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 idea 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 distinction between mathematics and applied mathematics itself is not so clear-cut.
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 have only interesting value a century ago, after the advent of the information age, they have also found their own fields of application.
Therefore, 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 the award is still given to a scholar who is partial to theory, and the other party does not have hard-core results such as Poincaré's theorem, then it is not too late to settle the matter together.
And in fact, after hearing that Chang Haonan and Perelman won the Gauss Award, there were still 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 were presented today.
Among them, the Newanglinna Award has nothing to do with most people's research directions.
There are three more.
You two have already claimed two of them together.
So it's reasonable to say that 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.
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 respectable if we don't try to step on each other's knives.
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, under the thunderous applause and the attention of the audience, Chang Haonan and Perelman, who were still a little dazed, had to leave their seats, each greeted the surroundings, and then walked 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, during his acceptance speech, he directly changed the content he prepared for the Philippine Award and said it:
"I am very grateful to the International Mathematical Union and the German Mathematicians Union for their recognition of my research results. Poincaré's 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 be It has no practical value, and even because its description is too simple and intuitive, it often gives people who are not majoring in mathematics an illusion.”
When he said this, everyone in the audience, including Paris and Perelman, who had already spoken next to him, all showed knowing smiles—
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 stark contrast to the field of number theory, which receives 10,000 spam submissions every day.
After a slight pause, Chang Haonan continued:
"However, Thurston's geometry program presented the landscape of three-dimensional manifolds to the world, and Hamilton's Ricci flow provided a powerful tool for curvature to construct the Riemannian metric. In the process of proving the Poincaré conjecture, following the computer With the development of technology, the development cycle from pure theory to applied algorithms is getting shorter and shorter. Also thanks to the development of computer technology, the boundaries between pure 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 portrayal of natural truths, we believe that this mathematical tool will become a powerful weapon in rewriting the course of history 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 Feifman, 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 to look directly into Fefferman's eyes.
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...
"Well, thank you for your... blessing."
Chang Haonan sighed.
Deligne also interjected at this time:
"Actually, Fefferman is very optimistic about you, he just... isn't very good at organizing words."
He was very familiar with Feifman's mouth.
If I didn't explain it later, 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 all in vain now..."
Feifman continued, but because of his half-joking tone, Chang Haonan couldn't 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 experienced a round of crying wolf just now.
Or maybe 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 is waiting for the final announcement of the results with a more relaxed attitude.
"Ahem—"
Paris deliberately coughed twice and gave it a try.
But he also knew that today's participants had been dragged away for too long.
So he quickly returned to his original solemn and calm voice:
"From the moment of his birth to the groundbreaking, what he pursues is to realize the magnificence of geometric structure and the profundity of natural truth..."
"In his studies of differential geometry and topology, he provided completely new tools for understanding the shape of the world and the universe..."
At first, people were quite interested.
But as time goes by, everyone feels that something is not right.
Just 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 the Poincaré 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 please let me make up another one?
(End of chapter)
Chapter end
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