September 11, 2006

Dear Colleague,

    There is a fascinating article on mathematics and mathematicians in The New Yorker, August 28. I was going to say an "inspiring" article, but didn't because, although it does contain much that is inspiring, it also contains much that is—sad to say—depressingly human. Doubly sad for me, as a Chinese-American. Why? Well, the depressing part comes from the attitude of a Chinese mathematician and the inspiring part comes from the attitude of a Russian mathematician. The Russian, Grigory Perelman, is depicted as an idealistic genius who found the proof of Poincare's conjecture, one of the great puzzles of modern mathematics. He did so without fanfare, and when he was offered the Field Medal, the highest honor in the world of mathematics, he refused it on the ground that being able to come up with a solution was its own reward. And now it looks like that he will also turn down the monetary prize for his work, one that is worth one million dollars. Amazing, isn't it? I am reminded of Paul Erdos, that other great mathematician of our time, who was equally unworldly: he lived in his suitcase, essentially homeless, and the prize money he earned he gave to needy graduate students.

    The New Yorker article points out that China is now a powerhouse in mathematics. It has at least two Field Medallists—Shing-tung Yau and Terence Tao—and quite a few other rising young stars in the wings. Unfortunately, Shing-tung Yau, currently China's senior mathematician, is made out to be an empire builder, very much interested in his own reputation and that of his students, and it now appears that he is telling the mathematic world that he and his students have come up with the real proof—the complete proof—of Poincare's conjecture, and that Perelman deserves credit only to the extent that he has made a contribution. Yau is burdened by Chinese society's high esteem for the scholar-official. Being a scholar is not enough. One also has to be somebody in the governmental hierarchy. Compare Yau and Perelman in the 1990s: the one liked to hobnob with President Jiang Zemin, the other was content to eat Chicken Kiev at home with mom.

    Tai-Fu and I were comparing Chinese and Western civilizations over the phone, the stimulus for it being The New Yorker article. We concluded sadly that in every major human intellectual and artistic endeavor China lagged behind the West. We Chinese were wonderfully ingenious in technology: in mechanical engineering we were more than a match for the West until early modern times. But we didn't have theoretical physics and chemistry. In painting, Chinese artists were Impressionists long before Europeans, and Chinese landscape painting is a uniquely inspired contribution to the world of art. In poetry, we may also be said to excel. One reason is that the Chinese language is far better suited to rhyming than are European languages. Another is that first-rate Chinese poets—e.g., Tu Fu and Li Pai of the T'ang dynasty—matched Western poets in sheer indifference to "what will people say? what will people think?"

    China will never be absolutely first-rate until it learns to be touched by divine madness. When will it come? The good news is that the West—even individualistic America—is becoming more and more Chinese in wanting to be professional, connected, and official.

Best wishes,

Yi-Fu