"The genius who came in from the cold"
(来自前苏联的天才)
That's how Stéphane Foucart, writing in Le Monde (online edition, March 26, 2009), characterizes Mikhail Gromov. His winning of the 2009 Abel Prize had just been announced.
“来自寒带的天才”——Stéphane Foucart在法国的《世界报》（2009年3月26日）上就是这样描写Mikhail Gromov的。Gromov获得2009年的Abel奖的消息当时刚刚宣布。
Misha Gromov（米沙.格罗莫夫）
Foucart interviewed some of Misha's peers for his profile
of the renowned geometer. Jean-Pierre Bourguignon describes him as "a
conceptualizer, someone who in just one article will string out a
hundred theorems which the mathematical community will take ten or
fifteen years to absorb." Marcel Berger attributes to Einstein the
statement that one only gets to have one or two ideas in one's life,
and goes on to say "Misha Gromov has had five or six." Foucart fills in
some background by quoting from an interview Misha gave to the
physicist Georges Ripka, published in "Vivre savant sous le communisme"
by Editions Belin in 2002. "I had wanted to emigrate [from the Soviet
Union] ever since I was 14." Bourguignon explains how he managed it,
leaving the university in the early 1970s, cutting off all contact with
the mathematical community and stopping all written mathematical work.
The idea was to become obscure enough to be allowed, as a Jew, to
emigrate to Israel. This happened in 1974, but Gromov changed route in
Rome and came to Stony Brook instead. Bourguignon: "Those were
extraordinary years. He was so to speak 'debriefed' by the Long Island
mathematicians, and was able to spill out all that he had kept in his
head and had not been able to write down during his years of
'mathematical clandestinity.' We were astounded."
In a companion article
("From Poincaré to Gromov, a French tradition") Foucart explains how
the French educational system, and especially the écoles normales
supérieures, funnel the best students towards universities and
research. （在前面这篇文章的姊妹篇"从庞卡莱到 Gromov 看法国传统"中，Foucart 解释了法国的高等教育体系，特别是他们的高等师范学校体系，是怎样把最好的学生培养成大学和研究机构的主力军的） And Gromov himself gives an analysis of the difference
between French and American mathematics (quoted from Ripka's book): "In
America, many mathematicians quickly become limited because they are
constrained by having to publish and to get grants. If they are not
expert in a field, they don't get them. That makes them intellectually
very narrow, both in what they know and in their attitude towards other
fields. (...) In France things go much better because of the education
inherited from Bourbaki, who developed an inter-mathematical
curriculum. A French mathematician is much better educated in
mathematics than an American one." （Gromov本人也就法国数学和美国数学之间的区别谈了自己的看法：“在美国，很多数学家由于不得不发文章来争取科研经费，他们很快就受制于此。如果他们不变成某一小领域的专家，他们既没法发文章也不能拿经费。这样的状况使得他们的知识面很窄，同时对其它领域也没有多少兴趣去了解。在法国，由于布尔巴基（主张数学各学科的融合）留下来的教育传统的影响，情况好很多。一个法国数学家比一个美国数学家受到的数学教育要好得多”）（Translated by T.P.）
Tony Phillips
Stony Brook University
加好友 
发短信
Post By：2009/4/4 14:47:41 [只看该作者]
