Breakthrough of the Year

The solution of a century-old

mathematics problem turns out
to be a bittersweet prize

TO MATHEMATICIANS, GRIGORI PERELMAN’S Unruly spaces detecting holes, twists, and other features in

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proof of the Poincaré conjecture qualifies at Henri Poincaré, who posed his spaces of any dimension. He conjectured
least as the Breakthrough of the Decade. problem in 1904, is generally that a 3D space cannot hide any interesting
But it has taken them a good part of regarded as the founder of topology from the fundamental group. That
that decade to convince themselves topology, the first mathemati- is, a 3D space with a “trivial” fundamental
that it was for real. In 2006, nearly cian to clearly distinguish it from group must be a hypersphere: the boundary
4 years after the Russian mathe- analysis (the branch of mathematics of a ball in 4D space.
matician released the first of that evolved from calculus) and geome- Although simple to state, Poincaré’s conjec-
three papers outlining the try. Topology is often described as “rubber- ture proved maddeningly difficult to prove. By
proof, researchers f inally sheet geometry,” because it deals with proper- the early 1980s, mathematicians had proved
reached a consensus that Perel- ties of surfaces that can undergo arbitrary analogous statements for spaces of every
man had solved one of the subject’s most vener- amounts of stretching. Tearing and its oppo- dimension higher than three—but not for the
able problems. But the solution touched off a site, sewing, are not allowed. original one that Poincaré had pondered.
storm of controversy and drama that threatened Our bodies, and most of the familiar To make progress, topologists reached for a
to overshadow the brilliant work. objects they interact with, have three dimen- tool they had neglected: a way to specify dis-
Perelman’s proof has fundamentally altered sions. Their surfaces, however, have only two. As tance. They set about recombining topology
two distinct branches of mathematics. First, it far as topology is concerned, two-dimensional with geometry. In 1982, William Thurston
solved a problem that for more than a century surfaces with no boundary (those that wrap (now of Cornell University) theorized that
was the indigestible seed at the core of topol- around and close in on themselves, as our skin every 3D space can be carved up so that each
ogy, the mathematical study of abstract shape. does) have essentially only one distinguishing piece has a unique uniform geometry,

CREDITS (TOP TO BOTTOM): CAMERON SLAYDEN/SCIENCE; EPA/CORBIS; HULTON-DEUTSCH COLLECTION/CORBIS

Most mathematicians expect that the work will feature: the number of holes and that those geometries
lead to a much broader result, a proof of in the surface. A surface come in only eight possible
the geometrization conjecture: essentially, a with no holes is a sphere; a types. This hypothesis
“periodic table” that brings clarity to the surface with one hole is a became known as the geo-
study of three-dimensional spaces, much as torus; and so on. A sphere metrization conjecture.
Mendeleev’s table did for chemistry. can never be turned into a If true, Thurston’s insight
While bringing new results to topology, torus, or vice versa. would solve the Poincaré
Perelman’s work brought new techniques to Three-dimensional conjecture, because a sphere
geometry. It cemented the central role of geo- objects with 2D surfaces, is the only one of the eight
metric evolution equations, powerful machin- however, are just the begin- geometries that admits a
ery for transforming hard-to-work-with spaces ning. For example, it is trivial fundamental group.
into more-manageable ones. Earlier studies of possible to define curved In 1982, Richard Hamilton
such equations always ran into “singularities” 3D spaces as boundaries of (now of Columbia Univer-
at which the equations break down. Perelman 4D objects. Human beings sity) proposed a possible
dynamited that roadblock. can only dimly visualize strategy for proving it: Start
“This is the first time that mathemati- such spaces, but mathemati- with any lumpy space, and
cians have been able to understand the struc- cians can use symbolic nota- then let it flow toward a uni-
ture of singularities and the development of tion to describe them and form one. The result would
such a complicated system,” said Shing- explore their properties. be a tidy “geometrized”
Tung Yau of Harvard University at a lecture Poincaré developed an space à la Thurston. To
in Beijing this summer. “The methods devel- ingenious tool, called the guide the flow, Hamilton
oped … should shed light on many natural “fundamental group,” for proposed a geometric evolu-
systems, such as the Navier-Stokes equation tion equation modeled after
[of fluid dynamics] and the Einstein equa- Enigma. Perelman (top) solved the heat equation of physics
tion [of general relativity].” Poincaré’s problem. and named it “Ricci flow” in

1848 22 DECEMBER 2006 VOL 314 SCIENCE www.sciencemag.org

Published by AAAS
 Fascinating. A computer rendering of a 3D space
with uniform hyperbolic geometry.

honor of Gregorio Ricci-Curbastro, an early

differential geometer. In Ricci flow, regions of
high curvature tend to diffuse out into the
regions of lower curvature, until the space has
equal curvature throughout.
Hamilton’s strategy works perfectly in
2D surfaces. Slender “necks,” like the one seen
on the cover of this issue, always expand. In
3D spaces, however, Ricci flow can run into
snags. Necks sometimes pinch off, separating
the space into regions with different uniform
geometries. Although Hamilton did a great
deal of pioneering work on Ricci flow, he
could not tame the singularities. As a result, the
whole program of research seemed to run

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aground in the mid-1990s. In 2000, when
the Clay Mathematics Institute named the Poin-
caré conjecture as one of its $1 million Millen-
nium Prize problems, most mathematicians
believed that no breakthrough was in sight.

