thing one after another.
“Why do you feel it’s still the two of them?”
Until Paris pointed out Poincaré’s conjecture at the end, the answer was already very clear.
Not to mention other people, even Chang Haonan himself was numb——
No, buddy?
Did I just say all the acceptance speeches I prepared?
Could you let me make up another one?
(End of this chapter)