2006-09-07

部分纽约客被访者致丘成桐的澄清信

纽约客杂志报道的原文地址是:http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060828fa_fact2
这里也有一篇中文的译文:http://bbs.hoopchina.com/htm_data/39/0608/119657.html

三联frankmw在其博客发表《再说庞莱明猜想一文》后,网友给出一些资料表明,纽约客杂志的报道是偏颇的。这些资料是几个被采访者知丘成桐澄清信,分别如下。

MIT数学系Dan Stroock教授所作的澄清
Clarification
I, like several others whom Sylvia Nasar interviewed, am shocked and angered by the article which she and Gruber wrote for the New Yorker. Having seen Yau in action during his June conference on string theory, Nasar led me to believe that she was fascinated by S-T Yau and asked me my opinion about his activities. I told her that I greatly admire Yau's efforts to support young Chinese mathematicians and to break down the ossified power structure in the Chinese academic establishment. I then told her that I sometimes have doubts about his methodology. In particular, I told her that, at least to my ears, Yau weakens his case and lays himself open to his enemies by sounding too self-promoting.
As it appears in her article, she has purposefully distorted my statement and made it unforgivably misleading. Like the rest of us, Yau has his faults, but, unlike most of us, his virtues outweigh his faults. Unfortunately, Nasar used my statement to bolster her case that the opposite is true, and for this I cannot forgive her.

纽约石溪分校数学系教授Michael Anderson致丘先生信件
Dear Yau,
I am furious, and completely shocked, at what Sylvia Nasar wrote. Her quote of me is completely wrong and baseless. There are other factual mistakes in the article, in addition to those you pointed out.
I have left her phone and email messages this evening and hope to speak to her tomorrow at the latest to clear this up. I want her to remove this statement completely from the article. It serves no purpose and contains no factual inxxxxation; I view it as stupid gossip unworthy of a paper like the New Yorker. At the moment, the print version has not appeared and so it might be possible to fix this still. I spent several hours with S. Nasar on the phone talking about Perelman, Poincare, etc but it seems I was too naive (and I'm now disgusted) in believing this journalist would report factually.
I regret very much this quote falsely attributed to me and will do whatever I can to have it removed.
I will keep you inxxxxed as I know more.
Yours, Michael

Anderson澄清Nasar对他的歪曲引用
Many of you have probably seen the New Yorker article by Sylvia Nasar and David Gruber on Perelman and the Poincare conjecture.
In many respects, its very interesting and a pleasure to read. However, it contains a number of inaccuracies and downright errors.
I spent several hours talking with Sylvia Nasar trying to dissuade her from incorporating the Tian-Yau fights into the article, since it was completely irrelevant and I didn't see the point of dragging readers through the mud.
Obviously I was not successful.
The quote attributed to me on Yau is completely inaccurate and distorted from some remarks I made to her in a quite different context; I made it explicit to her that the remarks I was making in that context were purely speculative and had no basis in fact. I did not give her my permission to quote me on this, even with the qualification of speculation.
There are other inaccuracies about Stony Brook. One for instance is the implication that Tian at MIT was the first to invite Perelman to the US to give talks. This is of course false - we at Stony Brook were the first to do so. I stressed in my talks with her the role Stony Brook played, yet she focusses on the (single) talk Grisha gave at Princeton, listing a collection of eminent mathematicians, none of whom is a geometer/topologist.
I was not given an opportunity to set the record straight with the New Yorker before publication; this was partly because I was travelling in Europe at the time this happened, and there was a rush to publish; the publication date is the same as the announcement date of the Fields Medals I think. I was not sent an advance copy of the article for checking. I spoke with Sylvia on the phone this morning, to no avail.
I've also had some email correspondence with Yau on the matter over the last day. I apologized to him and expressed my anger and frustration about what was done, confirming to him the quote attributed to me is false and baseless. (The email to Yau is now already posted on a Chinese blog site!).
I've learned my lesson on dealing with the media the hard and sour way and am still considering what path to pursue to try to rectify the situation, to the extent still possible.
Sincerely,
Mike

普林斯顿大学数学系教授Joe Kohn致丘先生信件
Dear Yau,
I learned from Andreea that you were very hurt by my remarks quoted in the New Yorker. I did not mean to hurt you. You are universally recognized as one of the foremost mathematicians of our times, which explains my first remark. I know how deeply you care about Chinese mathematics and therefore I assume that you would like to be as effective as possible in your leadership of the Chinese mathematical community - and this explains my second remark.
Best regards,
Joe

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