The breakthrough
In fact, Perelman was already well on his way
to a solution. In 1995, the 29-year-old
St. Petersburg native had returned to Russia In 2003, when Perelman revisited the Anticlimax
after a 3-year sojourn in the United States, United States to lecture on his work, many Since then, the rosy glow of triumph has taken
where he had met Hamilton and learned about mathematicians doubted that he could have on darker hues. On 22 August, IMU President
Ricci flow. For the next 7 years, he remained pulled off all of these feats. By 2006, however, John Ball announced that Perelman had
mostly incommunicado. Then, in November the mathematical community had finally declined the Fields Medal. In an interview in
2002, Perelman posted on the Internet the first caught up. Three separate manuscripts, each The New Yorker, the reclusive mathematician
of three preprints outlining a proposed proof of more than 300 pages in length, filled in key said he was retiring from mathematics, dis-
the geometrization conjecture. missing details of Perelman’s proof. enchanted by unspecified lapses in “ethical
To experts, it was immediately clear that Two of the papers—one authored by standards” by colleagues. The New Yorker arti-
Perelman had made a major breakthrough. It Bruce Kleiner and John Lott of the University cle also painted an unflattering portrait of Yau,
was in the title of the first sec- of Michigan, Ann Arbor, intimating that he had claimed too much credit
tion of the first paper: “Ricci BREAKTHROUGH the other by John Mor- for his protégés Cao and Zhu.
Flow as a Gradient Flow.” ONLINE gan of Columbia Uni- In the ensuing months, hard feelings have
Perelman had spotted an impor- For an expanded version of this versity and Gang Tian of abounded. Certain mathematicians claimed
tant detail that Hamilton had section, with references and links, the Massachusetts Insti- that their quotes were distorted in the New
missed: a quantity that always see www.sciencemag.org/sciext/ tute of Technology in Yorker, and Yau threatened to sue. Kleiner and
increases during the flow, giving btoy2006 Cambridge—stopped Lott complained that Cao and Zhu had copied
it a direction. By analogy with short of the geometriza- a proof of theirs and claimed it as original, and
statistical mechanics, the mathematics under- tion conjecture, because Perelman’s explana- the latter pair grudgingly printed an erratum
lying the laws of thermodynamics, Perelman tion of the final step had been too sketchy. acknowledging Kleiner and Lott’s priority.
called the quantity “entropy.” (Both groups are still working on it.) They did, This fall, the American Mathematical Soci-
The entropy ruled out specific singularities however, include enough math to nail down the ety attempted to organize an all-star panel on
that had stymied Hamilton. To reach a safe har- Poincaré conjecture. the Poincaré and geometrization conjectures at
CREDIT: CHARLES GUNN/TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY BERLIN

bor, however, Perelman still had to identify the The third paper, by Huai-Dong Cao of its January 2007 meeting in New Orleans,
remaining types of singularities that might Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylva- Louisiana. According to Executive Director
cause problems. He had to show that they nia, and Xi-Ping Zhu of Zhongshan Univer- John Ewing, the effort fell apart when Lott
occurred one at a time instead of accumulating sity in Guangzhou, China, was less circum- refused to share the stage with Zhu. Ewing still
in an infinite pileup. Then, for each singularity, spect. Cao and Zhu claimed to have “the hopes to organize such an event “at some time
he had to show how to prune and smooth it first written account of a complete proof of in the future.” For the time being, however, the
before it could sabotage Ricci flow. Those the Poincaré conjecture and the geometriza- animosity continues to make it hard for mathe-
steps would be enough to prove Poincaré. To tion conjecture of Thurston.” This summer, maticians to celebrate their greatest break-
complete the geometrization conjecture, Perel- the International Mathematical Union through of the new millennium.
man had to show, additionally, that the “Ricci (IMU) decided to award Perelman the Fields –DANA MACKENZIE
flow with surgery” procedure could be contin- Medal, traditionally considered the highest Dana Mackenzie is a freelance science writer in Santa
ued for an infinitely long time. honor in mathematics. Cruz, California.

www.sciencemag.org SCIENCE VOL 314 22 DECEMBER 2006 1849

Published by AAAS
 The Poincaré Conjecture--Proved
Dana Mackenzie (December 22, 2006)
Science 314 (5807), 1848-1849. [doi:
10.1126/science.314.5807.1848]

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