俄天才数学家拒领百万大奖
导读：俄罗斯天才数学家佩雷尔曼3月22日表示，他不接受美国克雷数学研究所颁发的百万美元奖金。该奖金本用来奖励他破解数学界7大难题之一的庞加莱猜想。这位数学隐士(recluse)目前失业在家，全家靠着母亲每月30英镑的退休金相依为命。
一位因拒领百万美元大奖而声名远播的的数学天才，目前和母亲住在圣彼得堡的一个简陋公寓里，两人靠母亲每月30英镑的退休金相依为命，这是因为他多年以来一直失业。
A maths genius who won fame this week for apparently spurning a million-dollar prize is living with his mother in a humble flat in St Petersburg, co-existing on her £30-a-month pension, because he has been unemployed for many years.
《英国周日电讯报》曾有幸追踪到这位特立独行的隐士。他因破解了一个被称为庞加莱猜想的百年难题而震惊数学世界。
The Sunday Telegraph tracked down the eccentric recluse who stunned the maths world when he solved a century-old puzzle known as the Poincaré Conjecture.
格里高利•佩雷尔曼的困境源自发生在2003年他和俄罗斯著名的斯特克罗夫数学研究所的不欢而散。他的一位朋友说，当这个位于圣彼得堡的研究所没有继续选任他为会员时，佩雷尔曼伤心的离去，他觉得自己是一个“完全没有天赋和才气的人”。他信心崩溃，离群索居。
Grigory "Grisha" Perelman's predicament stems from an acrimonious split with a leading Russian mathematical institute, the Steklov, in 2003. When the Institute in St Petersburg failed to re-elect him as a member, Dr Perelman was left feeling an "absolutely ungifted and untalented person", said a friend. He had a crisis of confidence and cut himself off.
另一些朋友说他无法支付去马德里参加国际数学家大会的费用，他的数学同行们希望他去那里接受号称数学界诺贝尔的菲尔兹奖。朋友们表示他过于谦虚，不会要任何人资助他的旅费。
Other friends say he cannot afford to travel to International Mathematical Union's congress in Madrid, where his peers want him to receive the maths equivalent of the Nobel Prize, and that he is too modest to ask anyone to underwrite his trip.
在圣彼得堡接受采访时，佩雷尔曼坚持说他不值得所有这些注目，他对这笔横财也没有兴趣。“我不认为我的话可以引起公众一丁点的兴趣，”他说，“我这么说并非因为注重隐私或有意隐瞒自己所从事的事情。这里没有什么绝密的项目。我只是相信公众对我没有任何兴趣。”
Interviewed in St Petersburg, Dr Perelman insisted that he was unworthy of all the attention, and was uninterested in his windfall. "I do not think anything that I say can be of the slightest public interest," he said. "I am not saying that because I value my privacy, or that I am doing anything I want to hide. There are no top-secret projects going on here. I just believe the public has no interest in me. "
他接着说到：“我知道经常会有自我炒作事件发生，如果别人想这样做，我会祝他们好运，但我并不认为这是件好事。很久以前我就意识到这点了，没有人能够改变我的想法。报纸应该更加能辨别他们的报导对象。他们应当更有品味。在我看来，我无法向他们的读者提供任何东西。”
He continued: "I know that self-promotion happens a lot and if people want to do that, good luck to them, but I do not regard it as a positive thing. I realised this a long time ago and nobody is going to change my mind. Newspapers should be more discerning over who they write about. They should have more taste. As far as I am concerned, I can't offer anything for their readers. "
“我并非与媒体有任何过结，尽管他们杜撰说我的父亲是一位著名物理学家。这没什么，我只是完全不在乎别人怎么写我。”
"I don't base that on any negative experiences with the press, although they have been making up nonsense about my father being a famous physicist. It's just plain and simply that I don't care what anybody writes about me at all."
佩雷尔曼博士在做讲师时存了一点钱，但他好像不太情愿领取克雷数学所颁发的百万美元奖金。这个位于马萨诸塞州剑桥的数学研究所悬赏了七个“千禧难题”，佩雷尔曼破解了其中之一。
Dr Perelman has some small savings from his time as a lecturer, but is apparently reluctant to supplement them with the $1 million (£531,000) offered by the Clay Mathematics Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for solving one of the world's seven "Millennium Problems".
庞加莱猜想最先由法国数学家亨利•庞加莱于1904年提出，是一个关于三维空间形状的问题。
The Poincaré Conjecture was first posed by the French mathematician, Jules Henri Poincaré, in 1904, and seeks to understand the shape of the universe by linking shapes, spaces and surfaces.
朋友们说，佩雷尔曼特有的谦虚表现在，经过十年的工作最终破解庞加莱猜想后，他只是将研究成果放在网上，而不是发表在一些权威杂志上。“如果有人对我的研究方法感兴趣，它们都在那里了 --- 让他们去读吧。”佩雷尔曼说，“我已经公开了我所有的计算步骤，这是我能向公众提供的全部。”
Friends say that evidence of Dr Perelman's innate modesty came when - having finally solved the problem after more than 10 years' work - he simply posted his conclusion on the internet, rather than publishing his explanation in a recognised journal. "If anybody is interested in my way of solving the problem, it's all there - let them go and read about it," said Dr Perelman. "I have published all my calculations. This is what I can offer the public."
My dear friend,if it were you, what would you do ? Will you refuse the million-dollar prize ? |
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发表于 2010-3-26 10:19:08
