The Millennium Grand Challenge in Mathematics
2006; American Mathematical Society; Volume: 53; Issue: 6 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1088-9477
Autores Tópico(s)History and Theory of Mathematics
ResumoOn May 24, 2000, Arthur Jaffe, then president of the Clay Mathematics Institute, announced the Millennium Grand Challenge in Mathematics towards the end of a meeting held at the College de France in Paris. The proof or a counterexample to seven important old mathematical conjectures would earn a US\$7 million dollar reward—with US\$1 million dollars for each answer. This challenge brought instant, world-wide recognition to the Institute, an organization conceived and founded by Jaffe and Landon Clay, a Boston philanthropist, just twenty months earlier. In 2006 a spotlight shines on the Poincare conjecture, the first of these questions which may have been resolved. This essay presents a personal perspective on the background to the Challenge, as well as the founding of the Institute, a private non-profit foundation dedicated to furthering ''the beauty, power, and universality of mathematical thought''.
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