Poincaré Conjecture - solved?

[TransformX]

Seems like this man: Grigori 'Grisha' Yakovlevich Perelman has truely succeeded where so many others have failed, solving the Poincaré Conjecture.
Roumors claim that he'll receive the Fields medal for his achievement, assuming he'll show up at the ceremony.. Apparently, the man is more than slightly eccentric and has already turned down a 1m USD prize before.

[Dr Mordrid]

Sounds like the guy in "Pi"

If he doesn't want the prize I'll take it and apply it to solving the biggest mathematical challenge in Michigan: my wifes checkbook

[Gurm]

What puzzles me is that this has been proven for 40+ years now for 4, 5, and more values of n, but the n=3 proof was somehow elusive?

[TnT]

There is a really good NYT article. Dr. Perelman after giving a world wind tour of speeches has disappeared to his home region where he says he likes to go hiking.

5+ was proven 45 years ago, but 4 was proven in '82. http://mathworld.wolfram.com/PoincareConjecture.html

[Gurm]

There is a really good NYT article. Dr. Perelman after giving a world wind tour of speeches has disappeared to his home region where he says he likes to go hiking.

5+ was proven 45 years ago, but 4 was proven in '82. http://mathworld.wolfram.com/PoincareConjecture.html

Yeah, it seems like maybe people were getting bogged down with the "numbers we can actually work with" thing. Sometimes it's easier to prove the abstracts because you CAN'T visualize them. I know that in Calculus I always found it EASIER to work with surfaces in n dimensions than it was to work with them in, say, 4 dimensions. Because you OUGHT to be able to at least partially conceptualize 4 dimensions, but n is completely arbitrary.