https://www.palladiummag.com/2023/03/02/what-genius-looks-like/
"In the year 2000, the Clay Institute of Mathematics selected seven
yet-unsolved “Millennium Prize” problems as the most important in mathematics,
offering a million-dollar cash prize for each correct solution. The first
verified solution, which was for the Poincaré conjecture in 2006, shocked the
academic world and created one of the most infamous
New Yorker cartoons of
the past century. None of the remaining problems have been solved––or even
credibly attempted––until now.
On February 14th, 2023, at the age of eighty-eight, American mathematician
James Glimm released what he believes is a solution to a second.
For the past seven years, Glimm has dedicated himself to the Navier-Stokes
existence and smoothness problem, one of the first steps to cracking the
mystery of turbulence. The Navier-Stokes equations are a series of partial
differential equations that have been used to describe the motion of fluid
since the mid-1800s, but no one has ever proven that they always have smooth
solutions.
By coincidence, I spent a significant amount of time with Glimm over the same
period as he attempted to crack the Navier-Stokes. He and his wife have an
apartment in New York on the Upper East Side, and they often host me in their
spare room. During these trips, I liked to watch Glimm at his large mahogany
desk in the morning, writing on his yellow legal pad or staring into space.
Often, he wakes up in the middle of the night to keep working.
When Glimm and his wife, Adele, got married over sixty years ago, she did not
realize how much time he would dedicate to his work. And yet, she is not
surprised that he has continued pushing so hard and for so long. She says that
Glimm is driven by a desire to impact the world, to add to the sum of
humanity’s knowledge."
Via
Future Crunch:
<
https://futurecrunch.com/good-news-river-restoration-malaria-kenya-teen-pregnancy-new-zealand/>
Share and enjoy,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
