Chapter 837 Luxurious Review Lineup

Wiles, who loved to watch the fun, suddenly felt a little impatient.

There is a high probability that he cannot understand this paper.

So you need to find a professional.

Even so-called professionals may not be able to understand it immediately.

But at least we can confirm whether there are any obvious omissions.

Perelman is certainly not a folk scientist, but there have been many cases in history where mathematicians thought they had solved an important problem, but were found to have made mistakes at an early stage.

Especially judging from the rather lengthy nature of this paper, I'm afraid it will involve some new theoretical frameworks.

Generally speaking, thanks to the rapid development of academic journals and the Internet, even if today's mathematicians need to invent the wheel from scratch, they have enough opportunities to take the wheel out separately and show it to everyone first, so as to avoid the situation of "finding out that the wheels are square after the car is built".

But the current situation is obviously unusual.

According to Wiles's speculation, the two authors may have been working for many years to prove the Poincare conjecture.

And this paper should be the sum of all their work.

As for the previous article in Annals of Mathematics...

It is likely that this article was published just to avoid the author named Chang Haonan appearing too abruptly.

Well, that must be the case.

Thinking of this, Wiles looked around and asked Koncevic next to him:

"I remember...Richard Hamilton is here today too?"

When he opened the paper just now, he noticed that the concept of "Ricci flow" was mentioned many times in the abstract at the beginning.

Even though Wiles did not study topology, he knew who the experts were in this field.

"I think I've seen him on the other side of the venue before."

Koncevic replied.

"Let's go find him."

Wiles didn't care that Arthur Jeff was still answering questions on the stage. He immediately left his seat with his laptop and pulled Koncevic through the aisle in the middle of the venue to the other side.

Arash was a little confused by the scene in front of him, but he had no choice but to quickly catch up with his mentor.

Fortunately, there were more than a thousand people attending the conference today, and everyone's attention was focused on the front, so few people noticed that two Fields Medal winners were running around in the middle of the venue like thieves...

Koncevic has a good memory.

Under his guidance, the three of them soon found Hamilton, who was sitting in the second row on the right side of the venue.

The latter was listening with pleasure to Arthur Jeff's explanation of why the famous Goldbach conjecture was not included in the seven major problems, and was obviously in a good mood.

After all, I have always firmly believed that using the Ricci flow equations, it would be possible to prove Thurston's geometrization conjecture and the Poincare conjecture.

"Professor Wiles? Professor Kontsevich?"

Hamilton subconsciously wanted to get up.

These two people still have a certain status in the mathematics community.

Especially Andrew Wiles.

Although some people believe that his proof method does not meet Fermat's description of "exquisite", there may be other ways to prove Fermat's Last Theorem.

But no matter what, this problem that lasted for 350 years and stumped many great people such as Gauss, Euler, and Hilbert was finally solved by Wiles.

This alone makes him one of the most influential mathematicians of our time.

However, Wiles was quick to stop Hamilton's action:

"Professor Hamilton, this morning, to be exact, just now, my students saw a paper."

He said as he opened his laptop and placed it on the small table in front of him.

Hamilton thought to himself that he couldn't wait to read the paper, so why did he have 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 how to prove the Poincare conjecture, and now a paper comes out saying that it has been proved?

“Which publishing house received this submission?”

Hamilton asked almost subconsciously before checking the specific content.

Wiles looked at Arash beside him and shook his head:

"It's not a publishing house, it's the arXiv website. Maybe you've heard of it."

"Of course I know that. The website's URL is on the upper left corner of the document."

Hamilton pointed to the computer screen and continued:

"I mean, when an author posts an article on arXiv, he or she must submit it to a journal, right?"

There was silence.

Obviously, no one can give an answer.

It is already very abnormal for such a paper to appear on arXiv, and it is also normal for something even more abnormal to happen later...

Hamilton had no choice but to scroll down the document.

Then, I saw a familiar name.

It's not Perelman, but Chang Haonan.

About half a year ago, he saw the author's article while reviewing for the Annals of Mathematics.

Hamilton could even remember the content of the article clearly.

One of the conclusions is that topological surgery performed using Ricci flow can be used to construct geometric structures, thereby transforming irregular manifolds into regular manifolds.

That conclusion played a significant role in boosting his status in the academic community.

Since Chang Haonan chose the Annals of Mathematics to submit his paper last time, it seems reasonable to continue to choose the Annals of Mathematics this time, even if it is out of inertia...

Hamilton even wanted to take out his cell phone and call Michael Lagstedt to ask if there was any such article to submit.

But in the end I endured it.

On the one hand, after all, we are all scholars, so we should be more reserved.

More importantly, he has now seen the paper.

And the publisher, whatever it was, obviously hadn’t seen it yet.

Otherwise, for such a big matter, we should have directly contacted all the well-known scholars in the relevant fields.

This means that compared to his peers such as John Morgan, Bruce Kleiner, and Valentine Benahou, he has already won at the starting line.

When an editor saw it and asked someone to review it, he, as a representative of geometric topology, saw the paper earlier than others.

It is very likely that you can serve as the leader of the review team.

No need to add extraneous details.

With this thought in mind, Hamilton turned his attention back to the computer screen.

This is how academic work works. The authors of papers only need to focus on scientific research, while the reviewers have to consider many things...

However, it didn't last long.

Hamilton's smile gradually froze on his face.

Although Ricci flow is mentioned many times in the abstract and introduction, and even his work on introducing Ricci flow into topology is cited, but...

Not quite the same.

"How's it going, Professor Hamilton?"

Looking at Hamilton, whose expression was changing unpredictably, Wiles asked.

"Something's wrong..."

Hamilton muttered.

Wiles was stunned, thinking that the other party had discovered the error in the paper:

"Ah... there is still a problem..."

Although it was expected, it is still a bit regrettable.

Firstly, I was not able to truly witness history.

Secondly, I didn’t get to see the seven difficult math problems turned into six fun ones on the spot.

However, Hamilton shook his head:

“It’s not that there’s a problem with the paper.”

Three doubtful looks were cast at him.

"It's me who has the problem..."

"Ah?"

Wiles was somewhat confused by this sentence:

"Aren't you the founder of the Ricci flow theory?"

"Yeah...I used to think so."

Hamilton still stared at the screen:

“But now I’m not so sure…”

"What...what do you mean?"

Kongcevich, who had been silent until now, looked puzzled.

Hamilton shook his head in annoyance.

"Although they also used the Richie Flow, their ideas... are completely different."

"Look here, they built the Ricci flow into the Lindelof space."

"And here, I am operating on the Ricci flow to find and eliminate the singularity before it occurs. This is what I have been working on for the past decade..."

"..."

In just the first five pages of the paper, Hamilton listed more than a dozen key points.

These are all the 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 at which you turned the pages just now... was like reading a paper you wrote yourself."

"I mean, if they really came up with a whole new theoretical framework, shouldn't it be very difficult to understand?"

Hearing this question, Hamilton finally looked up:

“If Perelman had written the paper alone, I believe that would have been the case.”

"But when I reviewed the paper of another author, Chang Haonan, I found that his ideas were very different from those of ordinary people, but each step was written in a way that was difficult for us to understand."

Kong Cevic was also surprised:

"Can there be such a person?"

Of course he knew that understanding something and making others understand it were two completely different things.

In fact, a major problem currently facing the mathematics community is that with the continuous subdivision of research fields and the increase in the depth of research in a single field, it is becoming increasingly difficult for top mathematicians to understand the achievements of others.

For a truly influential paper, the review cycle often takes several years.

It may not even be possible to judge it.

The ability of Chang Haonan, as described by Hamilton, is completely a breath of fresh air in today's context.

"Anyway...what do you think the probability is that they are right?"

Wiles inquired.

Hamilton did not answer immediately. He just lowered his head, rubbed his eyebrows and closed 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:

“We need to ask other people for their opinions.”

"Who?"

"Sergey Novikov, Michael Friedman, Simon Donaldson, Jeff Chiger, Valentin Benahou..."

He mentioned nearly ten names in a row.

Wiles was secretly shocked when he heard this.

It basically covers all topology experts of the previous generation and this generation.

Among them are three Fields Medal winners.

However, it is not over yet.

After a brief pause, Hamilton suddenly turned his head again:

"In addition, their proof involves a lot of physical concepts such as 'energy', 'entropy' and 'temperature', so we need a mathematician with a theoretical physics background."

"Professor Kongtsevich, I hope you can join us..."

"Well, now that's four..."

Wiles thought:

"Perhaps there is a fifth..."